Welcome to the rimworld animal handling guide.
Table of content
(I) Introduction
(II) Handler
(III) Type of animal
(IV) Zoning guide
(V) Animal food production.
(VI) Mods recommend
(I) IntroductionAnimals are our best friends in Rimworld and our demise when they're manhunting. They have many use when trained properly. Some animals can become our main arsenal against raiders. Even a seemingly useless animal can still nuzzle a colonist and brighten the day. So I made this guide to encourage more players to use animals and experience how amazing they are. Feel free to enhance or correct my guide if necessary.
(II) Choosing the HandlerThe first step to tame and train animals is a good handler.
-Health-The success chance to tame or train animals is based on manipulation and talking.A handler with a missing jaw may find it difficult to handle their animals. And since animal handling consists mostly of walking,
your handler needs a healthy pair of legs.
-Traits-Move speed - Jogger or Fast walker is always good to have for every pawn.
Psychopath - Since your handler is the most likely person to form bonds with your animals, this trait is a good way to prevent this.
Mood bonus - Sanguine, Optimist, Iron will, Steadfast. Handlers work outside and in dirty or bloody environments and if they aren't psychos they have to deal with the eventual loss of a bonded animal.
Global workspeed - Handling does not require global work speed, except for milking and sheering. So even a slothful Handler is ( nearly ) as effective as a Hard Worker.
Night owl - Good trait for a Doctor, less so for a job that needs the animals awake.
-Training handling-It is a slow and painful process to train handler. ( sometimes literally ) Passion in animal skill is a must. You can train your handler by taming and training animals with low wilderness, such as Alpacas or Dogs. They will level at a decent rate, when you order them to tame or train six or more animals everyday.
-Fighting styles-All animals in the game are melee fighters. Using a brawler with a shield belt is your best choice, to counter angry animals and protect your handler from friendly fire. Brawler handler make good hunters as well. Sadly, Tynan removed melee hunting, so you have to manually order them to hunt. ( Now there you could use a Nightowl .. )
Lacking a brawler or decent melee pawn, a gunman is viable too. For Handling jobs a Trigger Happy pawn with a Shotgun or SMG is a good choice, dealing as much damage as possible at close range.
In combat against other pawns I suggest a long range weapon without burst fire ( bolt action or sniper rifle ) to prevent friendly fire on your animals.
(III) Type of animalI separate animal into five categories. Hauler, Livestock, Pack animal, Predator and Combat.
-Hauler-The most useful animals in the group, since these guys make you life more comfortable. I suggest to create a small army of hauling animals early in the game. There are many animal that are able to haul.
-Livestock-AKA Grass to Meat Converters or Fabric Producers. These animals have the best green to red conversion rate or just beautiful hair. Very good for late game, when your growers can support the additional food requirements and you rather don't waste time and health for hunting. Some of them also produce milk as a byproduct.
-Pack animal-There are only five vanilla animals usable for caravans. Those animals are Alpacas (35 kg), Dromedaries (70 kg), Muffalo (73.5 kg), Homo Sapiens Coloniensis (35 kg) and Homo Sapiens Captivum(35 kg) :P.
-Predator-Many carnivorous animals hunt on their own, such as the fox or wolf. Some omnivores like bear hunt too. These predator are either dangerous when roaming free, since they tend to mistake your colonist and animals for easy meals. When tamed you can exploit this by letting them hunt for you.
-Combat-Most animal in the game can be trained to be released in combat. The exceptions are cats and chickens. Good battle animals need to move fast, hit hard and last long on the battlefield. Boomrats and Boomalopes have the additional ability to explode on death. If controlled wisely you can restrict the damage to your enemies.
To decide which is the best animal in each category you need to look at its attributes like Hunger rate, Filth rate, Breeding rate, Wilderness rate, Hit point and Damage. I have compiled a list of the animals I like to use most in my colony.
Since polar and grizzly bears have identical stats I summarized them as Bears.
Top 5 + 1 hauling animals
1. Dog (Husky and labador) 2. Wild boar 3.Wolf
Easy to train ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Easy to train ⋆⋆⋆⋆ Easy to train ⋆⋆
Feed worthy ⋆⋆⋆ Feed worthy ⋆⋆⋆⋆ Feed worthy ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
Cleanliness ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Cleanliness ⋆⋆⋆ Cleanliness ⋆⋆⋆
Speed ⋆⋆⋆⋆ Speed ⋆⋆⋆⋆ Speed ⋆⋆⋆⋆
Weight carry ⋆⋆⋆⋆ Weight carry ⋆⋆⋆ Weight carry ⋆⋆⋆⋆
Battle ⋆⋆⋆ Battle ⋆⋆⋆ Battle ⋆⋆⋆⋆
Breeding ⋆⋆⋆⋆ Breeding ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Breeding ⋆⋆⋆
4.Bears 5. Fox 6. Elephant
Easy to train ⋆⋆ Easy to train ⋆⋆ Easy to train ⋆⋆
Feed worthy ⋆⋆⋆ Feed worthy ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Feed worthy ⋆
Cleanliness ⋆⋆ Cleanliness ⋆⋆⋆⋆ Cleanliness ⋆
Speed ⋆⋆⋆ Speed ⋆⋆⋆⋆ Speed ⋆⋆⋆
Weight carry ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Weight carry ⋆⋆ Weight carry ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
Battle ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Battle ⋆⋆ Battle ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
Breeding ⋆⋆ Breeding ⋆⋆⋆ Breeding ⋆
For hauling animals, I suggest to go for Wild boar since they are the all rounder. They're easy to find and breed. They are decent in early battles too, but their main task is to haul so losses and wounded in this department might hurt you more, than you gain through their support in battle.
In middle and late game wild boars can become a danger to your fields, since they eat live plants. Try to buy dogs from traders for this or train wolves for this.
Dogs are the cleanest animal haulers in the game.and do not produce any filth around colony, which makes them ideal for indoor hauling jobs.
The downside of dogs is that they are always named which makes it a pain to find real bonded animals or counting them.
