Hello all. I'm new to Rimworld, having just picked it up a couple of weeks ago. I like it overall, but I'm truly puzzled about animals after the new patch. Apparently...horses can't be trained at all? Also Alpacas, etc.? This seems utterly immersion breaking to me - in my jungle home I can train a panther and a rhino, but not a horse or a pig? I'd appreciate some insight into what you're now supposed to do with animals - the entire fencing them in thing seems like it makes it very difficult to use them to haul things, which was previously enormously useful. Is the intention that we don't tame animals now? If not, which ones, and what do you do once they are tamed?
It's not that immersion breaking. It's not like a giant herd of horses can all pick up corpses, weapons, and piles of silver on their own in real life.
This is mainly just a balance change, so animals aren't giving out a giant amount of food in this update + wool + skins and whatever else while all being super intelligent to train. The point isn't just to have only one species of animal in your colony any more that solves all your problems.
Buy and train dogs if you really need the haulers. Other trainables exist.
horses and pigs hauling muffalo bodies around map without any pawn interaction.
perfectly logical and absolutely not immersion breaking.
You have to distinguish pack and hauling animals. You can use things like horses and donkeys in caravans. But some animals will no longer move around random stuff within your colony all by themselves.
Most dog/wolf-like animals and certain others can still be trained to haul from what I can tell. The exception seems to be wargs who are now attack animals and not allrounders anymore.
Typical livestock animals have been made a lot more useful by changing their eating habits.
Quote from: Serenity on July 21, 2021, 10:18:08 AM
You have to distinguish pack and hauling animals. You can use things like horses and donkeys in caravans. But some animals will no longer move around random stuff within your colony all by themselves.
Most dog/wolf-like animals and certain others can still be trained to haul from what I can tell. The exception seems to be wargs who are now attack animals and not allrounders anymore.
Typical livestock animals have been made a lot more useful by changing their eating habits.
Thanks for the info.
So, if I understand correctly, you have to keep some animals in pens, and use them just for caravans? They can't be tamed or trained by you, but can (I guess) be bought from traders? These are "wanderers"? Is there a way to know what they are, and which animals can be used to carry things for caravans?
Others can be tamed (by looking at info in the wildlife tab). Is there a way to tell whether you need to pen them up, and whether you can just let them run around and do things? Because if everything has to be penned in, then the keeping of animals is restricted to having them in reserve for caravans, or (I guess) raising them for meat and egg, correct?
I have to say, as a new player, that this change is poorly documented and quite confusing. A system where I have to look up in a table whether I can tame something, because it has no correspondence to the world around us, seems a poor choice. Restricting fighting animals actually seems reasonable, much less so than draft animals.
As a older player Im confused also. My pawns rope the items and they come back out on their own immediately? now my pawn has to constantly stop other task to rope animals? I did not have a problem with the old way, just assign animals a zone where you want them. Now they just wander off... wtf?
Quote from: rimbb on July 21, 2021, 01:16:56 PM
As a older player Im confused also. My pawns rope the items and they come back out on their own immediately? now my pawn has to constantly stop other task to rope animals? I did not have a problem with the old way, just assign animals a zone where you want them. Now they just wander off... wtf?
If you have the Lock mod turn that off for now
I think you are missing the point that horses can be MOUNTED in caravans to increase caravan speed. They arent just to carry stuff.
They nerfed the trainability of several animals because tynon added this mount mechanic.
Well once again, game play balance over writes reality!
As a person who worked on a large cattle farm in Australia, I can tell you a horse is more likely to pick up your beer can and walk off with it than a dog.
I know dogs are smart, but I can tell you after years working with horses are smarter. They just like to watch the dogs do the work.
Time to make a mod that set things back how they were for animals.
Quote from: Alenerel on July 21, 2021, 09:18:27 PM
They nerfed the trainability of several animals because tynon added this mount mechanic.
