Animal Auctions

# Development Update — Animal Auctions

So, I’ve been working pretty heavily behind the scenes on the **integration side of things as well as the UI**, and honestly, getting the two parts working together has been an absolute pain in my backside. 😂

After several days of working on it, tweaking things, breaking things, fixing them, and then breaking them again, I’ve finally got the point where the **UI is looking decent and, more importantly, it’s actually usable and playable**.

It’s **not finished yet**. There’s still plenty that needs polishing, improving and probably completely reworking in places, but I’m finally at the stage where I can actually use the system rather than constantly fighting with the interface.

The screenshots show where things are currently at.

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## 🐑 RLRM Integration

One of the biggest things I wanted from the beginning was for this to properly integrate with **Realistic Livestock / RLRM**.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Realistic Livestock, and honestly, **Ritter was one of the main reasons I started getting into making mods in the first place**.

So, if I’m going to make an auction system for livestock, it only feels right that it should eventually work alongside RLRM rather than being some completely separate system that ignores everything RLRM brings to the game.

That integration is currently around **90% complete**.

And you can already see some of that coming together in the screenshots.

### Genetics in the Auction

One of the things I really wanted was for the auction system to actually understand that animals aren't just:

> "Sheep — £800"

There is so much more information behind an individual animal.

With the RLRM integration, the auction can work with things such as:

* Genetics
* Breed
* Sex
* Age
* Health
* Individual animal information
* Performance information
* Estimated value
* Breeding information
* And eventually much more

So when you're looking at an animal in the auction, you're not simply looking at a price.

You're looking at **the animal itself and what makes that animal valuable**.

That's something I think can make the auction system considerably more interesting, especially when you start getting into breeding and trying to find animals with genuinely good genetics rather than simply buying the cheapest animal available.

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# 🏷️ The Auction System

Another area I've been working on is making the auctions themselves feel more structured and realistic.

I don't want this to simply be a menu where you click an animal and buy it.

The goal is to create actual **auction events**.

Different days will have different sales, with specific livestock categories, start times, finish times and lots.

For example:

**Tuesday — Sheep & Lamb Sale**

09:30 → 13:00

Then potentially later in the day:

**Breeding Sheep Sale**

14:30 → 17:30

Animals will belong to actual auction events and individual lots rather than just appearing randomly in a global marketplace.

This should eventually allow the auction to have a proper flow:

**Upcoming → Live → Current Lot → Sold → Finished → History**

And hopefully make it feel much more like you're actually attending a livestock market.

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# 💻 The UI

The UI has probably been one of the biggest headaches so far.

😂

Getting everything to fit together while still displaying enough information without making it look like an aircraft cockpit has taken considerably longer than I expected.

The current UI is **usable now**, but I definitely wouldn't call it finished.

There are still plenty of areas I want to polish:

* Better spacing
* Better animations
* Improved transitions
* More consistent information hierarchy
* Better auction status indicators
* More detailed animal previews
* Improved bidding feedback
* Better mobile/alternate resolution handling
* More visual feedback when an animal is sold
* More detailed auction progress

But I'm finally happy enough with it that I can actually start building the **features around the UI**, rather than constantly rebuilding the UI itself.

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# 🔨 What's Coming Next?

There is still a **lot** planned.

The current version is really just the foundation.

### Phase 1 — Finish the Core Auction System

The immediate priority is getting the basic auction experience completely solid.

This includes:

* Finishing the auction scheduling system
* Proper auction start and end times
* Auction status handling
* Live auction progression
* Lot progression
* Current lot tracking
* Sold/unsold states
* Bid validation
* Minimum bid handling
* Auction history
* Better auction summaries

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### Phase 2 — Deeper RLRM Integration

This is one of the biggest parts of the roadmap.

The goal is to push the RLRM integration much further so that the auction system isn't just displaying genetics — **genetics actually matter to the auction**.

Eventually I'd like to have things such as:

* Genetic quality affecting estimated value
* Individual animal performance affecting price
* Health affecting desirability
* Breed-specific valuations
* Breeding potential
* Pedigree information
* Genetic comparisons
* Better breeding-animal filtering
* High-quality genetic lots
* Rare / exceptional animals
* More detailed animal history

Basically, if an animal has exceptional genetics, the auction should be able to recognise that.

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### Phase 3 — Proper Bidding

The bidding system will also get considerably more depth.

The eventual goal is for bidding to feel like an actual auction rather than simply pressing a button until you reach a price.

Things I'd like to add include:

* Competing bidders
* Bid increments
* Bid history
* Number of active bidders
* Auction activity
* Last-second bidding behaviour
* Winning bid confirmation
* Outbid notifications
* Auction countdowns
* Lot progression
* Sold animations
* Purchase history

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### Phase 4 — Animal Search & Filters

As the number of animals increases, finding the right animal will become increasingly important.

I'd like a proper livestock search/filter system allowing you to search by things such as:

**Breed**

**Sex**

**Age**

**Health**

**Genetics**

**Value**

**Auction**

**Lot**

**Pregnancy**

**Performance**

and potentially much more.

This should make the system especially useful for players who are actually trying to build a breeding programme rather than simply buying livestock.

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### Phase 5 — Better Animal Information

The animal detail panel will eventually become much more comprehensive.

Rather than just showing a few statistics, I want it to feel like you're actually looking at the **record of an individual animal**.

Things like:

* Animal profile
* Genetics
* Parents
* Pedigree
* Health
* Age
* Breed
* Breeding history
* Performance
* Auction history
* Previous ownership
* Sale prices
* Current valuation

The idea is that you should be able to look at an animal and immediately understand **why it's worth what it's worth**.

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# 🏆 The Long-Term Goal

The long-term goal isn't simply to make an auction menu.

I want to create something that feels like a proper **livestock marketplace built around the systems already present in RLRM**.

You should be able to:

**Attend a sale → Browse the lots → Inspect an animal → Study its genetics → Watch the bidding → Win the animal → Take it back to your farm → Breed it → Produce better offspring → Eventually sell those offspring at another auction.**

That's the part I'm really interested in.

Creating an actual **livestock economy and breeding loop** rather than just another shop interface.

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## 🚧 Current Status

At the moment I'd say we're roughly at:

**UI:** 🟢 Usable / Playable
**Core Auction:** 🟢 Functional
**RLRM Integration:** 🟢 ~90%
**Genetics:** 🟢 Working
**Bidding:** 🟡 In Development
**Auction Scheduling:** 🟡 In Development
**Animal History:** 🟡 Planned
**Advanced Genetics:** 🟡 Planned
**Full Auction Economy:** 🔴 Future Development

There's still a long way to go, but I'm finally at the point where I can **see the actual vision coming together**.

And considering this started from an idea I've had because of how much I enjoyed Ritter's work and Realistic Livestock, getting to the point where this can actually integrate with RLRM is pretty cool.

**This is only the beginning.** 🐑

More screenshots, development updates and features to come as I continue pushing it forward.

I'll soon be releasing the beta version of Animal Auctions. I've also been busy working on Forestry Squad, and making great progress on Animal Auctions, where players will be able to buy and sell animals through an auction system. Multiplayer support is planned, though it will take a little more time to integrate and get working properly. If you have ideas, feedback, or positive comments, they'd be widely appreciated. I'd love to hear what you think and what features you'd like to see. Thanks for your support!