Carry weight doesn't do much difference to haulers since the maximal stacksize is the hard limit anyway and you can count the Items with bigger stacks than 75 on one hand.
If you install mods that change the maximum capacity of item stacks (StackXXL), the carry weight will account for more when choosing your main hauling animal.
Top 3 Livestock
1.Chicken 2. Muffalo 3. Cow
Food production ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Food production ⋆⋆ Food production ⋆⋆⋆
Feed worthy ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Feed worthy ⋆⋆ Feed worthy ⋆⋆⋆
Breeding ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Breeding ⋆⋆⋆ Breeding ⋆⋆⋆
Utility - Utility ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Utility ⋆⋆⋆
Chicken still hold the crown of most OP livestock on the Rim. They are breeding so fast that they create lag. Chicken produce only meat and no leather when slaughtered and eggs every 1.5 days. Muffalos and cows produce milk as well and additional leather when slaughtered. I'll add them just for competition :-\
Top 3 Pack animals
1. Muffalo 2. Dromedary 3. Alpaca
Carry capacity ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Carry capacity ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Carry capacity ⋆⋆⋆
Move speed ⋆⋆ Move speed ⋆⋆ Move speed ⋆⋆⋆⋆
Battle ⋆⋆⋆ Battle ⋆⋆⋆⋆ Battle ⋆
Muffalos have the highest carry capacity and they are readily available in most biomes. They are average in anything else. Dromedaries are regularly found in hot biomes and are surprisingly hard hitters. But since they are so valuable for caravans, I don't recommend using them in battle.
Alpacas are the fastest, so if you have a long journey ahead, you should consider using alpacas.
Top 3 Predators
1. Bears 2. Cougar/Panther 3. Cat
DPS ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ DPS ⋆⋆⋆⋆ DPS ⋆
Speed ⋆⋆⋆ Speed ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Speed ⋆⋆⋆⋆
Breeding ⋆⋆ Breeding ⋆⋆⋆ Breeding ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
The giant bears are the best predators in this game. Since predators only hunt prey that it equal or smaller in size than themselves, bears can hunt almost everything in the map. They can be trained to haul as well, so after a succesful hunt they might carry the remains to your butcher shop. The giant cats are fearful as the fastest animals in the game with equivalent damage to the bears.
Sadly they are no use for anything else except combat.
Lastly you may wonder why I choose the cat as the third best predator. If think purely about stats, Wolf, Warg or Fox seems far more superior to the cat. But if you think about roles it becomes clear. The cat will never hunt big game but all the small stuff her bigger cousins ignore. Cats will exterminate all the vermin on the map and even leave something over for you. This forces your other Hunters to concentrate on bigger pray. In addition cats breed at crazy speeds and sell for a nice sum of silver. You could use Cobras instead of cats, but their hunger rate is so low that they only hunt every other day.
On top of that, your hunting animals provide constant training for your Medical Pawns.
Top 5 Combat Animals
1. Thrumbo 2. Bears 3. Cougar/ Panther
DPS ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ DPS ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ DPS ⋆⋆⋆⋆
Toughness ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Toughness ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Toughness ⋆⋆⋆
Speed ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Speed ⋆⋆⋆ Speed ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
Easy to train ⋆ Easy to train ⋆⋆ Easy to train ⋆⋆
Feed worthy ⋆ Feed worthy ⋆⋆⋆ Feed worthy ⋆⋆⋆⋆
Utility ⋆⋆⋆ Utility ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Utility ⋆⋆⋆
4. Elephant 5. Boomrat/Boomalope
DPS ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ DPS - , (⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ after dead)
Toughness ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ Toughness ⋆⋆⋆
Speed ⋆⋆⋆ Speed ⋆⋆
Easy to train ⋆⋆ Easy to train ⋆⋆⋆
Feed worthy ⋆ Feed worthy ⋆
Utility - Utility -
Thrumbo, if you ever get one, is stupidly OP in battle. Its tough like its bone were made from plasteel it will make a perfect meat shield in the battle while skewering
your enemies with its horn. Since it is a dendrivore (tree muncher) with a hunger rate to match, you better keep them confined in a barn or far away from any plants you plan on using yourself.
or it will turn your colony into a wasteland in no time. Better prepare a field of haygrass just for your thrumbo.
It's insane 98% wildness and hunger rate make it also a crappy hauler, because it would take foreever to train them, and even if trained, they would spend most of their
time eating. If you find a hidden danger or you researched the tech, you might even consider to keep them on ice when you don't need them, like your very own Space Marine Dreadnaught.
Elephant is the only one coming close to the stats of a thrumbo. But since it's hunger rate is also a match they are nearly as useless as haulers.
Bears are actually the best all rounder as combat animals. They can hunt, haul and rescue, have good overall stats and are not that hard to train and I have yet to
see a bear losing a fight against a warg.
The giant Cats shine when the raiders start fleeing. They will make sure that no raider leaves your map alive. Even bionic legs are no guarantee for escape.
Boomrats and Boomalopes are your seeking missiles against early sieges and infestations. Even more so, if you started as tribals.
You can use zones to easily send your suicide squad wherever you need them to assemble. Then switch them to another zone for the attack.
Boomalopes are very slow and tough which is a bit counter productive in this role so it is best to combine them with boomrats as detonators.
But don't forget to leave the pregnant ones and some males at home for the next time.
For a tribe they are the only fire starters before finding incendiary launchers or molotov cocktails.
Against Infestations a single boomrat can burn down an entire hive (and your belongings ;)). Make sure to contain the spread and
let im some fresh air before trying to put out the fire. If nothing of worth is left, you can use grenades to speed up the process.
...To be Continue
PART 2
(IV) Zoning
To efficiently handle your animals, restricting them to zones is a must. You require at least 3 animal areas to use your colonies animals properly.
1st Zone-Type "Barn"
This area is the safe zone for all of your animals to hide in during dangerous incidents.
The Barn should have at least sleeping spots for your animals, a cooler, food stockpiles for grazers and carnivores and a lighting bulb.
Your Livestock, meaning all animals that can't hunt, can't be trainer or are not trained yet, should stay in the barn area.
