Pioneer Trail Varmints - Everthing You Wanted To Know About ~ THEGAMETECH

A varmint, by definition, is an “irritating or obnoxious animal” which these five animals definitely live up to, until you learn some tricks to dealing with them.

There are five basic things you do on your homestead in Pioneer Trail: clearing debris; harvesting crops; feeding animals; harvesting Fruit Trees and chopping down Oak and Pine Trees.

The ONLY activity that you can do without the hindrance of a varmint is harvesting your Fruit Trees. The next possible task would be feeding your animals because, out of the nine “farm” animals, only two have varmints associated with them.

Let’s get on with the varmint profiles, starting with the largest:

Bear

Appearance: When you are chopping the Oak and Pine Trees but they have to be pretty much full grown which is 12 chops for an Oak and 8 for a Pine. If you are TRYING to get a bear for a mission but you haven’t received a bear from a tree after several chops, you WILL receive one on the last chop so, in most cases, you will have to completely chop down trees to get bears on purpose.

Disposal: Simply click on the bear or the avatar above it if it’s hidden by something to “scare” it, this can take up to eight attempts and each time takes one energy. You can also use the Bear Cannon purchased through the Foundry if you have it built and the Varmint Cannon missions finished. This only takes ONE energy but uses resources since you have to craft a power keg in the Foundry to fire it, which takes cloth and wood.

See below for information on how to obtain the various Varmint Cannons.

Fox

Appearance: When you feed Chickens, Geese and Turkeys. You can get one at any size of animal but you will get the most when they are adults.

Disposal: Simply click on the fox or the avatar above it if it’s hidden by something to “clobber” it, this can take up to five attempts and each time takes one energy. You can also use the Fox Cannon purchased through the Foundry if you have it built and the Varmint Cannon missions finished. This only takes ONE energy but uses resources since you have to craft a power keg in the Foundry to fire it, which takes cloth and wood.

Coyote

Appearance: When you feed Chickens or do the Daily Bonus on a Chicken Coop. Coyotes will eat chickens but only if you have more than nine out at a time. It seems that it was a rumor that the Coyotes don’t eat the baby chicks but they do.

Disposal: Simply click on the coyote or the avatar above it if it’s hidden by something to “scare” it, fortunately, this only takes ONE time and one energy to scare it away. Because it only takes one energy, there is no Cannon for this Varmint.

NOTE: You CAN get both a Coyote AND a fox together when feeding chickens:

Snake

Appearance: When clearing debris. You get will absolutely get one from clearing skulls and a possibility when clearing thorns and rocks but a remote chance when clearing grass, cacti and wildflowers.

Disposal: Simply click on the snake or the avatar above it if it’s hidden by something to “clobber” it, this can take up to five attempts and each time takes one energy. You can also use the Snake Cannon purchased through the Foundry if you have it built and the Varmint Cannon missions finished. This only takes ONE energy but uses resources since you have to craft a power keg in the Foundry to fire it, which takes cloth and wood.

Groundhog

Appearance: when harvesting crops; if you are doing a mission, it will generally tell you that Groundhogs prefer potatoes but I haven’t necessarily seen that to be true so, if you need them for a mission, you can use the much faster growing Clover and Tomatoes.

Disposal: Simply click on the groundhog or the avatar above it if it’s hidden by something to “clobber” it, this takes four attempts and each time takes one energy. You can also use the Groundhog Cannon purchased through the Foundry if you have it built and the Varmint Cannon missions finished. This only takes ONE energy but uses resources since you have to craft a power keg in the Foundry to fire it, which takes cloth and wood.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET A VARMINT

When you have a varmint on your homestead, there will be a red “infected” area around it which will affect buildings, crops, animals, anything. You can still deal with anything that is red, you will just get the message that it takes one extra energy to do whatever you are trying to do, even things that don’t take energy like trying to bring up a building’s menu. This message is misleading and it DOESN’T take you an extra energy at all, it’s just an annoyance to deal with.

You can move the items that are red to an area away from the varmint to go back to business as usual. The Feeder and Harvester will NOT work on animals or crops that are red, or were red, from a varmint. You can still feed or harvest the items by hand but you will not be able to use the Harvester and Feeder on them until you, either leave the game and go back in, or just visit a neighbor’s homestead and go back home to “reset” it to be able to use the Feeder and Harvester on previously red items.

If you would like harvest or feed something that is red but don’t want to deal with the message or move items out of the red area, you can use your hired neighbors to do.

HOW TO OBTAIN VARMINT CANNONS

NOTE: If you have finished the Foundry but not the Varmint Cannons mission, it should be in the Market under SPECIAL.

WHAT IS A PIONEER TO DO?

So now that you have all these Varmints popping up all over the place, how do you get any work done? The great thing about the Varmints, is that you can only have ONE on your homestead at a time and, unlike the Coyote, the Bear, Fox, Snake and Groundhog stay where they first appeared. So, if you are clearing a large area of debris or crops and you get a snake or groundhog, simply leave it there and go work somewhere else as you won’t get another one until you clobber the first ones.

The Coyote, on the other hand, moves around every time you feed chickens. If you have nine or less out, it won’t eat them but it will keep moving around your homestead so trying to work around it is rather hard unless you just don’t feed any chickens.

The fact that you can only have one at a time can be a great strategy and, with some maneuvering, you can get all of the Varmints (again, except for the Coyote) in one area, AWAY from your main areas, so they never bother you.

My strategy was to plant a full grown tree in the corner and wait for it to grow (a Pine works fine as it grows to full size faster than Oak). After it was full grown, I chopped it and got the Bear. I then planted some crops nearby and, after they were ready for harvest, I moved them 2 or 3 at a time near the bear and harvested them to get a Groundhog. After that, I bought a skull and cleared it for a snake. Then you can place some adult chickens there and feed them to get the fox.

[via zynga forums]