Incentives for livestock

[glob]

At the moment having large herds of livestock is counterproductive, especially in nothern biomes. There's not enough hay for large herds with about 100 heads and more, small herds are useless for larger colonies, more meat is needed for kibble for a single animal to mature than the animal would produce upon slaughter.
A few random suggestions:
1. Make milk matter.
+3 buff "balanced diet" for having eaten today both grain, meat, milk and chocolate. Make pawns actively search for the ingredients, not just pick a random meal.
-3 debuff "unbalanced diet" if had only one the same ingredient more than three straight days.
Increased chance to get problems with heart if had the same ingredient for the whole season straight. Kicks on only after first year of each colonist, to make it easier to start.
Survival rations have all four ingredients, so they are healthy - that would be an incent to buy them out from traders and would help to start a game.
2. Maybe some increase of yield of hay for northern regions?
3. Leftovers and leavings of meals. Each eaten meal generates 1-2 units of leavings, which deteriorates without roof, increases chance of infections, when rotten debuffs pawns the same way as rotten bodies do and can be fed to livestock.
4. Make some northern tamed animals, for example caribou, be able to survive and have need to eat food much less when left on large enough non-pawed surface (16 to 25 units of surface for each animal), even covered with snow. Same with some desert animals.
5. Make pigs mature faster.

[daduhweewah]

agree.

6. Make pig troughs, cow troughs, troughs in general so animal foods can be put in them, I have kibble made and my animals just eat raw meat and cooked meals sometimes still.

[glob]

Maybe add a new item - "Growth hormones". Costs one standard medicine (and maybe plus something else), manufactured in drug lab, applied on animal once per season by doctors, increases growth +50%, decreases speed, attack and everything else -50%, increases risk of heart attacks and other diseases, disables ability to haul for those animal who can. The animal becomes useful only as meat source. Can be turned on and off for each animal in animals menu.

[mumblemumble]

Eh, I'm not sure about this....the big thing can be summed up with this quote

especially in nothern biomes.

Seriously, this reflects real life, cattle and livestock isn't used very much in say, alaska (as far as I know) for this reason. Cattle is mainly fed via grazing, with hay storage for winter, which seems sustainable if you aren't feeding hundereds of animals. Beyond that, kibble made with human flesh is a very, very, VERY cheap way to feed animals, since human flesh is free pretty much with raids, and hay grows easy.

This said, I love the idea of diet, and perhaps poor diet meaning worsened abilities (even by just 5%) But I also fear this would be way too micromanagy...imagine having to not ONLY get enough fruit, vegetables, protean for everyone, but make sure nobody goes without... this sounds like too much.

Honestly I do this with my livestock : Train a dozen pigs for hauling (seriously, a dozen pigs on hauling is CRAZY effective, to the point I can have nobody else hauling on a slow day) Train a few wolves for combat (or huskies)...but be careful until you get a small family going. My male husky adult is pretty much retired, missing 1 leg, and 1 paw and his tail, and having a burn on 1 eye, but NOT before having 2 more puppies...remember, animal incest is ok, so Jr can knock up his mom if daddy dies. And maybe a few muffalo / llamas, because the wool / milk is really helpful (during summer, milk is a free but of extra food) and wool is extra income even if you dont tailor anything.

TBH, its much harder to run a FACTORY FARM, simply because the scale of things is too much. Real factory farms have bulk feed sent in for DIRT cheap, tons of shit EVERYWHERE, and a level of callousness, that means no animal will be bonded with.

Its much better to view animals as low wage, simpler "workers" who do a select few tasks WELL. meat production simply isnt viable in the north.

Also, if I'm honest, muffalo, and pigs are the best animals all around. Pigs for utility (hauling, rescue, even attack since they breed easy, and are simple to train) and muffalo for production of revenue.

Also another little tip (borderline exploit?) is to have a patch of dirt indoors near the animal zone, by a sun lamp, and put it as a growing zone for dandelions or something. This is instantly generated nutrition, and can feed animals reasonably well if you are having trouble. it takes labor, but during cold months, sparing a few hours for free food is worth it.

[glob]

I would agree, but the meat industry it is not just problem of the colder biomes. Even in temperate forest the milk industry is useless, pigs as a reliable source of meat are useless fo larger colony etc. The small herd of llamas is a good thing - with a good tailor they are among the best sources of income. The rest of the animals are useful for hauling only, as they die too fast in combat on harder difficulties, with the "bonded animal death" debuff. Training wolves is also dangerous at the moment - the more non-domesticated tamed animals a colony has the less wild animals would spawn, up to the point of no spawn at all (there's a bug filed on it).

[pfhorrest]

If livestock are buffed for food production, then their use as meat shields who get prioritized by attacking raiders needs to be nerfed.

[mumblemumble]

If livestock are buffed for food production, then their use as meat shields who get prioritized by attacking raiders needs to be nerfed.

Wait... ...what?

How does this work?

Make a muffalo MORE valuable, thus raiders attack it less? That does not compute.

Though I agree, meat for several animals could be more, muffalo, bear, and a few others come to mind.

Oregon trail comes to mind, where shooting rabbits n squirrels gave only a few lbs if lucky, does would give almost 200, and buffalo would give WELL over 200, to the point meat was gaurenteed to be left behind... I think bigger animals could use far more meat, due to this... especially the thrombo.

[pfhorrest]

If livestock are buffed for food production, then their use as meat shields who get prioritized by attacking raiders needs to be nerfed.

Wait... ...what?

How does this work?

Make a muffalo MORE valuable, thus raiders attack it less? That does not compute.

Though I agree, meat for several animals could be more, muffalo, bear, and a few others come to mind.

Oregon trail comes to mind, where shooting rabbits n squirrels gave only a few lbs if lucky, does would give almost 200, and buffalo would give WELL over 200, to the point meat was gaurenteed to be left behind... I think bigger animals could use far more meat, due to this... especially the thrombo.

Raider prioritization of attacking the closest colony member whether it is livestock or a colonist makes no sense because without colonists livestock are defenseless. It makes far more sense for a raider to shoot at a colonist who is shooting at them than at the nearest colony chicken.

[mumblemumble]

Ah I see...so prioritize more THREATENING targets. Yes I agree.

[glob]

Just want to add that I'm not about making the game easier, it is already quite easy to just run a couple of covered hydropharms supplemented with hunting. I'm just looking to make one broken underdeveloped element of the gameplay more useful, up to the point of being neccessary.

[Thraxon]

I beleve the solution could be in implanting new builds and mechanics, but animals would need hunger rebalance.

New mechanic coming with early research :
The straw, unused part of harveted cereals (or wild plants).
It could be used to a new recipes of fodder wich can only be eat by cows, pigs, chicken, goats, sheeps, camels, horses, rabbit etc. Not by dogs.

Pawns should be able to make ranchs equiments and work as a sheperds .
Equipements like feeding boxes, henhouses, instead of just put simple animal sleeping spot.

[Draegon]

This seems like a good idea, animal husbandry is pretty much not worth it right now.