This way your Handler saves massive amounts of time by having to walk less.
The cooler should keep your Barn refrigerated (around 0°C). This keeps the food for your carnivores and the harvested milk fresh.
Chicken should have their own coop (Zone), because they don't survive a slight freezing and your omnivores don't eat their eggs.
The light bulb is there to raise your operating success just in case you have to operate on your animals. It also looks nicer.
2nd Zone-Type "Haulers"
In the beginning just use the unrestricted area.
Later you should restrict the access of your hauling animals so they don't get funny ideas about your drugs, booze or other edible stuff.
You can take this even further by dividing your hauling areas into different zones, to restrict omnivores and live plant eaters from your farming areas and
keep animals with a high filth rate out of your living areas to ease the burden of your cleaners.
3rd Zone-Type "Hunting Grounds"
This is how you get your predators to hunt for you. Restrict them from every place in your colony something edible is stored, so they would starve without hunting.
When the predator had it's meal, one of your haulers will take the corpse into a restricted area.
You need to setup some sleeping spots for your Predators in this zone, so they return to your base for treatment.
You should also create a hunting area with access to food stockpiles, for when the wildlife on your map runs low.
4th Zone-Type "Chicken coop"
As mentioned in the Barn Section, you need a special place to keep your chickens.
You'll need a both heater and a cooler in the coop, because chicken are sensible to all extreme temperatures.
Other than that make a copy of your barn.
Important Animal Raid evacuation tactic.
Preparation :
Assign a master to all your non combat animals, except chicken, who is NOT your Handler.
Choose an important pawn, like your main Doctor or another non-combatant who needs an extra meatshield.
When you get the incident message
1. Pause the game.
2. Click the animal tab and change the area of all animals, except chickens and combat animals, to the barn.
3. Set all of the animals to follow their master when drafted.
4. Draft and then undraft your evacuation master.
5. Unset all evacuated animals from following their master when drafted.
This trick is similiar to drafting and undrafting a pawn, to instantly search for new jobs.
(V) Animal food production
The hardest part of keeping livestock is keeping them fed. You need to control your animal population carefully so your food supply and farming capacity is able to keep up.
0. Pastures.
Assign some pastures for any animal that is able to graze.
Every tile of grass is a tile of food you don't have to work for.
If you want to be especially tricky, you assign your pastures in a way that your animals keep the surroundings of your colony fireproof.
1. Haygrass.
Lots. Of. Haygrass. Around 10k of haygrass (50 tiles) should be in your barn all the time in late game.
2. Make kibble and pemmican
kibble and pemmican are nearly even in term of nutrition efficiency.
These are the things you have to consider in your decision.
Kibble :
Less work than pemmican, can use haygrass and animal products like eggs and milk, a good way to train your cooks, safer to use with human meat, needs no extra research.
Pemmican :
Good as backup food for everyone, good in early game because everyone can eat it, you need it anyway for caravans, can't use human meat because of cross contamination, because of
the high production time needs a dedicated and skilled cook.
3. Make nutrient paste.
Yeah, if you're into micro, thats the way to go. Only really viable if you use a mod that extends stacksize or increases storage per tile.
5.1) Surround your Nutrient Paste Dispenser with 9 hoppers around it. Build a single tile room around the interaction spot of the Dispenser, set the door to stay open.
5.2) Now, draft and move one of your hungry pawn to the NPD Room.
5.3) Once pawn reaches the room, forbid the door.
5.3) Pause the game and undraft the colonist. Your colonist will take a nutrient paste from the dispenser, draft him again.
5.4) Your colonist will drop the paste to the ground, which you have to forbid now.
5.5) From this point forward, just repeatly draft and undraft colonist (the Hotkey for drafting is "R"). Even in a paused game, your colonist will take a nutrient paste meal out of the dispenser and drop on the forbiddem stack on the ground nonstop.
5.6) Repeat until the hoppers are empty.
4. Have at least one colonist with psychopath, blood lust or cannibal trait.
Sadly Homo Sapiens is the most common meat source for your animals in late game. If you want all your animals to take advantage of this, instead of feeding the frozen corpses
to your carnivores, you need a butcher with the right mindset. You then can use the meat for kibble or nutrient paste.
When the winter coming. Your haygrass stock should be enough to withstand your hungry livestock in the barn. If you can't sustain your livestock hunger enough.
Form a caravan and bring your livestock that can grazing then move out of your map. Just walk around your base on world map to make sure you can send reinforcement
fast enough in case you got ambush. Livestock can graze on world map too.
Don't let your live stock graze outside your wall. Since all livestock are too slow to evacuate when raid arrive, they'll mostly badly hurt die. So just try to plant a lot of haygrass when next spring coming.
Or maybe just lower your livestock limit by slaughter them. Try to avoid using your vegetable for human food to cook animal food.
5. Call for emergency human meat delivery service (lol).
Since regular meat delivery from raiders might not be enough for your hungry animals and
its no hunting game is around because of cold.
Just call a tribal caravan and turn them all into kibble.
A Battery of 6 mortars or more will do a quick job, or use whatever fancy method to wanted to try out anyway.
If you are at war with at least one tribal faction their raid sizes should supply you well and they never send sappers ruining your killbox.
If you feel gratious you can capture the wounded tribals and release them again to collect faction points.
Life is harsh right?
(VI)recommended Mods
1. Fluffy's Colony manager
Link: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16120.0
Information: One of quality of life handler should have. With the manager table, you can automatically limit your animal number from juvenile to adult, Male and female, Train or not train, Restrict area they should be. Just counting my animal amount really a life saver to me though.
2. Fluffy's Medical tab
Link: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16120.0
Information: Another quality of life mod from Fluffy. It can help you see all the animal health condition in one page. You can choose to slaughter missing leg easily with this mod's on.
3. Fluffy's Animal tab
Link: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16120.0
Information: Everything is better with fluffy.
4. Fluffy's Bird's and Bees
Link: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16120.0
Information: Gives all your pawns and animals dangly bits you can cut of for birth control.
