RDR2 - Season Manager (Add-on) – 12 Stage Dynamic Seasonal Wildlife V1.1

Season Manager (add-on): The Dynamic Seasonal Wildlife Ecosystem add-on transforms the game’s fauna.

Animal AI and behavior are no longer static; they are now governed by a 12-stage seasonal cycle of survival, based on a database of seasonal rules.

Population & Ecological Cycles:
The world’s animal populations now follow a realistic “boom and bust” cycle.
– Summer: Animal populations are at their peak, with spawn rates more than doubled. The world feels alive and abundant.
– Winter: Animal populations are at their lowest, with spawn rates plummeting to just 25% of normal levels.

Survival-Based AI:
Animal behavior is now driven by seasonal scarcity.
– Energy Conservation: In winter, animals actively conserve energy. Prey animals will rest for double the time. Hibernators like bears waiting up to 20 minutes between active cycles.
– Food & Water: In the middle of winter, grazing time is cut in half, and the time animals spend looking for food is 15x longer. The time between drink attempts is drastically increased from 2 minutes to 20 minutes to simulate frozen water sources.
– Skittishness: Prey animals are extremely skittish in winter. They will give a much shorter warning before fleeing and will run much farther away.
– Boldness: Predators are bolder and more desperate. Wolves and bears are far less likely to flee from you in the winter.

Dynamic World Interaction:
Animals’ interactions with the world (and you) are now seasonal.
– Bait Effectiveness: In the plentiful summer, bait is less effective (attracting from 75m). In the dead of winter, starving animals are desperate, and bait is incredibly powerful, attracting them from up to 180m and lasting 3x as long.
– Scavengers: In summer, you may see 1 scavenger at a kill. In the desperate midwinter, more scavengers will instantly detect and swarm a fresh corpse.

Realistic Physics & Pathfinding:
Movement and AI pathfinding are now tied to the environment.
– Traction Control: Animals (including your horse) have reduced traction in winter. Their turning speed at a run or sprint is lowered, simulating the difficulty of moving on snow and ice.
– Avoidance: Animals are now forced to conserve energy. They will actively find paths around deep snow and heavy mud to avoid getting stuck during muddy and snowy seasons.
– Herding: In winter, herds will “huddle” closer together for warmth, with their spawn-distance-from-each-other cut by 75%.

Installation:
Ensure you have the Main Mod installed. Open the downloaded archive. Place the lml folder into your main RDR2 folder (the same spot as RDR2.exe).

Uninstallation:
To remove this specific module, simply delete the following folder from your lml directory:
lml\SeasonManager\wildlife

Authors: Accipiter13Nisus