Bear

This page was last verified for Vintage Story version 1.19.4.

Bear
Type	Land
Behavior	Hostile[[::Category:Hostile_creatures| ]]
Spawn	Blocks: tallgrass, shallow snow, air

Bears have both high health and high damage. Most bears are dangerous to players as well as to other animals.

Spawning

Brown and black bears spawn in Temperate regions, and may be present in Warm or Cool regions, though brown bears spawn at slightly higher latitudes than black bear. Panda and sun bears spawn in Warm/Hot regions. Polar bears spawn in Cool/Cold/Icy regions.

Worldgen spawn conditions

• Bears don't spawn during the first 4 in-game days.
• Bears spawn on the world's surface , in grass , shallow snow, or air.
• Most bears prefer forested areas with some precipitation, but trees are not necessary, and removing vegetation doesn't affect their ability to spawn.
• The maximum elevation for all bear variants to spawn is 1.6. If default sealevel is Y 110, and 110x1.6=176, then the player should not encounter many bears above Y 176. Bears can still wander to higher elevations after spawning, especially if chasing prey.
• The TriesPerChunk is 0.015.
• An adult male bear might spawn alone, or with one adult female, with an average group size of 1, ±1.

Regional conditions

Variant	Minimum temperature	Maximum temperature	Minimum rain	Minimum forestation
Polar bear	-48	-9	0	0
Brown bear	-15	-2	0.1	0.2
Black bear	-5	20	0.25	0.5
Panda bear	20	33	0.5	0.6
Sun bear	24	40	0.6	0.4

In the table above, temperature refers to annual average, rather than the current temperature a player can observe in the Character panel.

Runtime spawn conditions

• After worldgen, the temperature etc. conditions for spawning are the same.
• However, bears will not spawn in areas of artificial light higher than level 7. This is intended to prevent wild animals spawning in obviously-developed areas.
• The chance for a bear to spawn is 0.00003.
• Though bear.json says groupSize: { dist: "verynarrowgaussian", avg: 1, var: 1 } it also says maxQuantity: 1. It's highly unlikely that a group of bears can spawn during runtime.
• Whether a bear spawns is dependent on a location meeting its spawn requirements when a spawn check occurs; there are no "spawn points" that repeatedly produce specific animals.

Despawn conditions

• Bears might despawn if in the dark (below light level 8) for 5 minutes and at least 16 blocks away from the player.
• Bears should de-spawn after 14 in-game days. But if provided enough light, or frequent visits by the player, it seems possible to "keep" a bear indefinitely.

Variants

There are 5 types of bears:

Polar bear [[{{{image3}}}|130px|center]] Health Health (Male/Female) 66 Health (Cub) ? Attack Base Attack (Male/Female) 16 Behavior Alert Range (m) (Male/Female) 30 Step Height 2 Multiply Drops Bushmeat 20 - 24* Raw Hide (Huge) 3 - 3* Fat 3 - 5* Animals	Brown bear [[{{{image3}}}|130px|center]] Health Health (Male/Female) 64 Health (Cub) ? Attack Base Attack (Male/Female) 12 Behavior Alert Range (m) (Male/Female) 30 Step Height 3 Multiply Drops Bushmeat 14 - 18* Raw Hide (Huge) 3 - 3* Fat 1 - 3* Animals	Black bear [[{{{image3}}}|130px|center]] Health Health (Male/Female) 44 Health (Cub) ? Attack Base Attack (Male/Female) 10 Behavior Alert Range (m) (Male/Female) 30 Step Height 3 Multiply Drops Bushmeat 10 - 14* Raw Hide (Huge) 2 - 2* Fat 1 - 3* Animals
Panda bear [[{{{image3}}}|130px|center]] Health Health (Male/Female) 38 Health (Cub) ? Attack Base Attack (Male/Female) 8 Behavior Alert Range (m) (Male/Female) 30 Step Height 3 Multiply Drops Bushmeat 8 - 12* Raw Hide (Huge) 2 - 2* Fat 1 - 3* Animals	Sun bear [[{{{image3}}}|130px|center]] Health Health (Male/Female) 34 Health (Cub) ? Attack Base Attack (Male/Female) 4 Behavior Alert Range (m) (Male/Female) 30 Step Height 2 Multiply Drops Bushmeat 7 - 11* Raw Hide (Huge) 2 - 2* Fat 0 - 2* Animals

Note: Cubs do not appear in the game at this time.