5. A dog said
Link: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=29310.0
Information: A nice combo with Fluffy's Medical tab. This is EPOE for animal. You can operate on animal like humans and produce bionic parts to make your chicken killing machine with this mod. Or just give a peg leg to your missing limb puppy. This mod is OP in my opinion.
6. StackXXL
Link: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=28653.0
Information: Make those big hauler show their performance. An elephant can haul 212 item of the same kind in one trip. This mod make your animal hauler shine more than it was. There is a downside of using this mod. since your hay should only stack at 200. With this mod on, without configure hay grass will stack up to 2000 in one stack. Since animal can only eat item from the stack 1 at a time. All of them will have to take turn to eat haygrass from that one stack. This mod is OP in my opinion.
7. Wildlife tab
Link: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=25736.0
Information: A very good tab that show all information about wild animal in your map. It come with the function that able you to tame or hunt them. It also show that animal have health problem or not too. You can also sort the name list to see where is the predator, manhunter or insectoid in the map.
This is the end of the guide. I'll add further information If I can found later.
If all of you guy have any addition tricks. Feel free to share it in this thread.
I'll try to answer every question you have too.
(https://preview.ibb.co/cODMUQ/asirpa.jpg) (https://ibb.co/d9W89Q)
Pic: Asirpa and Reta from Golden Kamui
Hope you love the animal more.
I've been always wanting to breed megasloths. They seem about as tough as bears, slower, but with valuable wool. Extremely hard to tame though.
Quote from: b0rsuk on September 17, 2017, 12:36:02 PM
I've been always wanting to breed megasloths. They seem about as tough as bears, slower, but with valuable wool. Extremely hard to tame though.
Oh! I completely forgot about those guy. Since it's wilderness is second place to thrumbo, I never tame them at all. No idea with it's stats, their food, hunger rate and intelligence. But I like them though, it's like a gentle giant walking around. It has a cute look on its face too :D
I have a colony with a pack of wolves. There are ~20 of full-skilled ones. A single handler is enough for the pack, I have a skilled one who quickly reached 20 level in taming, each puppy has release learnt and each young one has hauling learnt before becoming an adult.
The greatest advantage I take from their hauling skill. My colonists are exempt from hauling except for loading fuel, rearming deadfall traps and using crematorium. There's always an animal who performs a hauling task if there's stuff that needs to be hauled. Also, wolves (I don't know about animals with less capacity) carry a whole stack of material, unlike humans. When I produce stuff, apart from food that needs to be stored in freezers, I have them set to drop after being produced, wolves do the rest of task. With a mass of furry haulers it's helpful to make some additional warehouses where you need materials near workbenches. It's also recommended to make them near building places as the materials may sometimes be brought back to storage upon building failure, automatically by the animals if the colonist doesn't put them back into the blueprint, especially when the blueprint requires multiple kinds of materials (the colonist will focus on just one material to be brought into the blueprint before bringing another).
TL;DR: With a mass of animals capable to haul, stuff will be hauled immediately. Wolves and animals with greater capacity may carry a whole stack of material. Colonists will never have to haul items.
Another great advantage is using them to fight. Once I didn't release wolves, they walked around their handler, the handler approached to raiders and won the fight easily, but there were a half of casualties in wolves. I prefer releasing them when the first of enemies gets into their firing range. My pets attack them before they hide behind cover. The difference in casualties is evident. Even with mechanoids, the amount is low, although fatal (I can't imagine what would happen if I let them wait). Melee weapons are safe, guns may be used against entities separated from the pack, don't mix with grenades, obviously. But I prefer letting them fight alone.
Although animals are great, they have a natural, important disadvantage: hunger. I can send colonists to hunt for a whole year, but stocks of meat will run out during winter. Once, I exaggerated with animals overall and a married couple starved to death during hunting for a group of caribou in a corner of the map in the end of the winter. Once also, I ran out of meat and couldn't make kibbles, so my animals (I had them ~20) had access to thousands of potatoes. A few days later I noticed a prisoner being unhappy after eating a kibble. I noticed there are no meals due to lack of potatoes, I got angry and butchered all labradors, which I planned to sell.
Animals are superb overall, I started to arrange bigger fields, but I need more meat or animal products. I'm looking forward to learning how to deal with the problem.
8)nice guide time to get an army of boars 8)
Nice guide, though the rankings could be clarified a bit. Currently, it's mostly "more stars = better", with some exceptions (at least hunger rate is "less stars = better").
Nice guide!
but between boars and pigs, which do you prefer?
Quote from: PatrykSzczescie on September 17, 2017, 03:39:21 PM
Animals are superb overall, I started to arrange bigger fields, but I need more meat or animal products. I'm looking forward to learning how to deal with the problem.
Animal food production is a very big problem you need to find a way to sustain between your farm productivity and your number of animal stomach you need to feed. If the productivity is limit, your best bet is to reduce your animal :-[.
You can call caravan and kill them to make a quick supply of human meat for your wolf. It's a high risk high reward technique. If you're confident in your base defense, it's not hard though.
Quote from: hoffmale on September 18, 2017, 05:45:08 AM
Nice guide, though the rankings could be clarified a bit. Currently, it's mostly "more stars = better", with some exceptions (at least hunger rate is "less stars = better").
You're right. I'll change those star to be "the more the better" to make a clear clarified when comparing animal. I think changing "hunger rate" to be "Feed worthy" would do... I guess?
Quote from: 8roads on September 18, 2017, 05:56:02 AM
Nice guide!
but between boars and pigs, which do you prefer?
I prefer wild boar. They can be found easily in the wild while pig can only got by purchase from caravan or orbit trade. Pig only best wild boar on wilderness value which make them easier to train. Other than that, Pig eat more, DPS is lower and speed is lower than wild boar. They're both same at filth create and breeding speed. Since both of them have a role of half-livestock half-hauler. They're not best in both way though. So, I suggest you only use them on early stage of the game. That why I prefer wild boar ;)
In my games i never tame, instead i keep the joining/selftamed; according with the specis i already have i buy more of them and let them breed.
