[suggestion] Now is a good time to add bodyguard animals

[b0rsuk]

Guard animals and bodyguards. They would follow a certain pawn until very hungry or tired. Unlike colonists, animals have very little else to do - they're mostly idle.

Predators hunt colonists and I'm not sure if the current warning (None, unless you count "colonist needs treatment") will improve or not. If it stays, bodyguard animals would be a very nice and natural counter because they could follow a mobile target (unlike a zone).

There are prison breaks, pretty much instant. If I could somehow attach guard animals to prisoners - or maybe the prison door ? If not, I will put my prison behind my war bear pen.

Hunters no longer do friendly fire. Also, hunters can be set to either "retreat" or "attack" behaviour and it works pretty well. A bowman will retreat from a charging turkey!


SuperCow al rescate!

That's the moment when your pet animal should step in. Currently animals behave like bodyguards when the master is drafted. The problem is the master must be manually controlled, and manual hunting is Not Fun.

Also players fearing an infestation could assign animals to precious (or just slow-moving) colonists.

[NihilRex]

This would be pretty awesome, though I have a feeling it will probably have to wait for A15.

As an interim measure - could we perhaps buy animals from traders that are already trained?  Treat it like weapon grades, Untrained, Poorly Trained, Trained, Well-Trained, and award training points on a semi-random basis inside those categories, and adjust cost accordingly.

[b0rsuk]

One more use case - wilder animals have a chance to attack when taming fails. Having a bodyguard or two would make me much less nervous about taming grizzly bears.

Fun fact: llamas, the prettier version of alpacas, are good guard animals and often used to protect herds. It's in their instict.

[Tynan]

It's a cool idea, but doesn't relate to anything in the test build, so allow me to move it to Suggestions.

[b0rsuk]

If you read carefully, you will note I mentioned a change from the test build.

[b0rsuk]

By the way in temperate biome my hauling trained labradors are getting mauled left and right and there's nothing I can do about it. Three first attacks were harmless, now my dog has lost an eye and a paw before the help came.

When it comes to hunting predators, your animals are deaf, blind and stoned. I could understand if humans were blindsided by sneakier animals with superior senses, but my pet animals have no self-preservation instinct.

To add insult to the injury lifelong disablement, wargs stun labradors on first hit every single time. They can't even run away.