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It's directy related to the number of pawns and animals.

The best stealthiness is 5 for 1 single pawn, then it decreases with each additional pawn down to 0.9. It's a multiplier to mean time between ambushes in a caravan.

The tweaks i'd like to see/mod:

• body size is not taken into account, like the stealthiness of a colonist and a bear (2pawns)= stealthiness of 1 colonist and a squirrel (2pawns)
• nearby pirate bases should have an influence on it, nothing crazy, but like a factor of two +/- gradient when you travel directly around pirate bases
• a special apparel to increase your stealthness: a hood or a cape

There are two work-around:

1/ you name a few muffalos 'logisticsXX' and form a first caravan with tables and beds then a second caravan with everything else, and merge the caravans.

2/ you simply reform your caravan instantly and then split/ merge instantly. When you split, split with one colonist and give this colonist all the useful things, beds, tables, chairs etc... there is no limit to the inventory as long as it's within the carrying capacity of the whole caravan. Merge, then in the next encounter/ lump ressource map this colonist will have all you need in his personal inventory.

1. Are animals useful in combat? Do you use them? If so, why?  If not, why not?

Yes. Yes, mostly in tribal runs or early game in a standard run for my base. Always as an escort for my caravans.

2. Are there annoying/weird points about animals in combat?

After a large ambush, when you've a large number of animals, you've to micro the doc to prio the worst wounds, if you rely on the AI and reform instantly most animals will bleed out to death. Regarding combat per se, i think B18 has done a lot making animals more aggressive and fleeing less to the enemy.

3. How are you using animals in combat?

Early game i train anything for cannon fodder. Mid-end game they're mostly useful to escort caravans. I use masters with personal shields to flank the raiders and overwhelm them in melee combat https://imgur.com/QsllZsy

At some point i sent juvenile boars trained for obedience in pods (20+ per pod), you don't really need release, with obedience they follow their master and attack the targets.

I've done many runs relying on animals, i've had an army of bears, boars, chickens.... but in the end the best animals are boars. They breed fast, they haul during their spare time, they fight well, they can graze, they've a small body size compared to bears (thus smaller threat in a caravan / DPS)...

If anything i'd like to have more viable options with comparable benefit/cost ratio to escort my caravans.

I think it's this bug

I mean if they dig their hole successfully they shouldn't spawn at dawn or in daylight, it makes little sense to have them come to your base just to dig a hole.

I have a few diggey holes on the map. But most vampire raiders burn to death or rush to the colony. That said, with the increase of vampire raiders, if they all successfully dug their hole the map would be littered with diggey holes in the end game. Or maybe they should be able to wake up and leave the map at night.

The timing is key, and the cycles of Cassandra are what crank up the difficulty.

The first raid is an appetizer, then the second raid is always on time, not too soon, not too late, to apply maximum pressure. And repeat with the next cycle.

Randy can send epic shit, but it's rare, most of the time random means random, and raids are not coordinated.

The only downside with Cassandra is it's a little bit too predictible, you know when the cycle ends and have a (relative) safe period.

+1, and by the same token, buff the discount on prices when we visit npc factions. 4% to 10% or 15%, Rimsurance costs are high for travelling

I've been playing a colony with vampire vor 4 years, now they've reached a population of 20, half vampires - half mortals. I've tried to rely on prisoners to get a steady supply of blood. It works fine but then i realized black cats i tamed for fun generate as much blood per day as prisoners or cows (1 unit per day). The only advantage of prisoners being a larger blood mass to refill after raids (https://imgur.com/a/AzmVM)

Maybe the blood mass/ regen rate of blood for animals could be scaled on body size.

Awesome mode, i love it, it blends particularly well with medieval times.

A small detail, but during the blood moon event from H.P. Lovercraft vampires go rotschreck whereas it's dark (0%), iirc they're fine during regular eclipses.

Hi, i've been trying 'faction control' for a tribal only playthrough and it seems great. But day 12 with Cassandra i had still not been raided (vs usually day 5 for the first raid with a drifter).

I've tested a few configurations (with humanoid + tribal raider on and off) and it seems that the storyteller can't fire the first raid with tribespeople. With Cassandra the 35 points are not enough to send a warrior or an archer. With Randy i can fire the first raid when the margin gets above 40 points (= archer or warrior).

I really love the bedroll addition in B18, and did a whole journey with them. But now beds seem a bit OP compared to bedrolls.

In another topic excellent suggestions have been made by scrabbling

What i would consider is:

• Increase the cost of beds and introduce cloth in the recipe. A dining chair is 60 wood, a billars/poker table 110 wood and 80 cloth. A bed would be like 70 wood and 35 cloth. It would mean you could not as casually build/ deconstruct beds to get a high quality bed (superior bed day 1 = .9 comfort, 1.1 rest effectiveness...), and starting with leather bedrolls with endtables and dressers would be a reasonable early game trade off
• Bedrolls recipe is fine, but they could prevent a mood debuff in a caravan for "sleeping on the ground" or give a siginificant mood buff.

Edit: typo

I don't think you've been particularly lucky, you get the AI core offer within a few years. The issue is if you pass/ fail/ don't pay attention to it you've to wait for another offer, and it can take years.

People have been complaining about the difficulty to get the AI core in B18.

A solution would be to make this quest permanent once revealed, like for the landed ship. It would be a special quest, maybe slightly more distant than standard quests, with a specific threat.

Maybe I can dry up a pond for sea-gravel, but that's far in the future.

If you dry up sea ice shallow water, you'll get ice