How can we improve the design of animals in combat?

[Destructively Phased]

1. I hardly use animals in combat. The issue is that to train and maintain an army of animals takes extensive time and costs, so that rather than training release, it can be far more worth to train an animal to haul, as then you get time back. Breeding and training combat animals just takes to long to build up a decent force.

2. Most annoying thing woud have to be how, with say wargs, you can release 5 or 6 of them and the raiders just focus fire on them mowing them down. While these animals are supposed to be terrifying, no one flinches away, not even tribals.

3. Not at all. The only time animals in my colony see combat is either the early game, before I have a safe area for animals or if they are too far away from the base when a raid arrives.

[silversalmon]

Like others have said a higher-tiered training where I can manually pick targets for my animals.  Also if I could manually set them to "protect" a pawn/animal or even an "object" of my choosing would be pretty amazing

I used animals for combat in my last play-through for the first time.  I only used them with my brawler for the last line of defense or mop up duty etc.

Thanks for the amazing game brother!

[Mihsan]

1. Are animals useful in combat? Do you use them? If so, why?  If not, why not?

1. At early stages - yes very useful. Bunch of dogs or even elephants can give major (if not single) reason in defeating enemy raids. And while losing animals is bad - it is still much better than losing people (losing animals = saving people's lives). At late stages - no, not at all and for many reasons: it is more risky (because of doomsday and inferno launchers mostly, but also because of better weapons in general) and less rewarding, less reasonable (your colony can fight safe enough w/o using animals at all); plus at this point losing animals = losing morale. There is also performance issue - when I just cant have 300 huskies in reserve (which is adequate number of huskies agains raids on my colony). In all of my late games I always end up shifting from combat animals to only "economical" ones, who generate wool/milk/meat, can haul and/or travel with caravans; using and losing them in combat is a waste. I might consider reinforcing lategame caravan with combat animals, but it is too much discomfort of fighting against interface to bother.

2. Are there annoying/weird points about animals in combat?

2.1. My major issue - swarming of animals around master. It is just asking for friendly fire or use of some AOE weapon from enemy. There really must be some level of direct controll over animals (at least "go over there and wait" order).

2.2. General inconvenience of interface to deal with large numbers of animals. Switching masters or "follow master" options - it can be done only for one animal at a time; it gets worse when I need to use different kinds of animals (boomalopes, fast animls, tank'ish animals) in different combats; multiply this on problems of world map travel when I need to quickly change master of muffalos during world map encounter, or master left his animals in colony and they need new master to fight in raid. Too much clicks to bother. It asks to add some new feature like grouping of animals (to manage animals as a group instead of individuals).

2.3. Very annoying feature: assignment of animal mastery to it's trainer. For small colony? It works ok. For big colony with many animals and trainers? It ends up in a mess of most of my animals rest safely in a barn, while some newly trained puppies will follow random masters on the battlefield and be killed by a stray bullet. It kills puppies, Tynan!

2.4. Brain damages on large animals. I have built giant tribal colony mostly on using elephants in combat (no way I would survive that long without them). But at some point I had to stop using them in combat at all because of multiple brain damages on most of them - it was literally THE reason. About 50% of all animals could barely walk; two pregnant females could not walk at all; only couple of newly tamed elephants did not had any brain damage. But this problem might be caused by just something beign off with brain damage in general in last build (especially in connection with reworked melee).

3. How are you using animals in combat?

3. The most typical example: my soldiers take cover in front, my animals with master stay behind and to the side. Enemy engages my soldiers; after a bit of firefight I send my animals to attack from a flank together with melee guys. But against weak threat I can send animals right away. And against some threats I might not use them at all (like mechanoids with inferno launchers).

[king komodo]

I do use them (more out of forgetting that they're tied to a drafted colonist) and they're useful for protecting a colonist from melee attackers as long as they're not getting shot by friendly fire at the same time. But yes the mood debuff/mental break is a bit of an issue if you lose one. Perhaps a "Died honorably in combat." buff might be something to counteract that. And perhaps allowing such animals to be buried in graves or sarcophagi would be a good idea. All of the above said I do use the "A Dog Said..." mod which makes most of the other complaints a bit easier to deal with, so perhaps something along those lines as far as prosthetics/bionics would probably go a long way to making animal combat easier to stomach. EDIT: I also saw someone mention making the shield belts able to be put on animals as being a good idea to counter this and I second that one idea as well.

[Ser Kitteh]

1. Animals are useful bullet sponges early game and vital for my tribal runs. After a point that is usually getting enough firepower, they cease to be combat animals and turn only to pack/haul/cattle animals.

The exception is of course during caravan ambushes in which case they're as valuable in combat as in early game.

2. The most annoying thing about animals in combat is after training them they autoset to follow when going outside or drafted.

The second most annoying is their inability to stay behind my shooter and Fido gets gunned down by a minigun. This is less of an issue with melee handlers but very much so with shooting handlers. Either animals stay behind or in a preset zone OR the chance to shoot your battle boars is reduced greatly.

The third annoying thing is they never really chase who I want to chase. During battle this is less of an issue but post battle, I'd prefer they prioritise enemies that are fleeing.

3. As how I personally use them, as said in point 1, as tanks. My battle animals consist mostly of boars, bears, wargs and muffalo. Never dogs because they're strictly hauling animals and after a point mufallo are prized for wool and milk.