So i don't really decide wich animal will be part of the colony. This way i could appreciate rinos for their hitpoints and damage, sad thing they won't haul. On the other hand they have one of the best standard skins for apparels so i never get sad if one of them dies.
In the same way i got megasloths, i appreciated their wool and hauling possibility but they are kinda slow to use in combat, still pretty high hitpoint to tank and survive.
A bit offtopic, I would like to ask you if there is an ideal balance between wool and devilstrand in apparels (No parka) to survive up to -30°Celsius. I mean maybe it is better to make shirts out of devilstrand and jaket out of wool or the opposite to grant the best combat resistence/temperature resistence ratio.
(nice post)
There is another great use for animals: wool
Especially when playing in cold or hot biomes. A wool hat makes a huge difference
Quote from: khun_poo on September 17, 2017, 12:40:34 PM
Quote from: b0rsuk on September 17, 2017, 12:36:02 PM
I've been always wanting to breed megasloths. They seem about as tough as bears, slower, but with valuable wool. Extremely hard to tame though.
Oh! I completely forgot about those guy. Since it's wilderness is second place to thrumbo, I never tame them at all. No idea with it's stats, their food, hunger rate and intelligence. But I like them though, it's like a gentle giant walking around. It has a cute look on its face too :D
It's not just that, they're rare, often soitary. It can be hard to start breeding. Their stats seem similar to bears, but slower. The wool is surprisingly sturdy though.
Not a bad overview at all well done.
I too like starting with boars and then moving to Huskies as they arrive. Then the boars become food production purely based on filth rate.
The only thing I would add is when training Handling Skill Milking and Shearing both improve Handling Skill. 10 cows in a barn and your Level 0 handler milking them will result in lost product but they will not be Level 0 for very long.
Huskies, the real wheelbarrows of RimWorld. :)
Nice guide. I never really got into in depth farming & taming.
Mostly I aim for a couple wool producing animals, some muffalo because they're great for caravans and make milk, and some hens if I have the infrastructure (or am in a temperate environment) because eggs are a great food source.
How effective would you say it is to actually raise livestock for butchering? It would seem cows would be my best bet, although I rarely find them (the appropriate traders always sell chickens, and chickens like to join from time to time, but never cattle).
Is it effective to use the time and space to grow the grass instead of more vegetables?
If you are looking for Meat pigs/boars are the best. They can have multiple piglets each pregnancy and they can forage. they also reach maturity rather quickly 2 quadrams I think. And give 75+ meat.
Cows will join naturally and are best used for their milk production each cow producing 15 milk per day or there about. Makes it very easy to provide fine meals or if you have your pig farming up and running you can use the milk to produce kibble to feed your Haulers/fighter animals.
Growing grass depends on Biome in a tropical rainforest I had 50+ capybaras all foraging on naturally growing grass plus an elephant and rhino. In a desert you could do it but only with Modds that allow farmland improvement.
Quote from: Vlad0mi3r on September 20, 2017, 07:28:46 PM
Growing grass depends on Biome in a tropical rainforest I had 50+ capybaras all foraging on naturally growing grass plus an elephant and rhino. In a desert you could do it but only with Modds that allow farmland improvement.
You're right. To be honest, I don't think we can make a huge ranch in Desert or ice sheet/sea ice biomes. Since sustaining a livestock require a lot in haygrass. I think rice is viable when plant on hydroponic basin but it will be a real pain.
For meat, I still loot for chicken though. Even if you need meat, just wait a while for egg to be hatched. Each chick give 5 meat when slaughter. No need to wait for them to grow since your chicken coop is limit. I actually limit chicken to be about 5 rooster and 30 hen.
The trick is create a stockpile for fertile egg with critical priority. Whenever your animal hauler carry some egg to the spot, forbid those egg. Not only colonist can't pick those egg to cook but also your animal can't eat it. Hauler still haul new fertile egg to the stack. The unfertilized egg go to fridge straight away.
Another source for meat can come from your animal hauler and predator combo too. Sadly, your predator are not really reliable source of meat since wild animal are not plentiful in winter. Their main task is to tank bullet, guard your caravan and chase those fleeing raider anyway.
Are you sure chickens are better than Iguanas for livestock? Iguanas produce 3/4 as many eggs, but consume way less grass/hay. They also give you leather when slaughtered and require slightly less labor (fewer egg hauling trips because the eggs come in clutches).
You reminded me of my A16 fox overload. Well I had a luck with Thrumbo there on other hand. Bonding on doctoring isn't impossible ;)
Quote from: YokoZar on September 27, 2017, 02:40:53 PM
Are you sure chickens are better than Iguanas for livestock? Iguanas produce 3/4 as many eggs, but consume way less grass/hay. They also give you leather when slaughtered and require slightly less labor (fewer egg hauling trips because the eggs come in clutches).
Iguanas are omnivore. They eat their own egg too. We need to pay attention to harvest the egg. Egg have high nutrition than other animal food so they prefer the egg before hay or kibble.
I think you should add this mod Wildlife Tab (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=25736.0) to the suggested mods, it makes finding tameable animals much easier.
Quote-Fighting style-
A gunman handler is viable too. I suggest choosing weapon that not burst fire and having high chance to hit like bolt action or sniper rifle is the best choice. When fighting, don't use release until the raider is fleeing. Since release in the middle of battle trend to get friendly fire. Unless you're ambushing raider from behind which is hard to do in base defend.
I Agree with brawlers being the best animal handlers, but I actually disagree with this fighting style for a shooting handler.
The most combat your handler will see is failed taming attemps. What he does in combat with Enemy forces is second to that.
Applying the same reasons why Brawler is such a good fit, the same goes for Trigger Happy Pawn with a PDW or Shotgun.
Combat will be sudden and close distance, you need to hurt or disable the animal as soon as you can, so your handler has the best chances to escape.
A face full of buckshot or a clip from a MP will do this a lot better than waiting for your pawn to aim a rifle.
If you prefer overkill you can also use grenades or miniguns.
Quote
2nd zone "Hauler"
Just use unrestricted area. You don't need to restricted hauler area.
But you can and should, when using different hauling animals.
