So with the long development pause, this seems like the perfect time to try out an animal army. On my main game I've slowly been building up a Rhino force.
But has anyone else tried out the Animal horde yet? How did it go?
Elephants... 7 of them got frag grenaded to death. And shot also, but the grenade in going off in the middle of the group was the deciding blow...
I haven't gotten far sadly, Burned out it seems. But I am coming around again, However, wouldn't it be easier to raise a army of chickens? From what it seems it's easier for them to gain a large animal army from them? Or am I Horribly wrong?
You can't train chickens.
Quote from: grizzlymint_gpt on October 16, 2015, 05:56:29 PM
You can't train chickens.
can't train them, but you can restrict them to a zone in the path of the enemy... and the enemy will stop to attack the chickens, and the chickens will fight back, and incapacitate many of the enemy.
Quote from: TLHeart on October 16, 2015, 06:02:43 PM
Quote from: grizzlymint_gpt on October 16, 2015, 05:56:29 PM
You can't train chickens.
can't train them, but you can restrict them to a zone in the path of the enemy... and the enemy will stop to attack the chickens, and the chickens will fight back, and incapacitate many of the enemy.
Chicken shield!
squirrel is better than chicken as random shield.
You have to watch out for things like frag grenade. You must micro and watch your animals very close, I find most of my animals injure are actually from friendly fire after they gang up on the enemies. Buy huskies and retrievers, they are easy to train and breed rather fast. You will want multiple colonist with high animal skill and someone dedicated to cleaning, having a bunch of dogs running around will get your base really dirty really fast.
Snipers work really well with animal army. They can pick out things that are too dangerous for your animal army to handle.
I keep all my valuable animals inside when there is a threat. I use attack dogs like huskies because their wildness is low so they're easy to train. They seem to take a lot of the fire so i guess they serve their purpose.
Blitzkriegsler and his Chicken army.
https://youtu.be/Xj50r8mbJe0?t=991
Quote from: xlockeed on October 18, 2015, 05:11:32 AM
Blitzkriegsler and his Chicken army.
https://youtu.be/Xj50r8mbJe0?t=991
BUT CAN THE CHICKEN SWARM BEAT THE TRIBAL HORDE?
(Gonna test it out in dev mode.)
(Edit: Tried it, holy crap... will post pics on a seperate thread.)
gives a whole new visual meaning to being hen pecked.
1. Hares (gave up on that)
2. Boars (gave up on that)
3. Chickens (needed some cash)
4 Elephants (Currently 4)
Quote from: A Friend on October 18, 2015, 05:42:20 AM
Quote from: xlockeed on October 18, 2015, 05:11:32 AM
Blitzkriegsler and his Chicken army.
https://youtu.be/Xj50r8mbJe0?t=991
BUT CAN THE CHICKEN SWARM BEAT THE TRIBAL HORDE?
(Gonna test it out in dev mode.)
(Edit: Tried it, holy crap... will post pics on a seperate thread.)
Link the thread please?
Quote from: Dartonian on October 18, 2015, 09:14:49 PM
Quote from: A Friend on October 18, 2015, 05:42:20 AM
Quote from: xlockeed on October 18, 2015, 05:11:32 AM
Blitzkriegsler and his Chicken army.
https://youtu.be/Xj50r8mbJe0?t=991
BUT CAN THE CHICKEN SWARM BEAT THE TRIBAL HORDE?
(Gonna test it out in dev mode.)
(Edit: Tried it, holy crap... will post pics on a seperate thread.)
Link the thread please?
it's under the stories section https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16578.0
Quote from: Zeta Omega on October 18, 2015, 08:23:33 PM
1. Hares (gave up on that)
2. Boars (gave up on that)
3. Chickens (needed some cash)
4 Elephants (Currently 4)
Currently at about 19 Rhino's. This will be Glorious!
The big trouble I'm having is sort of wondering what is the critical mass, where I can start moving Rhinos from breeding to Charging.
It would be interesting to train boomalopes and have them lie in ambush.
timing would be important though, the boomalope needs to be released at the right time for the trainer to get away safely but not i a situation where the enemy can shoot it before it gets close.
Maybe some kind of maze?
