How to defend against hungry animals?

[Goldenpotatoes]

My biggest gripe is that predators who start hunting are 100% dead set on killing/eating their chosen prey, even when theyre being bashed on by 3 different pawns. If a larger predator whose harder to take down gets in a hit, that colonist is fucked unless you have something that can almost instantly incapp it, because it won't stop attacking its prey till either it dies or they do.

I make it a priority to get hunters shotguns. Fun fact, you can draft a colonist and force them to fire point-blank, even if they're being melee'd. The amount of timber wolves I had try to tango with shotgun hunters and become a free meal is enough to warrant my need to rush for shotguns.

[Shurp]

Here's a 100% effective way of dealing with predators that doesn't involve much micromanagement:

Load your autosave after your colonist gets eaten.  Then go kill that predator.

If the game is going to be stupid, be stupid right back at it

[Stormfox]

Here's a 100% effective way of dealing with predators that doesn't involve much micromanagement:

Load your autosave after your colonist gets eaten.  Then go kill that predator.

If the game is going to be stupid, be stupid right back at it

No disagreement there. It is exactly how I tend to deal with that.

[b0rsuk]

For some outdoor activities like taming and hunting you can assign an animal bodyguard ! It needs to be trained with obedience, and it will automatically follow although it tends to trail behind. You can change which animals escort your colonist in the animal tab. Unfortunately I don't think it works for mining.

[b0rsuk]

It also helps to have your miners, hunters and so on work on the night shift. At night, all predators sleep (!).

[hwfanatic]

It also helps to have your miners, hunters and so on work on the night shift. At night, all predators sleep (!).

Not bad advice, even if not a night owl.

A physical barrier around your base if your best bet. Also, most animals are slower than most your pawns. Those pawns that (due to various health issues) are slower than 4,4 or thereabouts, restrict to your enclosed home zone.

[b0rsuk]

Even when they're not slower, it's often good to just ignore them and make them run away towards other colonists (who are drafted and coming to help). Today I had a builder hit by a polar bear in what looked like a hopeless situation ! I drafted Van Doom and ordered her to run away, while a spear and a great bow were coming for help. My colony is on the edge of a map because that's where some rocks and a geyser are. Van Doom was building a second stage perimeter wall to claim extra ground for hospital, laboratory and bedrooms.

Surprise, animals, even faster have trouble killing prey who is running away ! A pawn slows down when attacked in melee, but the attacker stops completely! You're actually gaining ground on him. I call it Warcraftitis, because it was first prominently featured in Warcraft 1: Orcs and Humans. I mean the mechanic where melee attacker has to stop to strike while the running away unit can keep moving.

Just be careful with drafting. If the colonist is already in melee range, drafting him will cause an instant attack, slowing you down. This is not what you want. If you're already in melee range, wait a bit and rely on automatic "cowering" until there's a gap. Then it's safe to draft.

[Thyme]

Predators are not so much an issue if there's enough prey for them to feed on. In Ice Sheet, regularily searching for predators is mandatory (except you got Colony Mangager). You gotta get them before they get you! Most predators are also faster, which makes outrunning futile. b0rsuk's glitch only works when the predator actually misses its victim, else it gets stunned and is trapped there!

Pausing, drafting, giving command, unpausing is the way to avoid misbehaving pawns (auto attack or other stupid action)

[b0rsuk]

My gripe is that predators prefer living prey to carrion. Most carnivorous animals will be very happy to eat an animal that is already dead. There's even a wonderful documentary "Hyenas of Harer" (Harar), made by Planete, where they show Harar, a (low-tech) city where hyenas were an issue and they used to kill livestock. The elders came up with an idea: feed the hyenas. They leave meat and especially remnants from butchers in the open. Hyenas feast on those and leave everyone alone, even city dogs and cats. They skulk the city at night and clean it. A few people even make money off tourists by feeding wild hyenas by hand. They're quite shy and don't tame, but that doesn't stop them from snatching meat from their hands. They went so far as to make special openings in city walls so hyenas can enter whenever they want.

The inhabitants have funny beliefs about the hyenas, for example that they eat djinns and demons, and no djinn can go near Harar. A woman was shown saying she likes listening to hyena sounds at night, it makes her calm and she sleeps better.

Back to Rimworld. Leaving meat in the open (you can place it on an equipment rack and it won't deteriorate) doesn't make predators prefer it. But you can send a colonist to tame predators just to feed them, then they will leave you alone. Whenever you actually do tame one, butcher it and feed to other predators. It may seem like asking for trouble (all predators have a tiny chance of attacking on failure), but at least you can control who is likely to get attacked. So make it the person with nice Melee skill, give him a helmet, an armor vest, a duster, a good weapon, and maybe an animal bodyguard.

[Thyme]

Assigning predators for taming (great animal skill training!) has to be done manually (again, not with Colony Manager ). It's also less safe and more work intense than hunting, but there are benefits different from hunting. Guess it's worth a try.

PS: Had a muffalo herd wander in my Ice Sheet. Was so happy to finally get muffalos, placed a stack of rice outside, but those stupid animals didn't know that there was food and started to go hungry near the edge of the map. Could tame only one before they wandered ... Muffalo manhunter pack! Seven hells, Christmas and Easter on the same day? Rescued some of them, they ended up trapped in my Husky lair where I kept them fed untill I tamed them. One of them somehow escaped and wandered around the area where 20 muffalo corpses waited for hauling (herd location?) with said rice stack 30-40 tiles away. Muffalo female started to go hungry, not knowing that an accessible pile of rice waits not far away. Long story short, predators might end up hunting your pawns and pets anyway. Their target gets reassigned when the current one hides behind a door tho. b0rsuk, have you actually tried your suggestion?

[b0rsuk]

Yes, I have. I fed some bears so they stayed away. But this doesn't account for new bears that migrate in.

Mufallos and the like seem to have a certain range of food detection. I placed stacks of food outside a few alphas ago and they actually hanged around my colony. I mean it's not a very reliable method but it works.

But in my opinion any creative method is better than "I'll download a mod that removes it".

[Thyme]

You shouldn't download Colony Manager just to get rid of that single problem. I just like to advertise the mods I use whenever their functions help.

[SpaceDorf]

Yes, I have. I fed some bears so they stayed away. But this doesn't account for new bears that migrate in.

Mufallos and the like seem to have a certain range of food detection. I placed stacks of food outside a few alphas ago and they actually hanged around my colony. I mean it's not a very reliable method but it works.

But in my opinion any creative method is better than "I'll download a mod that removes it".

Again, Bears make perfect pets .. they can haul, hunt for themselves and with their stun ability they win a 1vs1 against wargs every time ..
puny wolf not biting my human !

[Perq]

Hello o/
I'm new around here, got an idea that might fix the problem in future iterations.

I think that hunters could be assigned to exterminate given type of animals, and when they are assigned for extermination, they are treated as enemies (so that turrets will auto-fire on them). Just like pawn collecting rocks to make bricks, hunters would hunt animals whenever they are assigned the job and there is an animal of given type present. That said, I'd also love to see melee hunters being a thing. :V

Same thing could be made with taming.

[Stormfox]

Perq, to extend on that concept:

Hunters should consider predators enemies and prioritize hunting all predators in a certain distance to the home territory before anything else. Hunters should also always form teams if possible when doing so.