Advanced Animals

Started by FelisVulpes, October 17, 2015, 02:21:53 PM

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FelisVulpes

The addition of animals to the game is absolutely fantastic; I love it! And I'm always absolutely heartbroken when I lose a dog or have to slaughter my animals due to starvation. But there are a few little things here and there that I think could do with some changing up!

Firstly: Animal Statistics
Like your colonists, I think animals should have skills; Learning, Fighting, Running, things along those lines. The more a dog an animal learns, the faster it starts to learn things, if you're lucky you might get a dog that starts with a high learning skill, or has a "fast learner" trait! Or even both; both! It would make some really interesting additions to how your pets work, and maybe you could breed these traits and skills down to get your ultimate herd of beasties.

Secondly: Renaming
The ability to rename your animals! Honestly, I feel a little bit sad just giving all of my chickens numbers, and it really does it to my OCD when chicken 2 dies, and I just have chicken 1 and chicken 3. It would just be nice to be able to add a little personal touch, like you can give your colonists "nicknames".

Thirdly: Animal Backgrounds
Relating back to animal skills, much like the human backgrounds which add positives and negatives on specific skill sets, it would be interesting to see animals with backgrounds! To use dogs as an example, you might have a dog who has the background "Rescue Dog", making them quite skittish, and unable to do "Scary", AKA fighting. Or you might have a dog with the background "Pit Fighter", whilst this dog is lovely and fluffy now, he's quite strong and excels in combat! Or maybe a dog with the background "Farmed Puppy", who has a de-buff to fighting and hauling, but because she's still all gorgeous and cuddly, she's extra good at cheering up colonists! Which brings me to my fourth point...

Fourthly: Colonist Effects
Animals and Colonists should have effects on each other! I noticed in my latest game that my colonists get upset when they share a room with an animal. Personally, myself, if my dog or cat sleeps in my room or on my bed I feel absolutely honoured! I feel like colonists should get a slight happiness boost when an animal sleeps in their room, and a more significant boost if the animal belongs to that colonist; and vice versa for animals! But you could end up with animals getting negatives from failing to be trained, or from accidentally being hurt by their master, or they could get perks from succeeding at a training lesson, or from the implementation of treats! There should also be an interaction aspect, which I don't think should be down to the handling skill, but purely as a Joy activity; all colonists can interact with animals who have been trained in "Obedience" (As then, they're more like pets!), and they get joy out of it! If an Obedient animal hasn't been played with for a while (I feel like time should depend on the animal; dogs get a lot lonelier than cats in the real world!), they should get a de-buff which makes them sad, and perhaps slower to work.

Fifthly: Mounts!
I would love to see some of the large animals be usable as mounts! I think it should be a training skill that takes maybe 16 attempts? Double that of hauling, and then the animal requires a saddle! Colonists using the mount should be able to fight without interruption, but only the "master" of the animal can mount. Melee stuff would be affective whilst mounted, and ditto with bows, but guns should be more difficult to shoot whilst mounted. Certain mounts (like wargs, and potentially thrumbos) should be able to attack. If the mount is killed, the colonist is instantly incapacitated, as realistically when riding a horse, if your horse had fallen in battle, you were likely to get stuck underneath it, or have various bones broken. Perhaps this could come with the addition of horses! :D

And of course, I'd love to see the addition of cats and foxes.


I think those are all of my ideas for now. I know that this is definitely not an easy task, and it's not something I expect soon or at all ever, as I know it may be difficult to do, but it's definitely something I hope for! If y'all have any suggestions, just let me know! Cheers!
FOX :D

MultiDavid

Quote from: FelisVulpes on October 17, 2015, 02:21:53 PM
The addition of animals to the game is absolutely fantastic; I love it! And I'm always absolutely heartbroken when I lose a dog or have to slaughter my animals due to starvation. But there are a few little things here and there that I think could do with some changing up!

