Messages

you can currently use zoning to solve several of your problems.

You can easily have animals vacate any dangerous area.  Set up another zone (be proactive and have a shelter zone set up ahead of time!) and restrict animals to that zone.  Animals will complete their current tasks (for most of them, that will be wandering a few steps or munching some grass, but haulers will be slower to get to safety, just like pawns on long trips) and then move to the restricted zone.  This does not work at night while animals are sleeping, which frankly is a problem, but it DOES work otherwise (it might be possible to have animals trained in obedience wake up to follow their master, then turn off "follow master" and set the zone restriction)

Same goes for animal nuzzling.  Labs don't nuzzle much.  If you want mucho nuzzling, use cats and yorkies.  Set their restricted zones to high traffic hallways and workrooms (ONLY next to "saved progress" workstations, like smith table, machining, tailoring, research...not butchering, cooking, stonecutting, etc where interrupted work restarts the task).  This will maximize the number of pawns moving near the pets, while keeping them out of places like bedrooms, where they can disturb sleep.  Extended periods of time wandering around outside the base or hunting for food will drastically RESTRICT the amount of time that pets will nuzzle.

I actually hadn't thought of that, you've made a very good point. The nuzzle and safety concerns that I've brought up in the OP aren't as much of an issue as I originally had thought, but rather an issue of my own inexperience with the already present zoning system.

As GarettZriwin pointed out, some pets that nuzzle a lot, such as yorkies, require very little food. My original suggestion of bumping nuzzle rates would most likely be even more overpowered, as having a couple of yorkies restricted to high-traffic areas would cause a ridiculous amount of nuzzling.

[*]

I've found animals to be completely worthless during a raid. I can't command them to go to a specific position, they spread out when following their drafted master (in this example, a melee pawn) and end up getting shot, and I can't tell them to get out of a dangerous area.*
Not only that, but they're worthless as domestic pets as well. Even my cats and Labradors rarely nuzzle and even more rarely bond, despite being around colonists 24/7.*

*As limdood pointed out, zoning avoids these problems.


My idea to help solve this is to up the nuzzle rate, nerf the nuzzle mood bonus to +2 instead of +4 to prevent it from being OP, and* allow limited control of animals.

*As GarettZriwin pointed out, small pets such as Yorkies have high nuzzle rates as is. Combined with Limdood's argument, raising the nuzzle rate would make them even more overpowered.

To command pets, I propose having two new training options. One of which is to move to a specific place, and the other would be to attack. There'd be a limited radius from where they could move, in which the center of the radius is the master.
To further emphasize the idea of a colonist commanding the animal (rather than it psychically knowing what exactly the master wants), there could numerous training "levels" for both of the new commands, directly affecting the chance of the animal listening and/or going to the correct location.


I think that being able to command an animal to rescue a certain pawn, provided that it's within the master's command radius, would be a nice addition too.


This way, pets would be more useful in combat situation while not replacing melee colonists. Pets will not be able to be commanded to haul a specific stack of items, to prevent them from becoming too useful. The radius would be medium-sized, perhaps the range of a rifle, so that the master would have to be nearby. Furthermore, animals currently have pitiful DPS, so they would continue being a supplement to a dedicated melee pawn rather than a full replacement. Also, unlike a melee pawn, they still wouldn't be able to use shields nor armor. As domestic buddies, a smaller nuzzle bonus and a higher nuzzle rate would balance out their food consumption. Because this would make animals bond faster, it would result in it being risky to lose a pet as their bonded pawn would have a soured mood (and potential tantrum spirals) for weeks.
Also, as a little detail, perhaps pet-like animals could tend to wander inside their master's radius? I always found it a bit odd that my dogs didn't actually spend more time with the people that they were bonded/loyal to. (To rephrase this, I find it odd that my dogs don't actually 'follow' their master around or stay near them. IRL dogs tend to hang out around their owners, why not in Rimworld? It'd be a cute detail.)

Just curious, are advanced bionics planned to be added?

I've discovered a problem when carnivore pets, such as panthers, hunt their own food.

They pick something their size such as a boar or a turtle and get wounded while killing it, and end up spending several hours resting. This results in either wasted medicine or an animal covered in scars. Would it be possible to have them hunt smaller prey?

Theres an xml tag for <useHitPoints>True</useHitPoints>, havent tested it but changing this on all the defs in a mod might do it.

...Oh. I feel kinda dumb now.

Not only was that in the class I was editing, it also happens to be the class that all of the mods that I have installed use as a 'base' for their items.

Thank you so much, it seems to be working just fine.

It's a bit too micromanagement-y for me, and I've spent the better part of an hour trying to Google ways to remove or circumvent it.


I've already edited Apparel_Various to have deterioration rate at 0, so high-tec power armour no longer degrades while on the ground. However, bullets still affect the durability of worn items. It's a feature that works as intended, and I want to make it not work as intended. How would I go about doing that? Should I just manually edit each wearable item to have a ridiculous amount of HP?

Just curious, is there a link for the A15 version of no RNG death?

Remove the functionality from scars (but have them there as a bit of decoration, to show that someone's gone through some serious stuff), and replace them with muscle damage, tissue damage, and bone damage.
It would make a lot more sense than scars somehow impairing functionality, and it would still provide an incentive to use better quality medicine.

I'm sure many of the players of rimworld would NOT have that incentive.  In fact i'd be willing to bet 50%+ of the people who read your post would FIRST think "i wonder how many scars i could accumulate on my colonists...?"

would love to see more descriptive minor injury names/descriptions.  Hand scar?  why not carpal tunnel?  functionally the same!  Leg or foot scar?  what about slight limp or gamy leg?  Eyes already have cataracts, moving and manip already have bad back and frail.  Why not keep those "pregenerated" injuries sounding interesting? 

This way scars accumulated really WOULD be interesting.

That's what I suggested. Scars would be functionless (but still there as a reminder of a battle and bad medical care), but there would be new limb injuries that do not heal.

Remove the functionality from scars (but have them there as a bit of decoration, to show that someone's gone through some serious stuff), and replace them with muscle damage, tissue damage, and bone damage.
It would make a lot more sense than scars somehow impairing functionality, and it would still provide an incentive to use better quality medicine.

So my pipes refuse to connect...

Creating a new world worked, actually.
For some reason, I thought that I had to create a completely new colony and it would only work on that colony.

Just curious, does the mod only initialize on world creation? I've taken a peek at ASA's source, and I've found MapComponentUpdate() is the function that handles most of the operation tab creation.
I didn't find an event call anywhere, so I'm assuming the game only fires MapComponentUpdate() on map creation.
Is that the only way to call the mod? There has got to be a more surefire way.

Doesn't work.
I have ASA loaded right after core and CCL loads, and I load ADS right after ASA. I still don't have a surgery tab.
I don't have any UI mods.

I've heard that making a new world will make it appear, but I honestly don't want to lose my colony.