Behaviors

• Bears have a 5% chance of growling while idle, giving players little warning that they're in the area.
• Brown bears, black bears and pandas can easily escape a pit 3 blocks deep. Polar bears and sun bears can only jump up 2 blocks. Polar bears are the only variant that cannot use ladders.
• All bears can easily hit players/creatures over a fence 1 block high, but they can't jump over fences on level ground. Note: if the player puts a block such as a lantern on top of a fence, that creates a weak point where a bear could climb over.
• Polar bears swim faster than other variants. Their movespeed to get out of water is 0.035, compared to 0.015 for other variants.
• Most bears cannot fit through a doorway 1 block wide. A female sun bear's collision box is only x: 1.0, y: 0.9.
• Bears tend to sleep from 01:00 to 03:00 and 10:00 to 18:00. They will stop sleeping if they receive damage or if the player gets within 10 blocks.
• Bears occasionally stand on their hind legs and look around.

Combat

• If a bear receives damage, it might become aggressive towards any creature within 30 blocks.
• Bears have a 0.01 chance to leap at their target.
• In addition to their melee attack, bears have a slashing attack that deals 15 points of tier 2 damage: minDist: 2 and minVerDist: 1.5. This attack can probably be avoided by standing in a narrow pit 3 blocks deep.
• When a bear's health gets below 30%, it might turn and flee the player. The chance for panda bears to flee is 30%, while the chance for black bears to flee is 10%; the chance for polar, brown, and sun bears to flee is only 5%.
• If a fleeing bear gets further than 20 blocks from its attacker, it might stop running and even lie down. If the player approaches within 20 blocks, it will resume running away.
• After 30 seconds without taking damage, a bear will stop fleeing and resume normal behavior.

Prey

Black, brown, and polar bears will occasionally rampage without provocation. They seek prey within 20 blocks:

• players
• chickens
• hares
• foxes
• raccoons
• pigs
• deer

It's unclear why they don't also attack goats.

• When temperatures are below -10°C, they seek prey within 25 blocks instead of 20.
• Panda bears and sun bears "will not actively seek creatures, but will still execute retaliatory attacks."

Domestication

Bears cannot be domesticated but can be killed for animal resources.

Harvesting

• Butcher the animal by right-clicking while crouching with a knife in the active hand to harvest its corpse.
• Bears do not drop any bones. Harvested corpses leave behind large bony carcasses, which the player can break to obtain bones. Unharvested bear corpses decay into bony carcasses after 4 game-days.

History

• Polar bears were added in version 1.16.0-rc.1 as a rare spawn. "Other bear types should get added in the future."
• Brown bears, black bears, pandas and sun bears were added in version 1.17.0-pre1.
• Polar bears can swim faster than other bears but not climb ladders, since v1.19.0.
• Jump height for polar and sun bears was modified in 1.19.0.
• Brown bears were tweaked to not spawn as far into cold regions.
• All bears' spawn rate was reduced.

Notes

• It's unclear how quickly creatures regenerate health.
• Male brown bears are 25% larger than male black bears, and polar bears are 40% larger. Panda bears are 20% smaller than black bears, and sun bears are 40% smaller.
• While bear.json says basketCatchable: true, the trapChance is 0, so none are possible to catch in reed basket traps.
• The trapDestroyChance is 90%.

Trivia

When a player is killed by a bear, one of the following messages will be displayed in the chat overlay:

• Player {0} unwisely poked a bear.
• Player {0} was torn limb from limb.
• Player {0} suffered a grizzly death.
• Player {0} made a fine polar meal.
• Player {0} was mistaken for a seal.

Gallery

teaser image from devlog for 1.17.0-pre1