More in-depth animal breeding: Animal traits, crossbreeds, research!

Started by Call me Arty, May 09, 2018, 04:10:05 PM

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Call me Arty

 I'm a big fan of the animals in the game. When I can, I try to make livestock a big point of my colony. It's especially interesting when you consider the various uses of the types of animals, such as chickens for their meat and eggs, muffalos for wool and milk, and boomalopes for chemfuel. However, I can't help but feel that they're missing missing something. . . animal traits!

As it is, animal husbandry is pretty lacking in the game. Want ranged weapons? You've got to work from smithing, to blowback operation, gas operation, precision rifling, and finally: Charge weapons. That's a lot of depth for arms manufacturers. Want animals?

  • Tame a male animal.
  • Tame a female of the same species.
  • Await babies

Done. There's no research for caring for them, there's no way to breed them into different breeds (the domesticated-for-food pig is an entirely different beast to warthogs, for example), there's no way to make crossbreeds (Beefalos for example, were the result of hoping that the beefy front of a buffalo and beefy back of a cow would make one wonderful beef-tank), and the only reason you'd go to tame one critter over another was because they were close to their age expectancy or picked up too many injuries in the wild.

How would I fix this?

Give animals traits. I don't mean copy-paste things like pyromaniac and brawler to the "animal traits" folder or whatever, they've got some intesting things you could go off of.

  • Skittish: Actively flee from people, requiring a minimal animals skill to approach (like how some structures require a certain construction skill to build).
  • Big-boned. Naturally produce more meat when butchered than other animals. More health and less speed too, potentially.
  • Stubborn. Refuses to be trained. Can still be butchered,
    bred, and confined to zones.
  • Juicy. Naturally produce more milk/chemfuel, similar products for future animals (like if we ever had the ability to "milk" snake venom.
  • Sterile. Can't produce offspring (their use is on a time limit).
  • Thick coat. Produce more wool than other animals, vulnerable to heat.
  • Beast of burden. Higher than average carry weight for hauling and caravans.

Now, we have a reason to go and buy a chicken even though we may already have thirty of the things. Get a couple of decent animals, and it becomes worth sacrificing the fertile soil you'd ordinarily devote to smokeleaf or devilstrand for some haygrass. You could single-handedly corner the chemfuel market, keep all of your pawns well-dressed for the winter with an abundance of woolen clothing, or just worry a lot less about food. As it is now, we don't really have a reason to keep this guys rather than the cotton or potatoes that we don't have to feed and care for.

Subspecies. Currently, we have canines. Even though wargs are underwhelming and there's not too noticeable a difference from dogs and wolves (both outmatched by boars) and Yorkies don't have a built-in hunting mechanic (they were bred to hunt burrowing pests and small predators, such as rats, badgers, and foxes), it's the right idea. Simply put, more of these kinds of variety would be a joy to see. Say we have a wolf, right? What if we had a research tree devoted to turning those guys into agile, easy to feed exterminators, or some loyal hounds who love to haul? Overall, more sidegrades or reasons to care which animal you got?
Why are you focusing on having a personal life rather than updating a mod that you're not paid to work on?

If there's a mistake in my post, please message me so I can fix it!

Names are for the Weak

I definitely support the bulk of ideas here. Stubborn, however, just seems like it's a flat-out dealbreaker trait, like pyromania in humans. Maybe just make stubborn animals harder to train?

Names are for the Weak

Also, maybe when you got far enough in research, you could simply clone animals or meat. Also, there ought to be another trait, intelligent, that made it so that animals of intermediate intelligence could be trained to do advanced tasks.

Call me Arty

Quote from: Names are for the Weak on May 10, 2018, 12:06:54 AM
I definitely support the bulk of ideas here. Stubborn, however, just seems like it's a flat-out dealbreaker trait, like pyromania in humans. Maybe just make stubborn animals harder to train?

Keep in mind, however, that not all critters are created equal. Pigs and hares can be released, but would you really choose to train them for attacking raiders rather than, say, boars or wolves? Stubborn would mean very little for most animals, but would certainly be a hindrance to people training war beasts.

I am okay with it being dropped down to "harder to train" though.
Why are you focusing on having a personal life rather than updating a mod that you're not paid to work on?