In short: animals need a buff if not in controls (perhaps advanved training lets them hunt down specific targets?) or more agile and faster.

[krale]

1. They are extremely useful in combat early on, before you can make turret. Mostly because they can prevent your colonist from getting hurt. and when raiding enemy base (via caravan), they kinda feel like cheap decoy you send out to get killed while a few colonist deal with the turret. If one die, it doesn't affect the colony.

2. When facing an animal in combat, I think its kinda dumb that colonist and raider default to melee attack instead of using their gun. Also, mass-taming can be annoying, but that's not really combat-related.

3. When I get raided, I release them and wait until its safe for my colonist to get in range and shoot to prevent injuries. They mostly act as a tank, disabling enemy while your colonist do all the damage.

In caravans, they are a cheap replaceable meat shield. Which allow you to send caravan with only a few colonist and still be safe from attack.

IMO, they can be quite game-breaking. I think it would be more realistic if the animal could be frightened from gun fire. Because right now, they feel like robot that you command to attack.

On a side-note: it would be really cool if raider could arrive with tamed animal!

[Bozobub]

I think the idea of war/attack-trained animals that give no debuff on the animal's death has some merit, even if it comes at the expense of using the animal for hauling tasks (which makes some sense anyway).

Personally, I tend to focus animal training/bonding on melee pawns, partially avoiding friendly-fire issues (while buffing melee pawns, which *badly* need it).

[Alenerel]

I think they are very useful at combat, specially the specialized ones like wolves, wargs, dogs, etc but I dont use them because its a hassle. You have to train them, which takes time, cant tell them who to attack to and if you lose them your animal master will be sad.

Also the thrumbo, even if you get somehow one of them, its just not worth it. Sure, it can deal with 5 guys with pistols alone, but thats the max he can do, and the price is an absurd amount of food and a very high chance of a permanent injury, which its also a problem for the other animals.

There is also the topic about chickens and similar, which you could zone into the enemy and send 500 chickens and they will absolutely obliterate them. I dont know if this is fixed or not cause I havent played the game since some time... But it feels cheap. If this doesnt happen anymore, just ignore this paragraph.

[pmcd124]

1. In my opinion they can be useful but I personally don't utilize animals in combat. Mostly because I find that the time I put into training and feeding the animal is wasted when I finally use them in combat. About 50% of the time one of my colonists ends up killing it in friendly fire or it'll be killed almost immediately. If not crippled permanently.

2. Yes, animals straying away from their handlers, usually over sandbags and barriers, wandering straight into the line of fire.

3. I'm generally not, I might be an outlier but personally I've never had a animal that has been essential in combat.

Hope progress on 1.0 goes well, thanks!

[penemue]

1) I used them mostly during early game, they can be a game changer when you don't have good weapons.

2) Contrary to what I think about them in melee combat, my experience with them has been really bad whenever there are ranged weapons involved. Especially with spraying weapons, they get hit quite a lot and get themselves killed instead of fleeing.

3) I use them mostly for tribal raids during early game, coupled with a melee fighter. They're good enough during 1v1 melee situations to make a decisive change.

[Hadley]

You should be able to give Animals Armor! I never use them in Combat because I dont wont them to die. If you could give your Elephant Armor that would make it much more useful in Combat.

[PreDiabetic]

1. Are animals useful in combat? Do you use them? If so, why?  If not, why not?

Not really, especially in long run. Maybe in first couple of tribal ones otherwise waste of training. Debuff mood from loss of animal isn't good either.

2. Are there annoying/weird points about animals in combat?

Didn't get question.

3. How are you using animals in combat?

Boomalopes/Rats to has special barn 4 in corner of map. When enemy enters I change nearest barn animal zone to enemies. Elephants and Thrumbo straight charge. Smaller pets such as dogs stay behind for Rescue.

[O Negative]

1. Yes. I use them because animals are not nearly as valuable (in terms of labour vs maintenance) as colonists are. Yeah, I'd rather lose 100 boars than lose a colonist with a burning passion for crafting, any day.

2. Animals wander in unpredictable ways. In and out of doors, meant to protect them, even. Then, there's the fact that animals don't always attack when you'd like them to. I've had animals set on "release" get shot at a few times before they decided to attack the hostile(s) responsible. This is especially unfortunate because it's the reason I don't use any BOOM-animals in combat. It would be nice if masters had a little more control of their animals. "Whistling" targets or commands for specific animals or animal groups would be nice. Also, given that there aren't any ranged animals, having the ability to add "belts" (shield, smoke-pop, etc.) to our animals would be nice.

3. I use them in 1 of 2 ways in each raid. a) Cheap, expendable animals are used to weaken raiders before I send my combat colonists out to clean up, and b) Expensive, dangerous animals are released when my combat colonists are harmed enough for me to want to pull them out of combat.

I'd like to add that it's a shame that raiders never bring attack animals of their own. Players might be more inclined to use attack animals if they see their foe(s) using them. Just a thought.

[Pighit]

They are essentially my melee fighters. It would be great if there was a way to make it so you could draft animals, but eh

[LoSboccacc]

1. Are animals useful in combat? Do you use them? If so, why?  If not, why not?

I use boars extensively, very useful to pin charging melee raiders so that colonists are out of harms way

2. Are there annoying/weird points about animals in combat?

Bonded animals penalty for war animals are annoying and stack on the same trainer over and over. Some penalty is ok, but -8 apop can easily knock a person into madness and that's a bit silly