I think it's not just that. But the overall intend is to make animals more into specialist than generalists. For example muffalos no longer give milk because they are already pack animals and and give wool. They are now on the same level as alpacas (but stronger). If you're looking for milk you might consider yaks or dromedaries instead.
Quote from: Belgrath on July 22, 2021, 12:40:03 AM
Well once again, game play balance over writes reality!
As a person who worked on a large cattle farm in Australia, I can tell you a horse is more likely to pick up your beer can and walk off with it than a dog.
I know dogs are smart, but I can tell you after years working with horses are smarter. They just like to watch the dogs do the work.
Time to make a mod that set things back how they were for animals.
1 beer can. Per horse.
They will not put a whole 40 loose bottles onto their back.
Hello,
There is 2 categories of animals, those that need pens and those that don't.
If you click on view information on a selected animal, it will say if it's blocked by fence or not.
Also, you can see the whole list of animals that need fence by clicking view information directly on a fence.
Those that need pens are: Alpaca, Bison, Boomalope, Capybara, Caribou, Cassowary, Chiken, Chinchilla, Cow, Deer, Donkey, Dromedera, Duck, Elf, Emu, Gazelle, Goat, Goose, Horse, Ibex, Muffalo, Ostrish, Pig, Sheep, Turkey, Wild Boar and Yak.
All other animals don't: all hares, megasloth, rhinoceros, elephant, squirrel, alphabeaver, thumbo, all rats, all bears, all canines (dogs, wolfs), iguana, monkey, raccoon, tortoise and all carnivorus (cat, fox, panther, etc.).
Animals in pen have multiple uses: Breeding for meat/leather production or selling to trader for silver, wool, eggs, milk, chemfuel production, pack animal for caravan and some mount for faster caravan.
Animals that don't use pens are mostly for: guarding, attack, rescue, hauling, some can nuzzle and of course meat/leather production.
The main benefice for all of this is that it require much less upkeep from your handler for having large number of domestics animals.
Of course, some animals are less useful than others (rats, squirrel, etc.) but pretty much all of them have some uses now.
I understand the logic behind it, but this change made me really sad. I think it was an overcorrection. The way it was before, every biome had its own unique animals which could fill every useful niche in my colonies. Now if I want guard animals, hauling animals etc I have VERY few options that have to be the same every time, every colony. I will miss my attack elk and my guard dromedaries and my various foxes. I loved them so.
I suspect part of it is that Ideology adds the option to have those kinds of tasks done by enslaved humans instead. Which I will not do. Having a stringently limited amount of working animals is just a loss of flavor and fun. I get that a lot of other players are overjoyed to have the opportunity to enslave people, but I would find that actively unpleasant. So, retrievers it is from here on out.
Quote from: mayoculpa on July 24, 2021, 12:53:57 AM
I understand the logic behind it, but this change made me really sad. I think it was an overcorrection. The way it was before, every biome had its own unique animals which could fill every useful niche in my colonies. Now if I want guard animals, hauling animals etc I have VERY few options that have to be the same every time, every colony. I will miss my attack elk and my guard dromedaries and my various foxes. I loved them so.
I suspect part of it is that Ideology adds the option to have those kinds of tasks done by enslaved humans instead. Which I will not do. Having a stringently limited amount of working animals is just a loss of flavor and fun. I get that a lot of other players are overjoyed to have the opportunity to enslave people, but I would find that actively unpleasant. So, retrievers it is from here on out.
Enslaved humans and Dryads.
Everyone gets one Dryad tree - the tree huggers just get the option to plant more then 1.
Can we please stop pretending animals got nerfs because of balance and/or realism? The actual reason they got nerfed was to make Dryads more desirable. They were perfectly fine for how many years and suddenly they need to change in this patch. Suddenly now they are a problem, a problem no one was complaining about.
I think it's rather ironic that animals got nerfed in the same patch that Ranchers/Animal personhood came out. The patch were we'd finally be able to tame things we wanted and train in a reasonable timeframe if we were willing to specialize. It's not like the bonuses for those memes would be breaking the game if animals got reverted to the older state.