Heh, monster in a maze, that colony should be called Minos.
Quote from: Listy on October 19, 2015, 01:30:38 AM
Quote from: Zeta Omega on October 18, 2015, 08:23:33 PM
1. Hares (gave up on that)
2. Boars (gave up on that)
3. Chickens (needed some cash)
4 Elephants (Currently 4)
Currently at about 19 Rhino's. This will be Glorious!
The big trouble I'm having is sort of wondering what is the critical mass, where I can start moving Rhinos from breeding to Charging.
Just make them all breed. Any that are too old become your attack force. And if you get attacked, you can "draft" all but one or two young breeding couples.
Edit - I used to think boomalopes would be good, but time is a literal killer. The old ones get infected, which goes untreated, then they die, and Boom! Every wild boomalope population I've ever seen has wiped itself out in months due to this very thing. (And don't forget that untreated burns get infected too...)
How on earth do people keep their chickens fed?
I didn't watch my Hen and Rooster for a while and surprise surprise i had around 200 wandering around and starving.
When i supplied hay to them, they would just vacuum it up in an instant...
Luckily a lightning strike and subsequent fire put a good deal of them out of their misery and trading all but 10 away did the rest.
But this leads me to the question: is it possible to use eggs as an efficient method of sustaining a colony?
Quote from: milon on October 19, 2015, 12:09:59 PM
Just make them all breed. Any that are too old become your attack force. And if you get attacked, you can "draft" all but one or two young breeding couples.
How old is too old though?
Quote from: Namuras on October 20, 2015, 02:05:26 AM
How on earth do people keep their chickens fed?
I didn't watch my Hen and Rooster for a while and surprise surprise i had around 200 wandering around and starving.
When i supplied hay to them, they would just vacuum it up in an instant...
Luckily a lightning strike and subsequent fire put a good deal of them out of their misery and trading all but 10 away did the rest.
But this leads me to the question: is it possible to use eggs as an efficient method of sustaining a colony?
I think that's a "no" I had ~460 chickens and nearly lost a colony because they were eating all my grain.
Quote from: Listy on October 20, 2015, 02:45:21 AM
Quote from: milon on October 19, 2015, 12:09:59 PM
Just make them all breed. Any that are too old become your attack force. And if you get attacked, you can "draft" all but one or two young breeding couples.
How old is too old though?
Quote from: Namuras on October 20, 2015, 02:05:26 AM
How on earth do people keep their chickens fed?
I didn't watch my Hen and Rooster for a while and surprise surprise i had around 200 wandering around and starving.
When i supplied hay to them, they would just vacuum it up in an instant...
Luckily a lightning strike and subsequent fire put a good deal of them out of their misery and trading all but 10 away did the rest.
But this leads me to the question: is it possible to use eggs as an efficient method of sustaining a colony?
I think that's a "no" I had ~460 chickens and nearly lost a colony because they were eating all my grain.
Guess chickens are only good at beeing a "fire and forget" tradegood then. Since getting 30 something silver for a 2 month old is pretty good.
I feed the chicken armada with either my silage mod I made since it makes your hay more efficient at feeding your critters (Shameless plug). Or in later stages of the game I turn dead raiders in to simple meals to get the chickens to eat them. By then the colonists are getting fine or lavish meals and won't touch the simple meals. That requires a second fridge for chicken meals, where as with the silage it doesn't need to be refrigerated.
Quote from: Listy on October 20, 2015, 02:45:21 AM
How old is too old though?
Good question. When an animal gets too old, it can't breed anymore (I think, although I've seen my starting pet Labrador with dementia and cataracts get pregnant). The wiki doesn't say either, but I've read in other threads here that "too old" animals won't breed. I have no idea what the cut off is or if it really exists.
Slightly Off topic but I have not seen a need to keep animals other than huskys (currently at 15)
Also I dont butcher stuff as I can keep animal meat for a rainy day, its getting quite out of hand :/
(http://i.imgur.com/TNfTVDR.png)
Dont ask about the wargs... they were manhunter and I forgot to turn off my turrets.
