1. Are animals useful in combat? Do you use them? If so, why? If not, why not?
Against raids I do not release them to attack. Others have covered the pain points already, but mainly it's the friendly fire problem. They just get massacred by your own salvos, and even if they get into attack range there's little benefit. Basically, if you care about min/maxing your combat at all you're building some kind of killzone, and sending animals charging into your killzone basically defeats the whole point.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned wrt "combat", however, is the usage of animals as hunting companions. If my animal tamer has enough shooting to go hunting, an animal companion is solid for tagging along and helping out in animal revenge situations. But this is usually a bit of a gamble once the pet learns hauling, since they might be across the map when I need them to come running. Some kind of "follow while hunting" option might be cool there?
2. Are there annoying/weird points about animals in combat?
The classic "doh" moment is usually when drafting my tamer caused a bonded animal to run to him and, because the animal was off hauling stuff, it bee-lined into a killzone or did something else incredibly stupid. Not sure how to fix this though, the draft behavior is sometimes useful so it's a tradeoff.
3. How are you using animals in combat?
If my tamers have to fight, I keep my tamers in the very back of the line with animals next to them. The animals never really contribute unless shit hits the fan, at which point a few extra bodies can sometimes make the difference. To this end, I stopped training "Release" on my animals anymore.
Also, I second the point about managing animal feed (kibble or hay) being a bit of a micro nightmare that usually ends in starvation anyways. Being able to predict the amount of hay I need to survive through a winter is difficult and animals really seem to run through it.
Against raids I do not release them to attack. Others have covered the pain points already, but mainly it's the friendly fire problem. They just get massacred by your own salvos, and even if they get into attack range there's little benefit. Basically, if you care about min/maxing your combat at all you're building some kind of killzone, and sending animals charging into your killzone basically defeats the whole point.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned wrt "combat", however, is the usage of animals as hunting companions. If my animal tamer has enough shooting to go hunting, an animal companion is solid for tagging along and helping out in animal revenge situations. But this is usually a bit of a gamble once the pet learns hauling, since they might be across the map when I need them to come running. Some kind of "follow while hunting" option might be cool there?
2. Are there annoying/weird points about animals in combat?
The classic "doh" moment is usually when drafting my tamer caused a bonded animal to run to him and, because the animal was off hauling stuff, it bee-lined into a killzone or did something else incredibly stupid. Not sure how to fix this though, the draft behavior is sometimes useful so it's a tradeoff.
3. How are you using animals in combat?
If my tamers have to fight, I keep my tamers in the very back of the line with animals next to them. The animals never really contribute unless shit hits the fan, at which point a few extra bodies can sometimes make the difference. To this end, I stopped training "Release" on my animals anymore.
Also, I second the point about managing animal feed (kibble or hay) being a bit of a micro nightmare that usually ends in starvation anyways. Being able to predict the amount of hay I need to survive through a winter is difficult and animals really seem to run through it.