Hauling?

[Bigfoot0485]

Hey Rims!
I really love this great game. According to steam I am playing it for 92h now...

Perhaps someone can answer a question I can't get solved by googling, studiing the manual and so on:
How do I get my animals to transport / haul things from somewhere to my storages?

Or does hauling just mean, that I can use these pets for trade missions?

[Bozobub]

Assuming you have a colonist with high enough animal handling skill, simply open the Animal tab and toggle on training for any/all skills you desire, for each animal. Not all, however, are big/smart enough to train for all tasks and immature animals cannot be fully trained until they grow a bit.  You will also need to set any involved colonists' job priority to prioritize training, as well.

Beware, however, in that this can be both help AND hinder you.  Training animals causes colonists to bond with animals.  While VERY useful for labor/defense/colonist rescue/mood buff, if these animals die for any reason, they can cause a large mood debuff for a long time, possibly triggering a Dwarf Fortress-like "tantrum cascade" at the most extreme case and destroying your colony!  It's not risk-free.

Another point to consider is, if you have too many animals, they'll eat CPU like, well chicken.  In fact, the "Chickpocalypse" is Rimworld's answer to Dwarf Fortress' "Catpocalypse"; rapidly-breeding chickens can easily bring any Rimworld game to a stuttering, jerky halt.

[Stormfox]

Animals that are trained to haul basically fetch some stuff at random every now and then. It is really helpful overall, but not too realiable.

Animals will haul from everywhere, regardless of their zone settings.

[Cracker21]

Once you've successfully trained the animal to haul they will occasionally do so on their own. You CAN NOT tell them to haul anything manually. If the animals needs are currently met, (I.E. food/rest) they will periodically decide to haul random items that need to be hauled provided that they are not forbidden to a stockpile through their allowed area.

Training an Animal to haul takes quite a bit of training through the handler, I believe it takes 7 successful training attempts once you've already trained the obedience "skill" which only requires one successful training. I find that dogs are most likely to haul but maybe that's just a coincidence.   

[Cracker21]

Animals will haul from everywhere, regardless of their zone settings.

I don't think that's true. I may be wrong but i'm pretty sure hauling will only be done if both the Item and Stockpile are in the animal's allowed area.

[Bigfoot0485]

Thanks all to the responses.

I indeed already trained my animals. But I didn't recognize any to haul yet.

If it's randomly happening, and if the mood affects the chance of hauling - well than I am going to take a look on this factor.

I recognize there are two opinions about hauling area. Not just here, but also on some other reddit source there are people who state that only in the assigned area are the animals hauling. Others say, that it doesn't matter. Propably it's something in between? The haul in their area but transport to any storage... ;-)

I am going to keep an eye on that.

Does it make a difference, if I assign my pet to a specific rim? Or are the pets also hauling, if they are assigned to anyone, who is e.g. mining far out of the map?

[RemingtonRyder]

It makes no difference who your pet is assigned to. They will haul occasionally whatever needs hauling, but only if they can access source and destination.

[Cracker21]

Again i'm not sure if its a coincidence or not but i find that dogs haul more than any other animal. I use the German Shepherd Mod and my GSDs [German Shepherd Dog(s)] haul like crazy. Usually non-stop as long as they are rested and fed.

[Stormfox]

I recognize there are two opinions about hauling area. Not just here, but also on some other reddit source there are people who state that only in the assigned area are the animals hauling. Others say, that it doesn't matter. Propably it's something in between? The haul in their area but transport to any storage...

Yeah, sorry, my post was unclear. The *target stockpile* needs to be in their zone, iirc. But my dogs and boars that are restricted to my main building minus the freezer only haul stuff from outside my base fine.