It appears that animals are not respawning on the experimental servers. There are unconfirmed reports of cows having existed in the most recent build but if so they are gone and not re-spawning.
Checked every experimental server at the mogilevka cow spawn and found no cows. Other users on the forums have confirmed a lack of animal spawning in experimental.
Go to animal spawns on experimental servers and you will find no animals.
I found animals last week and I found bones and tanned leather just yesterday so it seems there are a few animals. Also the improved flight behavior might cause them to avoid players more effectively and move to places where you previously could not find them (there are way more players traveling inland in 0.57).
However, judging by the zombies it seems like NPC numbers are greatly reduced in the current update and/or respawning might now work properly.
My guess is that respawning does not work properly... You can probably kill them when the server is fresh but beyond that they seem universally scarce.
Hello Flimflamm and thank you for the report.
This is an issue we are aware of and it will be fixed in the near future.
Regards,
Geez
Just curious if, because the issue is known, if it is also affecting 0.57 stable. While I have seen one animal (fox) early on in 0.57 stable, I have not seen more than that in hours hunting. Mostly walking slowly crouched, or perched on high hilltop scoping huge huge sections of fields where I used to see animals. And I don't know if they're tied together, but I've also been through quite a few small towns where I've seen zombies before, but I haven't seen any in a couple of days across multiple 3pp servers.