Pets and Combat, what are your thoughts?

[Cogi276]

I personally think that the pets do pose a problem in combat for sure. They serve as bullet sponges from both sides and are generally not worth letting out into combat. A simple way to reduce the issue would probably be something like an RFID tech to mark your colonists with, the guns jam or such if a bullet would hit your own allies/pets. But that still doesn't stop the pets from soaking up the enemies bullets of course. They could certainly stand to have some armor and also a dodge boost considering they're animals. I don't think this will solve all the problems, but these simple steps could be a huge boost in the right direction.

(Also fixing the melee combat system)

[carbon]

It seems plausible to be able to mount an automated turret on the back of an elephant.

There's also . . . you know . . . the whole space western theme we have going on . . . but no one rides horses . . . or wargs.

[cmitc1]

all animals do in combat is get in the way. I have had a occasion though where one of my smaller dogs bit a raiders head off (lol what?)

[iota_x]

I agree strongly with a combat/non combat training deliniation.

My thought is that animals trained for release should require a lot more training, but result in an animal that resembles a police dog more than hunting dog. They are trained to find a target. They are fast. When they reach a target they recieve a very good chance every few ticks to incapacitate. The pawns remain incapacitated as long as the dog remains.

Maybe this could be a secondary training which is only available to some of the animals which can be trained for resease.

[mumblemumble]

I fear one of my biggest complaints is a complaint on melee in general and how its handled : only handling the hit chance, not damage, or other special effects.

Really, I think melee should be slightly more complex, particularly with animals, latching on, knocking people over, ect. I also think hits on melee should not always do the walk stun, but only some of them, or dependent on damage type / users ability. I also think strike damage / speed should vary on users health, and ability, as well as having a random element. I doubt someone with a hand injury could swing a club as hard, or as fast as a healthy person could.

I also think to an extent, melee skill / other effects should effect DODGE chance. I'm pretty sure a black belt could dodge / avoid a punch much better than a joe shmoe. Similarly, I think a young adult husky could dodge a spear tip better than the old, grey haired bad backed mother, who can barely walk anymore.

I know some of that might SEEM offtopic, but it very much applies to animals.

[dosemeter]

Remember when we could select specific targets with turrets and force fire?
That would be cool for combat animals.
Ideas:
Armor for combat ready animals.
Scyther blades for monkey hands and bear paws...etc.
Buffed jaw replacement for Wargs, Cougars....etc.
Scyther blade/Thrumbo horn antler replacement for horned animals (Elk, Caribou....etc.)

Selecting if the animal flees or attacks when threatened, just like colonists, would be imperative.

[Ciznit]

The only real way I've managed to effectively use animals in combat is to get a huge herd of something and use it to swarm the enemy. ex: Setting the allowed area for a boomalope herd to be the area that an enemy siege is being set up in.  Trying to use them as auxiliary as intended doesn't really work as they just get mowed down by enemy forces.

One thing that would help would be to introduce barding for animals so that they can be tankier.

Another potential solution, though far less trivial, would be to allow colonists to use certain animals as mounts.  With mounts you can expand combat in a lot of ways.  Allow a mount and its rider to both be in melee against the same target, have mounted colonists more likely to hit in melee and less likely to get hit (w/ mount getting hit instead), allow colonists to fire weapons while their mount is moving (albiet at a reduced accuracy).  Heck, even just being able to use a mount to get into a flanking position more quickly would be useful.

[sadpickle]

Pets are mostly bullet sponges; unfortunately, this works both ways. If you're going to use shooters, there's no point wasting them with release.

That said if you can get three or four large animals (Muffalos, or Bears if you're mental) trained to release from one guy, say a brawler, they are quite effective at breaking small raids, especially in the first year. The key is to get them to attack together, so one animal is soaking damage for the others while they close distance. This is doubly effective when you get a melee raid before you have any substantial firepower or melee weapons. You will lose animals, possibly have some mood issues, but the medical training and preservation of colonists makes it totally worthwhile.

How any of this would be improved, I'm not sure. Give handlers more control over higher-intelligence trained pets, perhaps.

[pfhorrest]

Despite being underpowered in every regard, animals are really useful for combat as meat shields & distractions if you're playing Permadeath mode. I'd rather lose a lot of animals than risk letting a colonist get an eye injury for example. I don't particularly think they need a buff other than a small update to make them stay behind colonists when following, or to decrease the % chance of friendly fire hitting friendly animals.