Restricting Indoor and Crop Hauling to your Dogs instead of Pigs and Bears.
Keeping the dogs close to home and let the stronger and cheaper animals handle the offsite hauling.
QuoteYou need an animal sleeping spot inside your base for predator to sleep too.
Make that a hospital bed, from which all other animals are excluded.
QuoteImportant Animal Raid evacuation tactic.
I suggest Better Pawn Control (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=26618.0)
which allows you to set single-click orders for the described process.
Thank you for your information SpaceDorf. I'll add them to the main page.
Well, I've try Better Pawn Control (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=26618.0) already. I found an annoying bug so I suggest to avoid using it (for now). Most animal that train to obedience will apply the trainer to be its master automatically. After using the mod, the animal master will still apply the same way as vanilla but it will hidden in the animal tab. You have to assign animal master again to avoid this bug. This is really tiring when you have a lot of training hauling dog or boar.
Another reason is that this mod not synchronize well with Colony Manager (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=715565262).
Colony manager can assign the area to the animal automatically which is a big help when new animal is born. However, since it assign the animal area automatic, It is a real pain when raid coming. You need to disable your manager table to stop the auto assign animal area so you can manually move them to your animal safe zone. If you use Better Pawn Control (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=26618.0), Your new born animal will be in unassigned area since they're not exist before you save the template. So, if you'll still need to manually assign area them anyway then I suggest not using it will clear your confusion.
By the way, If you're not planning to have a very big animal farm (That animal will almost born once per day). This mod is really big help though.
I've actually made a very in-depth spreadsheet on animals a fair while back, which I reckon most people here have missed. For those that want to view it, here she is (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tjsa_Rw_sDz0IOsFY5WMZ_DAs_sx0iAVS0EfgNOU3Ns/edit?usp=sharing).
A few key points though:
Chickens aren't what they used to be Pre-A17 - They only lay 1 egg at a time, they yield little meat, and they also eat a lot. Chickens are still OK, yes, but they're far from the best. The most efficient animals to farm for meat-type nutrition (going by hard numbers), from 1st to 5th are:
* Dairy Cows - 55.1% efficiency
* Hares and Snowhares - 39% efficiency
* Rats - 35.4% efficiency
* Squirrels - 34.4% efficiency
* Wild Boars and Pigs - 33% efficiency
Hauling capacity over 75 doesn't matter - Well, the only cases that it does matter are for drugs, and haygrass. Elephants can probably be ruled out of the top 5 since they're slow, demanding on food, and don't carry any more than a dog in most cases. Also, you never mentioned wolves? They hardly eat; they're actually more efficient than foxes in terms of food consumption to carrying capacity, and they move faster.
I'd say wolves deserve the top spot for hauling because they also don't eat veg, which means they can haul rice... unlike them greedy dogs which'll eat it, which is a huge waste of efficiency. Oh, and dogs also eat nearly 3x as much as wolves, and they're worse in combat.
Cobras are the most food-efficient combat animal in the game - and the emphasis goes on efficiency here. Cobras have the lowest hunger rate out of any animal in the game, and their reproduction isn't bad either, and they have a fairly good DPS for what they are. They're also fast, and small body size means that bullets won't hit them as often. One cobra won't do much, but a lot certainly will... and they'll barely leave a mark on your food supply. Another animal goes overlooked.
Bar these really outstanding issues that I have with the lists... not bad.
Quote from: khun_poo on October 02, 2017, 10:55:40 AM
Well, I've try Better Pawn Control (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=26618.0) already. I found an annoying bug so I suggest to avoid using it (for now). Most animal that train to obedience will apply the trainer to be its master automatically. After using the mod, the animal master will still apply the same way as vanilla but it will hidden in the animal tab. You have to assign animal master again to avoid this bug. This is really tiring when you have a lot of training hauling dog or boar.
I don't like the auto assign feature myself, so I never noticed the clash between those two.
The Bug you mention only exists if you don't create a template for your animal assignment and leave it on auto.
If you do this, BetterPawnControl works equally to vanilla and animal children will be assigned to the same zone as their mother.
Having successfully managed three digits of Minions, Caravan, Food and Wool Animals that way I still think BetterPawnControl roxx ;)
Oh, and Fluffies Birds&Bees if you want birth control.
Neat, a lot of stuff I didn't know about taming animals. Good read. :)
My current colony is really flourishing right now, with 15 colonists (started with the single rich explorer), a huge colony tucked away in an easily-defended valley in the mountains, tons of farming, and a huge valley next door for grazing. I had a couple of muffalo self-tame, so I've been trying to breed them, and running around trying to tame a few more each winter when some come wandering in.
I just realized that all that grass is going to go away when winter hits, though, so this guide reminded me I need to make a TON of kibble, or plant a huge field of haygrass.
Quote from: ColonistGirl on October 05, 2017, 07:52:13 PM
I just realized that all that grass is going to go away when winter hits, though, so this guide reminded me I need to make a TON of kibble, or plant a huge field of haygrass.
No harm in doing both :)
Quote from: SpaceDorf on October 06, 2017, 05:31:49 AM
Quote from: ColonistGirl on October 05, 2017, 07:52:13 PM
I just realized that all that grass is going to go away when winter hits, though, so this guide reminded me I need to make a TON of kibble, or plant a huge field of haygrass.
No harm in doing both :)
I am still looking for a good solution in making animals eating hay first and kibble second. And, No, putting a Trump into my barn is not an option.
When I set up two stockpiles and having hay in the first row and kibble in behind, doesn't work always. And putting kibble in a separate room with doors locked and sealed, seems a little bit over the top.
Yeah, just had a big raid come through last night (about 30 tribespeople), but between the switchback I built to stagger them out, and the gunbox setup combined with my colonists with ARs, we cut them down pretty fast. Got a nice pile of bodies for my psychopath cook to chop up into kibble.
Planted a huge hay field out in the valley as well, and since I'm playing with "climate cycle" turned on, this latest winter ended up being really mild (never got below 45), so didn't have to worry about it snowing.
Now I just need some more muffalo!