Quote from: SubZeroBricks on October 22, 2015, 03:10:19 AM
Slightly Off topic but I have not seen a need to keep animals other than huskys (currently at 15)
Also I dont butcher stuff as I can keep animal meat for a rainy day, its getting quite out of hand :/
(http://i.imgur.com/TNfTVDR.png)
Dont ask about the wargs... they were manhunter and I forgot to turn off my turrets.
You might need to work on your cooling arrangements.
Quote from: Listy on October 22, 2015, 04:51:42 AM
You might need to work on your cooling arrangements.
How so? Its always -10 c in there, which is enough for food to be frozen.
Quote from: SubZeroBricks on October 22, 2015, 11:45:00 AM
Quote from: Listy on October 22, 2015, 04:51:42 AM
You might need to work on your cooling arrangements.
How so? Its always -10 c in there, which is enough for food to be frozen.
Yeah but you're using four coolers to achieve it. Here's my set up, and its -9/-8 in there with just two running.
(http://i.imgur.com/2O6bYwr.jpg)
I use four and just stagger the temps on each. -2 -4 -6 and -8. Only enough coolers are running at one time to keep things frozen.
Staggered temps are the bomb!
I was so glad when someone here pointed out that possibility.
Chickens are fine if treated right. I started with two using prepare carefully and got up to around 50 odd hens near the end. You have to plant a massive field of hay and just let them graze there. I had around half of my base as a grazing grounds, but coupled with three sunlamps and hydroponics gave me enough eggs to have lavish meals for 12 colonists and a few prisoners every day.
I've currently got 5 thrumbo's which make an awesome inhome defense system
i often keep my animal army tied to only one brawling master. then i let them go ninja around the enemy flank and then send them to attack isolated enemies. wargs/huskies/retrievers/boars are generally my brawler meatshields. just keep them clear from frags and rockets. (which is why you should not release them.. yet.)
afterwards, once the enemies starts fleeing, i release them to start hunting people. along with my other brawlers. they're basically the ninja / cleanup crew.
My current best handler has 13 handling and 15 melee, equipped with power armor, power armor helmet, a plasteel gladius, a plasteel shield (a mod offering medieval shields) accompanied by ~15 boars.
Enemy came, in a corner I ambushed them.
Only 2 boars died, ~8 was injured (mostly lightly), 20+ raiders killed.
Butchered the dead boars, got myself meat and leather.
Rest of the colonists harvesting and crafting in the meanwhile.
This is the tits, animal army banzai.
How long does it take to breed attack animals? When I perused Races_Animal_Pet.xml I saw painfully long breeding times. For example, it lists a husky's gestation period as 45 days and adulthood at 0.8, which I assume is years... which means it takes a full year to breed replacements for the casualties from the dozen or more raids you'll get every year. I can't imagine this is viable unless you have a pack of 100 or so. How are you making this work?
Quote from: Shurp on December 17, 2015, 05:53:40 PM
How long does it take to breed attack animals? When I perused Races_Animal_Pet.xml I saw painfully long breeding times. For example, it lists a husky's gestation period as 45 days and adulthood at 0.8, which I assume is years... which means it takes a full year to breed replacements for the casualties from the dozen or more raids you'll get every year. I can't imagine this is viable unless you have a pack of 100 or so. How are you making this work?
For one, I don't breed huskies. I find it rather slow to my taste.
But if I did; tame them, buy them.
1 healthy, young male is plenty for 10 females, breeding them will get you ~20 or so huskies in a year.
"Attack animals" IMO should include boars, wargs, thrumbos, cobras, rhinos and similar. You can replace "attack animals" by buying them and/or taming them, if breeding alone isn't enough.
Animals are a "consumables", they're melee often attacking ranged units, even if you create the best opportunity for them they'll probably take losses still, but you'll get yourself meat and leather/fur, so it's not exactly a waste.
...Or change the numbers in the xml, give them shorter gestation periods for example.
The gestation period isn't bad, it's waiting a year for them to grow up that has me discouraged. I usually play a colony only for 2 years before I get bored with it. In the time it takes to breed an attack force I could probably just build a ship and leave.
I thought about hacking the xml... but I first wanted to hear others' ideas and see if maybe I'm misunderstanding something or doing something wrong.