[Thraxon]

Bears are actually really strong as tanks, they got way to much hp, and does go down without dying or loosing arm. They took a week to heal up.
Second meat tanks that work well is .... chickens  They are small are hard to focus, and they kill if use like a swarm with zones.
The other pets are not that good unless you got 20 huskys and don't care to loose.


I beleve the actual problem is more the breeding time/taming time and how bad control pet is, pets runs or idle is the nomanland getting shoot in one sec.

Animals should be redisigned in 4 groups specialisation: food producers, fighters, haulers, and pets. Reproduction need buff when few , nerf when a lot. Animals should eat less (thoses for food specialy)

Skill training need a complete revisit , different skill for the 4 groups.
For fighters, it could be for exemple
-Defend (attack incoming melee )   
-Wear armor (lvl 1 cloths, lvl 2 armor )
-Obey ( full control )
-Combat training: increase damage and dodge ( 5 lvl )

Wear armor lvl 2 could require combat training lvl 5. Obey could require lvl 2 combat training.

We also need peg leg for animals

   

[Respones]

Trained animals may become two types:
- home animals, that can haul items, improve mood at colonists, but when they die his master gets debuff. Also they is more weak that wild animals that type;
- war animals, that can't haul items, do not improve mood, they can only "release the kraken" and when they die his master don't get a debuff. Can wear some armor/personal shield. Eat more food. They also same or stronger that wild type.

[TamTiTam]

I found animals (boars) in bigger numbers quite usefull, especially when attacking a Raid from behind (using map / colony layout).
But only before obtaining higher tech and using the Mod PetFollow to avoid insane micromanaging.
Two Ideas to make them more usefull:

1. (Some) animal-groups should defend their kind when attacked by Wildlife.
Wildlife attacks should be less frequent (why can those creepy wild animals open doors, anyway?)
2.(Untrained) Animals who do not fight should run away from grenades and gunfire - or freeze. Not graze, while they are slaughtered by raiders.
3. Ainmals who are "released" should always instantly run to the next (close) enemy and attack. Maybe give us some control over the direction they run in or the thing the attack.
4. Animals could be faster. A dog should outrun a normal raider.

[Berownie]

Did you ever notice that you have too much to talk about a single topic? I was about to give a full fleshed out review about this topic.

Things that need to be done, told as short as possible:

Taming
instead of running up to an animal each time you want to tame it make it that it can be trapped in a cage and/or lured back to a fenced area, where it will be tamed. this reduces traveltime and makes it more bearable to lose in a fight. of course that will bring up new events to not make it too easy, aka grenade in fenced area results in free meat.

Equipables
Strap a personal shield to an animal. Takes alot training. Maybe 10 successfull sessions? I don't know why this isn't a thing yet. I understand that if every/too many animal run around with it, fighting might get too easy.

Improved AI
Step 1. Make indoor Animalzone for housing them all day
Step 2. Make outdoor Animalzone for fighting
Step 3. Hope the animals are awake and sent them all into outdoor zone as soon as Raiders enter it
Step 4. Scream "Unleash the Hounds" with your evil megamind voice
Step 5. Watch animals like warg, husky and timber wolf mindlessly wandering around awaiting to get shot

In other, more serious words: Make animals fight back or give them an aggro range. What is a Watchdog?

A warg shouldn't need to be tamed to start a mindless berserk frenzy. Can't we just sleepshoot them, put a post in the ground and attach them to it with a chain? They'd happily attack everything that gets into their range

Unique Flavor

Do we want to fight with animals just for the sake of being able to do it or do they add some Unique Flavor to it? I'm thinking huge about Disarming enemies but they are already kinda disarmed as soon as they start melee fighting.



That was it in the shortest possible way keeping in mind what I imagine to be doable in rimworld. I think I could go a whole hour talking about this topic without point and comma

[mraadx]

Animals should be able to wear armor and personal shield. and maybe bionics for their head(skull) and torso too to increase hit points.

[Barley]

Well I wouldn't send my melee fighter into battle without either hiding him around a corner so he isn't shot or giving him a personal shield, so why would I use animals who can't do either of those things and who can't be given artificial enhancements should they lose a limb? At this point animals are just crappy melee fighters.

That said, a pack of huskies make for great post-battle clean-up.