Firstly: Animal Statistics
Like your colonists, I think animals should have skills; Learning, Fighting, Running, things along those lines. The more a dog an animal learns, the faster it starts to learn things, if you're lucky you might get a dog that starts with a high learning skill, or has a "fast learner" trait! Or even both; both! It would make some really interesting additions to how your pets work, and maybe you could breed these traits and skills down to get your ultimate herd of beasties.

Secondly: Renaming
The ability to rename your animals! Honestly, I feel a little bit sad just giving all of my chickens numbers, and it really does it to my OCD when chicken 2 dies, and I just have chicken 1 and chicken 3. It would just be nice to be able to add a little personal touch, like you can give your colonists "nicknames".

Thirdly: Animal Backgrounds
Relating back to animal skills, much like the human backgrounds which add positives and negatives on specific skill sets, it would be interesting to see animals with backgrounds! To use dogs as an example, you might have a dog who has the background "Rescue Dog", making them quite skittish, and unable to do "Scary", AKA fighting. Or you might have a dog with the background "Pit Fighter", whilst this dog is lovely and fluffy now, he's quite strong and excels in combat! Or maybe a dog with the background "Farmed Puppy", who has a de-buff to fighting and hauling, but because she's still all gorgeous and cuddly, she's extra good at cheering up colonists! Which brings me to my fourth point...

Fourthly: Colonist Effects
Animals and Colonists should have effects on each other! I noticed in my latest game that my colonists get upset when they share a room with an animal. Personally, myself, if my dog or cat sleeps in my room or on my bed I feel absolutely honoured! I feel like colonists should get a slight happiness boost when an animal sleeps in their room, and a more significant boost if the animal belongs to that colonist; and vice versa for animals! But you could end up with animals getting negatives from failing to be trained, or from accidentally being hurt by their master, or they could get perks from succeeding at a training lesson, or from the implementation of treats! There should also be an interaction aspect, which I don't think should be down to the handling skill, but purely as a Joy activity; all colonists can interact with animals who have been trained in "Obedience" (As then, they're more like pets!), and they get joy out of it! If an Obedient animal hasn't been played with for a while (I feel like time should depend on the animal; dogs get a lot lonelier than cats in the real world!), they should get a de-buff which makes them sad, and perhaps slower to work.

Fifthly: Mounts!
I would love to see some of the large animals be usable as mounts! I think it should be a training skill that takes maybe 16 attempts? Double that of hauling, and then the animal requires a saddle! Colonists using the mount should be able to fight without interruption, but only the "master" of the animal can mount. Melee stuff would be affective whilst mounted, and ditto with bows, but guns should be more difficult to shoot whilst mounted. Certain mounts (like wargs, and potentially thrumbos) should be able to attack. If the mount is killed, the colonist is instantly incapacitated, as realistically when riding a horse, if your horse had fallen in battle, you were likely to get stuck underneath it, or have various bones broken. Perhaps this could come with the addition of horses! :D

And of course, I'd love to see the addition of cats and foxes.


I think those are all of my ideas for now. I know that this is definitely not an easy task, and it's not something I expect soon or at all ever, as I know it may be difficult to do, but it's definitely something I hope for! If y'all have any suggestions, just let me know! Cheers!

I like one, two, four and five, though im not sure how 5 would work since there is nothing like it currently in game.

FelisVulpes

Well from what I've heard there is the possible implementation of vehicles in Rimworld's future, though I'm not sure how true that is. Maybe the mounts could tie in with that!
FOX :D

Loki88

There's already a mod with mounts in it! I believe their example picture is of alpaca cavalry. So mounts are already a thing, they just need some tweaking and fixes. The vanillafication.

Its the tools for haul mod I believe if you wanna have a peek for now.

FelisVulpes

Ooh! Thank you very much for letting me know about the mod! Could you possibly throw a link my way? And as fantastic as mods are, it is still an option I'd love to see in vanilla!
FOX :D