Free Range Chickens 1.7.3

Brought to you by H8M3 and AI (mostly AI)

 Introducing Free Range Chickens— (Pair this plugin with EggHopper)

TURN EGGS INTO LIVESTOCK... INSTANTLY!

No more waiting around for coops. Toss or drop a standard chicken egg onto the ground inside your Tool Cupboard (TC) zone, and watch it burst into a live, fully tracked chicken right before your eyes!

RESTRAINED BOUNDARY PROTECTION

Your chickens are smart, but the server is smarter. Our background tracking matrix checks your livestock every single second. If a chicken tries to escape your compound or wander past your TC borders, the boundary system handles it instantly.

DYNAMIC SUNRISE YIELDS

Wake up to a fresh harvest! Every single morning at game sunrise, your flock runs a customized 70% rolling chance to lay fresh, harvestable eggs directly onto your base floors.

REFINED LIFECYCLE AGING

Farming isn't static! Your chickens live an interactive lifecycle. To keep your farm active and highly engaging, chickens naturally age over time and stop laying eggs once they complete the first 25% of their total lifespan. Manage your flock, harvest the elders, and keep your production lines moving!

THIEF-PROOF ANTI-GRIEFING

Keep your hard work secure. If an enemy player or roamer gets into your compound, they can't touch your flock! The plugin blocks all incoming damage from unauthorized players. Only players authorized on your base TC have permission to harvest your livestock!

FreeRangeChickens Configuration Guide

Chicken & Spawning Settings

Max Chickens Per Zone

(Default: 10) (i recommend not changing this above 10. i personally use 5)

The absolute maximum number of chickens allowed to exist at one time inside a single Tool Cupboard (TC) area.

Lifespan In Game Days

(Default: 50.0)

How many in-game Rust days a chicken will live before it naturally dies of old age.

RustDay Length In Minutes

(Default: 45.0)

How long a full day/night cycle lasts on your server in real-world minutes. Ensure this matches your server's time settings so chicken lifespans calculate accurately.

Safe Spawn Height Offset

(Default: 1.2)

How high (in meters) above the dropped egg the chicken will physically spawn. This prevents chickens from getting stuck inside the ground or floors.

Boundary Check Interval

(Default: 1.0)

How often (in seconds) the system checks if a chicken has wandered outside of the TC area. If they escape, they are killed instantly.

Egg Laying Mechanics

Egg Lay Chance Percent

(Default: 70.0)

The percent chance that a chicken will successfully lay an egg when the sun rises each morning.

Egg Lay Cutoff Percentage

(Default: 25.0)

The point in a chicken's life where it gets "too old" and stops laying eggs. For example, at 25%, a chicken that lives for 450 minutes will stop laying eggs after its first 112.5 minutes.

Item Drop Amount

(Default: 1)

The number of eggs a chicken drops at a time when it successfully lays.

Technical Prefabs & Identifiers

Chicken Prefab

(Default: "assets/rust.ai/agents/chicken/chicken.prefab")

The internal Rust file path for the chicken asset. Do not change unless you want to spawn something else (like bears).

EggShortname

(Default: "egg")

The item shortname for the item that triggers hatching and laying.

Chicken Coop Prefab Snippet

(Default: "chickencoop")

A safety check keyword. Eggs dropped inside or by a vanilla Chicken Coop will be ignored by this plugin so they don't break vanilla mechanics.

Chat & Message Customization

Chat Command

(Default: "farmcheck")

The command players type in game chat (e.g., /farmcheck) to see their current chicken count.

Message Prefix

(Default: "[Chicken Farm]")

The text tag that shows up at the beginning of every chat message sent by this plugin.

Laying Message

(Default: "Your chickens cluck happily...")

The broadcast message sent to players when their chickens successfully lay eggs.

MsgNotInsideTc

The error message sent if a player tries to run the chat command outside of a TC zone.

MsgFarmStatusHeader / MsgChickensInZone / MsgAvailableCapacity

The text labels used to build the status menu when checking a farm.

Color Codes (Hex Formats)

ColorPrefix

(Default: "#ffa500" - Orange)

The color of the [Chicken Farm] tag in chat.

ColorStatusFull

(Default: "#ff4d4d" - Red)

The color the chicken counter turns when a TC zone has reached its maximum capacity.

ColorStatusAvailable

(Default: "#4df3ff" - Cyan)

The color the chicken counter turns when there is still room left for more chickens to hatch.