Animal Information Thread + Poll (A17 Updated)

[zandadoum]

boars all the day!

easy to tame and train, can haul, breed extremely well. and good food source too.

about the above comment: when my 30 boars breed (all 30 can haul!) i get usually 10+ small pigs. i just send them into the freezer (have a butcher zone) and then mark them for slaughter.

animal tabs mod helps a lot. anyone with more than 5 animals should really get it.

[LittleGreenStone]

Well, boars are a pretty good pet if you have the capability of feeding them. Although their stats are normal, I have noticed that my colonists tend to be feeding them more than other animals. Also, the baby boars are quite annoying, as they are useless for about a year, before becoming a little bit less useless for another year. That's 2 years of feeding, keeping safe (Possible Colonist Loss) and taking up space before they actually become useful. I would definitely choose the husky over the boar.

You are mistaken I'm afraid.

Hunger rate:            boar: 0.35,      husky: 1.5
Gestation Period:      boar: 26 days, husky: 45 days.
Maturity age:           boar: 0.5,       husky: 1+
Offspring/gestation:  boar: 1,          husky: 1-3

Boars eat less, mature faster, and I'm not sure about reproduction rate, I'd have to do some math there.

[LouisTBR]

Yes, I understand this. I just prefer the husky. I wasn't comparing the two.

[LittleGreenStone]

Yes, I understand this. I just prefer the husky. I wasn't comparing the two.

According to your previous comment, you did not exactly understand it.
Still, I'm not trying to tell you what to like, only to correct it ("That's 2 years" half a year) for others who might decide which animal to pick based their stats.

Sure you can prefer huskies or hares or whatever. 

[LouisTBR]

Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you know that I'M BACK, B****ES!
Yeah, I won't explain, but I thought about bumping this out of usefulness for players. I am currently taking suggestions, so plz feel free to comment!

[Komyets]

I recently tested the usefulness of wild boars and they are much more respectable pets than what I anticipated. Certainly harder to tame or train than other, more common and docile choises, their hauling capability is slightly limited as well, and the shounds they make when their owners are drafted is a bit annoying. But well, they make up for that with plenty of nice traits. Slightly smaller than the common Husky which makes them a bit harder to hit from distance. Neat speed and fair melee damage, their hunger bars certainly deplete slower than a dog's! Im not sure why but it does, which is always a good thing. Their maximun cold comfort threeshold makes them a bit tricky to keep around a cold tundra, if one is not slightly careful, they can suffer from hypothermia, but i took the small challenge. Number of offsprings is average, and the maturity time is of about 11 months. I think they're fine to keep if you manage to obtain some.

I wish i could keep cobras as well lol, but meh, tundra, frigging cold, bad for them :c

[LouisTBR]

Komyets:

Hmm, interesting. They are certainly hard to tame, and they are pretty rare on trade ships, but they are a good thing for a colony to exploit if hauling and cannon fodder is what you need :')

[danjal]

Kinda surprised that with all this input there's no talk of why animals can't be trained to hunt.
Aren't dogs especially known for their use by hunters?

[LittleGreenStone]

Kinda surprised that with all this input there's no talk of why animals can't be trained to hunt.
Aren't dogs especially known for their use by hunters?

At times like these, when you question the absence of certain features, remind yourself the game is still in Alpha state, a work-in-progress. 

Aside from that: you said it yourself, "dogs especially known for their use by hunters".
Dogs were mostly used to sniff out the prey, not to kill it. Pawns do not need it.

Dogs hunting with their master, or on their own, might become a feature, but I don't see much of the upside. Yet...
With mods like Colony Manager, where I can set exactly what kind of animals are to be hunted, it wouldn't be bad; dogs could hunt down squirrels and hare. But elephants? Other dogs? Cobras?
Would be risky, and a mistake could easily result in a dead dog.
If you set an elephant to be hunted, how will you make your colonist go for it instead of a dog?
If they go together, will the elephant charge the colonist, instead of impaling your dog?
Will you have to micro-manage it, based on what you want to hunt, all the time?

I'm still waiting for animal armors, (with visuals! ),
and if animals could hunt in packs, it'd be even better.
Also, if vanilla would include CM's auto-hunt feature, that'd be great too.
That's not one, but four feature already, which would make hunting much easier for sure.

Anyway, in case you want it, think it through and make a detailed suggestion so Tynan can consider it, if he hadn't already.

Not a bad idea, just incomplete.

[LouisTBR]

LittleGreenStone!

Wow... there's some really cool ideas there!

Doggie Armour!!!!!!

[Shurp]

What controls your starting pet?  I was thinking of modding to start with two pigs instead of one yorkie, is this doable or is it hard coded?

[LittleGreenStone]

What controls your starting pet?  I was thinking of modding to start with two pigs instead of one yorkie, is this doable or is it hard coded?

It's random, as far as I know.
Get the mod called "EdB Prepare carefully", with it you can set what pet you want to start with, along with many other things, like guns, food, resources, pawns, their number, appearance, gear, gender, age, skills, etcetera, etcetera...

Although if you can't hold yourself back from "cheating", perhaps you shouldn't use it.
There is an amount of points you have that is decreased as you increase their skills and/or add more resources/items to start with, but with a push of a button you may disable it, and start with up to 10 "super colonists", in power armor, with 20 shooting skill, sniper rifles, bionics, and of course more resources than your colony would ever need.

It could easily take the fun out of the game.

LittleGreenStone!

Wow... there's some really cool ideas there!

Doggie Armour!!!!!!

Thanks! I was thinking of an army of armored muffalos, but whatever floats your boat.

[LouisTBR]

LittleGreenStone

You have just made my day! What an image!

[LeoTessa]

Got a warg, training it its hard as heck

[LouisTBR]

Yeah, they are a bitch to train 

I would recommend training them in release ASAP, because they have to be the deadliest animal (bar Thrumbos) against incoming raiders.