As far as the animals eating hay vs kibble, yeah, I don't know of any way to force them to eat one or the other without simply putting the kibble out of reach. I'll experiment with it a bit and see if I can come up with something.
Animal Zones ?
Herbivores, Carnivores, Kibble :o
Is it just me, or can foxes really haul? Last time I played (5 mins ago) they were not able to be trained to haul.
Might be a mod thing, that changes the Intelligence of Foxes.
Quote from: XeoNovaDan on October 02, 2017, 11:36:40 AM
I've actually made a very in-depth spreadsheet on animals a fair while back, which I reckon most people here have missed. For those that want to view it, here she is (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tjsa_Rw_sDz0IOsFY5WMZ_DAs_sx0iAVS0EfgNOU3Ns/edit?usp=sharing).
What's the data source? This implies what I said about Iguanas being great isn't true (wiki says they have 3-5 eggs per clutch, your spreadsheet says average is 1.5)
Quote from: YokoZar on October 08, 2017, 05:31:35 AM
What's the data source?
Core's own XML files; guaranteed up-to-date information.
Quote from: YokoZar on October 08, 2017, 05:31:35 AM(wiki says they have 3-5 eggs per clutch, your spreadsheet says average is 1.5)
Yeah, the wiki's an anecdotal source; the 3-5 eggs per clutch must be a pre-A17 number. When I sourced the numbers for this sheet, iguanas laid 1-2 eggs per clutch.
Quote from: khun_poo on September 20, 2017, 08:50:13 PM
Quote from: Vlad0mi3r on September 20, 2017, 07:28:46 PM
Growing grass depends on Biome in a tropical rainforest I had 50+ capybaras all foraging on naturally growing grass plus an elephant and rhino. In a desert you could do it but only with Modds that allow farmland improvement.
You're right. To be honest, I don't think we can make a huge ranch in Desert or ice sheet/sea ice biomes. Since sustaining a livestock require a lot in haygrass. I think rice is viable when plant on hydroponic basin but it will be a real pain.
For meat, I still loot for chicken though. Even if you need meat, just wait a while for egg to be hatched. Each chick give 5 meat when slaughter. No need to wait for them to grow since your chicken coop is limit. I actually limit chicken to be about 5 rooster and 30 hen.
The trick is create a stockpile for fertile egg with critical priority. Whenever your animal hauler carry some egg to the spot, forbid those egg. Not only colonist can't pick those egg to cook but also your animal can't eat it. Hauler still haul new fertile egg to the stack. The unfertilized egg go to fridge straight away.
Another source for meat can come from your animal hauler and predator combo too. Sadly, your predator are not really reliable source of meat since wild animal are not plentiful in winter. Their main task is to tank bullet, guard your caravan and chase those fleeing raider anyway.
How big is "huge" wrt ranch size? In extreme desert it should be possible to sustain 20+ alpacas on haygrass while still having food for 15-20 people. In regular desert you still have normal soil and a lot more arable land so we're talking double these numbers at minimum, probably more, if using arable land to potential. It's actually harder to get animals on extreme desert in the first place, you only have dromedaries and fennec foxes(very rare), megascarabs and iguanas naturally. Desert has more variety and really is only a little harder than the "easy 3" (temperate, shrubland, boreal) due to early wood pressure requiring to plant poplars.
The cold maps are so much worse for animal farming. It's not a matter of just planting a few hundred tiles of hay and hauling it (often with the animals you're sustaining after a while) to a barn. All food grown comes with extra resource cost in electricity for heat and light, or for places like tundra you're just getting less food/year. The cold biomes make wolves a lot more attractive. They eat less than most animals, and you don't need power to keep your corpse stockpile cold for them :p.
Quote from: TheMeInTeam on October 08, 2017, 01:02:13 PM
How big is "huge" wrt ranch size? In extreme desert it should be possible to sustain 20+ alpacas on haygrass while still having food for 15-20 people. In regular desert you still have normal soil and a lot more arable land so we're talking double these numbers at minimum, probably more, if using arable land to potential. It's actually harder to get animals on extreme desert in the first place, you only have dromedaries and fennec foxes(very rare), megascarabs and iguanas naturally. Desert has more variety and really is only a little harder than the "easy 3" (temperate, shrubland, boreal) due to early wood pressure requiring to plant poplars.
The cold maps are so much worse for animal farming. It's not a matter of just planting a few hundred tiles of hay and hauling it (often with the animals you're sustaining after a while) to a barn. All food grown comes with extra resource cost in electricity for heat and light, or for places like tundra you're just getting less food/year. The cold biomes make wolves a lot more attractive. They eat less than most animals, and you don't need power to keep your corpse stockpile cold for them :p.
hmm... huge in my definition should be something like 30+ hauler, 50+ farm animal and hunter/fighter animal for the rest (just 10 is fine). This should sufficient for sustaining food demand and hauling everything up to 20 colonists. You got the point about biomes though.
Quote from: XeoNovaDan on October 02, 2017, 11:36:40 AM
I've actually made a very in-depth spreadsheet on animals a fair while back, which I reckon most people here have missed. For those that want to view it, here she is (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tjsa_Rw_sDz0IOsFY5WMZ_DAs_sx0iAVS0EfgNOU3Ns/edit?usp=sharing).
Holy crab! That's god send for me. I'll treasure it. Thank you very much ;D
About the wolf hauler, I usually use them as animal hunter because of their high wilderness. Their role is on par with the bear but they breed and run faster. They're carnivorous which make them the best crop field hauler too in term of efficiently. I'll put them on the list just in case.
I'll still loot for dog as the best hauler. Since hauler need 7 times to train which is really a real pain. Dog got 0 wilderness, so that everyone can train it. They'll need to train rescue later too. Rescue animal really a great help when you have a lot of casualties either human or animal. They're also pet animal so that they're not produce filth. That's mean they'll reduce your janitor work. Lastly, hauler main job is to haul not to fight. Training release and haul on the same animal is not a good idea later in the game. Hauler animal that lose leg is just a drag in the hauling process.