If there's a mistake in my post, please message me so I can fix it!

Call me Arty

Quote from: Names are for the Weak on May 10, 2018, 12:09:02 AM
Also, maybe when you got far enough in research, you could simply clone animals or meat. Also, there ought to be another trait, intelligent, that made it so that animals of intermediate intelligence could be trained to do advanced tasks.

Cloning seems a bit far-off in all of the technology of a Rimworld, even once you consider we can make spaceships.

I'm not so sure about the "intelligent" trait. When you look at the animals with advanced intelligence - Huskies, Wargs, Boars, etc - it makes some sense that they could haul items or rescue pawns. The thing about Rimworld, though, is that somebody seems to have mixed-up "animal intelligence" and "things that an animal could logically do at that size." Yorkies are just about as smart as any other dog, can't haul or rescue despite their advanced intelligence. This would probably be the same deal for chinchillas, cassowaries, and cobras. It doesn't make much sense for them to go around carrying rock chunks or diving into battle to bring their master to safety.
Why are you focusing on having a personal life rather than updating a mod that you're not paid to work on?

If there's a mistake in my post, please message me so I can fix it!

Jackalvin

I suggested something similar in the past.
I always felt that the training tree was limited. I suggested that some animals can gain traits and 'skills'. Here's what I mean:
-Dromedaries can consume less food.
-Llamas spit at enemies, slowing them down and blinding them slightly.
-Monkeys can remove objects from the enemies possession on attacks
-Wolves get buffed up near other wolves

Crossbreeding sounds cool as well. I can make a army of super rats with this. Damn Mechs won't know what hit them.   

P.S: Someone just suggested cloning. I want talking dogs from the Primer. Plz
-Insert Witty Joke Here-

bartekkru100

The only thing I really wish was in the game is an ability to breed different types of wolves and dogs together. I know that it'd be hard to come up with a system for this but it's just odd that a labrador can't have a baby with a husky.

Tomasdav

Quote from: bartekkru100 on May 12, 2018, 11:42:57 AM
The only thing I really wish was in the game is an ability to breed different types of wolves and dogs together. I know that it'd be hard to come up with a system for this but it's just odd that a labrador can't have a baby with a husky.
well many dog breeds are not breedable between themselves f.e chivavas and shepherds but in current state with mods you might end up with either husky or labrador

Call me Arty

Quote from: Tomasdav on May 12, 2018, 01:49:55 PM
well many dog breeds are not breedable between themselves f.e chivavas and shepherds but in current state with mods you might end up with either husky or labrador

Cough cough



Yeah, though, in-depth dog breeding would probably be better suited for a mod. Imagine waiting months for Tynan to get  vehicles in the game then you just get Huskadores and Wolvshiers.
Why are you focusing on having a personal life rather than updating a mod that you're not paid to work on?

If there's a mistake in my post, please message me so I can fix it!

Tomasdav

sorry I am not a dogbreeder obviously and just picked up two random dogs which I thought were impossible but some breeds are like that not possible or their offspring is terribly ill or degenerated

Call me Arty

Quote from: Tomasdav on May 12, 2018, 06:28:50 PM
sorry I am not a dogbreeder obviously and just picked up two random dogs which I thought were impossible but some breeds are like that not possible or their offspring is terribly ill or degenerated

Oh, shoot, sorry, I thought you were the John T Tomasdav, famous forum-user and dog breeder of twentieth century Russia. My bad.

In all seriousness though, there are some pretty interesting crossbreeds out there. Mules (Horse + Donkey) are perhaps the best-known, followed by Ligers (Lion + Tigers) and the aforementioned Beefalos (Domestic Cow + Buffalo). We've got some pretty neat things from just those three: A beast of burden, the largest living feline (Tigers being the largest feline, ligers somehow outgrow them), and a grass-powered beef factory. Considering how all of these are a result of human intervention, it wouldn't make sense (realistically, I am aware the psychic robots in the game) that you would find these hybrids in the wild, so it'd be a pretty neat reward for putting some research into the animal-oriented part of the game.
Why are you focusing on having a personal life rather than updating a mod that you're not paid to work on?

If there's a mistake in my post, please message me so I can fix it!