Worg can't haul now, completely useless outside of combat. How do I justify using it now? It was the animal I aimed for breeding in old games when I could handle the meat only food costs. Take away the hauling and you've got a Turret that eats lots of food.
I am not impressed with the animal changes.
QuoteThey were perfectly fine for how many years and suddenly they need to change in this patch. Suddenly now they are a problem, a problem no one was complaining about.
I am not happy with the new animals too, but i like it when the devs doing things the community don't ask for ! :-)
It is Ludeon's game, they "maybe" got some reason/idea's for that.
But honestly, who didn't assign some strong to an area, and let them guard/block the front door at this way. While the pawns shoot from behind ? And all this without training.
Luckly, they made the game full modable too. And when you don't like anything, i bet you will find a mod that change it like.
Train All Animals (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2557943599)
Quote from: Canute on July 27, 2021, 07:06:57 AM
QuoteThey were perfectly fine for how many years and suddenly they need to change in this patch. Suddenly now they are a problem, a problem no one was complaining about.
I am not happy with the new animals too, but i like it when the devs doing things the community don't ask for ! :-)
It is Ludeon's game, they "maybe" got some reason/idea's for that.
But honestly, who didn't assign some strong to an area, and let them guard/block the front door at this way. While the pawns shoot from behind ? And all this without training.
Luckly, they made the game full modable too. And when you don't like anything, i bet you will find a mod that change it like.
Train All Animals (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2557943599)
I'm not objecting to doing things no one asked for, to be clear. I object to things being nerfed to make something new seem more desirable.
Yes, it's stupid meta play to put animals in the path. Problem however is the raiders don't target non trained animals anymore according to the patch notes. So that problem, by problem I mean people lacking the self control to avoid exploiting, is already resolved. My solution till now was to not do it and other people doing it didn't matter to my game. So I didn't do that, because it's dumb.
I read people talking about realism in here. Opinions as wide as an ocean and as deep as a puddle. "Horses can't haul IRL" is my favorite. Horses IRL get used to carry stuff around in towns and move things around for people resulting in more things getting places faster. They can do that in caravans in game but not in your actual settlement itself, unlike IRL. Them hauling solo was the closest thing we had to them actually doing something reflective of RL albeit in a silly way. They should be following people with a lead to load up a bunch of stuff to avoid extra trips. Now they just sit around and do nothing in a pen.
I want some realism, I don't want rats hauling or rescuing people. So please don't condescend to me about the game being modable as if the entire premise of my statement is without merit. I've been playing since 2014 long before it came to steam. It's come a long way from the 120+ man raids, Ultra killboxes and massive 30+ turret nest of the past. It came all that way by addressing the problems, not from saying mod it. I'm not sure if you meant it that way but it sure read that way to me.
Quote from: Locklave on July 27, 2021, 05:14:10 PM
Quote from: Canute on July 27, 2021, 07:06:57 AM
QuoteThey were perfectly fine for how many years and suddenly they need to change in this patch. Suddenly now they are a problem, a problem no one was complaining about.
I am not happy with the new animals too, but i like it when the devs doing things the community don't ask for ! :-)
It is Ludeon's game, they "maybe" got some reason/idea's for that.
But honestly, who didn't assign some strong to an area, and let them guard/block the front door at this way. While the pawns shoot from behind ? And all this without training.
Luckly, they made the game full modable too. And when you don't like anything, i bet you will find a mod that change it like.
Train All Animals (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2557943599)
I'm not objecting to doing things no one asked for, to be clear. I object to things being nerfed to make something new seem more desirable.
Yes, it's stupid meta play to put animals in the path. Problem however is the raiders don't target non trained animals anymore according to the patch notes. So that problem, by problem I mean people lacking the self control to avoid exploiting, is already resolved.
The animals would still be in the way of movement. And now that raiders no longer attack them, they have no option to remove the block.
Flight is the best option it seems.