Actually, elephant shouldn't be in the list at all because they're worst as hauler. But like I mention about mod, when combine the use of StackXXL. 3-4 elephants can finish haul harvested field of crop within a day. Without the mod, I don't recommend taming it to be hauler though.
Cobra do great in combat. They hit hard and make an enemy shoot each other in the confusion. However, it can't be your main fighter because its toughness is low. There'll always be casualties aftermath all the time. So, you need a lot of them to swarm your enemy. This may caused your game to lag since you'll need a lot of farm and hauler animal too.
Quote from: XeoNovaDan on October 02, 2017, 11:36:40 AM
I've actually made a very in-depth spreadsheet on animals a fair while back, which I reckon most people here have missed. For those that want to view it, here she is (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tjsa_Rw_sDz0IOsFY5WMZ_DAs_sx0iAVS0EfgNOU3Ns/edit?usp=sharing).
How was the food consumption mulitplier of 1.5999 arrived at?
Quote from: blightmoon on October 17, 2017, 05:34:00 AM
How was the food consumption mulitplier of 1.5999 arrived at?
RimWorld.Need_Food.BaseFoodFallPerTick
private const float BaseFoodFallPerTick = 2.66666666E-05f;That's 0.0000266666666 nutrition consumed per tick baseline. 60,000 ticks in a day.
60,000 * 0.0000266666666 = 1.599999996 nutrition consumed per day baseline :P
Quote from: XeoNovaDan on October 17, 2017, 07:40:42 AM
Quote from: blightmoon on October 17, 2017, 05:34:00 AM
How was the food consumption mulitplier of 1.5999 arrived at?
RimWorld.Need_Food.BaseFoodFallPerTick
private const float BaseFoodFallPerTick = 2.66666666E-05f;
That's 0.0000266666666 nutrition consumed per tick baseline. 60,000 ticks in a day.
60,000 * 0.0000266666666 = 1.599999996 nutrition consumed per day baseline :P
That's interesting. So hunger rate is the multiplier, there being another number which is the baseline.
As to behavior though, would you know whether animals waste nutrition by overeating? When do they eat? When do they stop a "meal" of hay? How does nutrition consumption vary between newborns, juveniles and matures?
Your worksheet is great, BTW. I learned that chickens and hares are best euthanized as juveniles. Bears are imba because of a hunger rate like a chicken's. Cows are without a doubt, the best meat source.
Also, do male cows produce milk? That would be gross, if you know what I mean.
Quote from: blightmoon on October 18, 2017, 06:57:12 AM
Also, do male cows produce milk? That would be gross, if you know what I mean.[/color]
Oh the funnies that could be made ...
But the short answer is : Nope.
Only females are milkable. Cows, Muffalo and Sheep ( I think.. or was this a mod again ? )
Quote from: SpaceDorf on October 18, 2017, 07:47:54 AM
Quote from: blightmoon on October 18, 2017, 06:57:12 AM
Also, do male cows produce milk? That would be gross, if you know what I mean.[/color]
Oh the funnies that could be made ...
But the short answer is : Nope.
Only females are milkable. Cows, Muffalo and Sheep ( I think.. or was this a mod again ? )
Sheep are not in vanilla. Dromedaries, caribou and elk are milkable in vanilla. Other than cows the rest kind of suck at it. Cows give 8 milk/day/cow, all other milkable animals give 6 per 2 days (3/day).
You would need 20 female caribou just to get milk for 12 fine meals/day. That's a lot of food! 10 cows gets you 16 fine meals/day.
Of course milk isn't the primary reason to use muffalo or dromedaries. Their value is as sheering animals that are also usable on caravans, though I prefer alpacas for that when possible.
I was pretty sure Alpaca were milkable too in A17, but I may well be wrong.. can't check atm :( However the wool bonus from them should outstrip food cost fairly quickly provided you have someone to trade with (& in sufficient quantities ofc)..
Nope no milk from alpaca in A17.
How do I get one big Cow ie muffalo, that is house broken to not eat the best meals in the house. my colonists just went thru a monkey raid. I spent 3 days couped up and to help the colonist bounce back I sent the chef all over the place to get the materials to make several fine meals. I'm playing a scenario of a tribe that was wisked away from there own tribe with next to nothing. accept one god shined on them for an instant and they got a great bow, but they nearly lost all there food and the medical herbs poofed along with it they have much less lumber to start to boot. I've had a very good play thru until I had a money mankiller pack of one monkey, but my tribe has had little raiding since the start long ago so its still 5, and I was to worried the monkey would infect one or two them them. I had already survived a bit that nearly took the leg. but it was saved .. anyway as soon as I had the meals done this stupid cow walked by and ate half of them in a very brief period, I nearly slaughtered her, but somehow managed to rein in my temper.. she ate half teh fine meals that had just be cooked. is there a mod that stops this? and while i'm at it what is the name of the mod that add 1-9 to the priority list. I can't find it for the life of me.
Quote from: Rei-No on October 18, 2017, 09:58:02 PM
How do I get one big Cow ie muffalo, that is house broken to not eat the best meals in the house. my colonists just went thru a monkey raid. I spent 3 days couped up and to help the colonist bounce back I sent the chef all over the place to get the materials to make several fine meals. I'm playing a scenario of a tribe that was wisked away from there own tribe with next to nothing. accept one god shined on them for an instant and they got a great bow, but they nearly lost all there food and the medical herbs poofed along with it they have much less lumber to start to boot. I've had a very good play thru until I had a money mankiller pack of one monkey, but my tribe has had little raiding since the start long ago so its still 5, and I was to worried the monkey would infect one or two them them. I had already survived a bit that nearly took the leg. but it was saved .. anyway as soon as I had the meals done this stupid cow walked by and ate half of them in a very brief period, I nearly slaughtered her, but somehow managed to rein in my temper.. she ate half teh fine meals that had just be cooked. is there a mod that stops this? and while i'm at it what is the name of the mod that add 1-9 to the priority list. I can't find it for the life of me.
Setup an animal zone for the cow that does not include the area where you store your meals. Set the cow to that area and you will not loose any more meals. It is not a mod just zone management that is built into vanilla.