A while ago Tynan made a thread about animals in combat - what came of it?

[Ser Kitteh]

I recall the thread (but can't find it for whatever reason, partly out of laziness) but has there been any sort of plans to implement the complaints regarding animals? From memory, the big three problems were:

1. Animals were too squishy, and became less useful as they lose body parts as they are no ways to fix them unlike with current bionics.
2. Friendly fire - colonists that use guns are just as likely to hurt their own animals as much as the enemy would.
3. Positioning - related to friendly fire, it's just very finnicky to control animals if you want to keep them out of harm's way, especially when you're in a firing line from your nice bunker and Fido keeps getting in front of the minigunner.

One of the more popular, and perhaps totally doable suggestions, was to allow animals body armor usually in the form of a personal shield. As of B19, Tynan has reached his goal of assuring that we aren't able to unlease a horde of boars on our enemies with the tameness decay. I disliked this at first, but it seems to work out and a properly functioning colony with multiple animal handlers makes this a non issue.

Another suggestion to improve combat was to allow enemy NPCs to bring own their own war animals (mostly in regards to tribals), and I'd personally be fine with that myself. Increased danger, with the chance of being able to claim those animals as your own.

[RawCode]

tameness decay is not that severe and you can unleash combat muffalo and combat lamas as they have really long decay

[Ser Kitteh]

Yeah man that's what I said in the second to last paragraph lol

[Call me Arty]

 I think some general combat stats got shoved around. I'm not going to look through the hundreds of posts in the 1.0 (now B19) discussion thread, but it would appear that we have a greater divide between some of the canines if I remember correctly. Wargs do a couple point more damage overall, and some of the other pups have been nerfed, so I assume there's a general widening of the divide between pets and war-beasts.

[Ser Kitteh]

Kinda sad that we have no answers as of yet.

[bbqftw]

My notes from some dev mode tests estimate max adapt / max time factor / merciless husky raid point contribution at 17 points, and warg at ~41 points with these contributions increasing as population does (as wealth affects per-pawn raid point contribution).

The warg one in particular is really high considering that with standard release animals, you often can't utilize them at full efficiency, especially as enemy raid size increases.

There are some tactics you can use to make combat animals a bit more effective but those who know, know not to talk about it since it will get nerfed if it reaches public consciousness.

[horus]

tameness decay is not that severe and you can unleash combat muffalo and combat lamas as they have really long decay

you cannot unleash muffalos as they got nerfed and can no longer learn unleash

[NiftyAxolotl]

There are some tactics you can use to make combat animals a bit more effective but those who know, know not to talk about it since it will get nerfed if it reaches public consciousness.

I have been shouting about my overpowered Alpaca Strike Forces for months. The secret strategy is to have lots and lots of them and stampede them into the enemy on an open field, preferably coming around a corner.

The reason Tynan hasn't nerfed it into the ground is that (I am speculating) balance for highly experienced players is not the highest priority. Having more players interact positively with more game systems is more important. Making some animals obviously good is a useful lure for players to try ranching when they otherwise would shy away from it forever. It's the same reason that Magic: The Gathering pre-con decks always have a blatantly horrible card* - every new player will eventually replace it and get lured into the deckbuilding aspect of the game.

*http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=139511

[Ukas]

Btw, do live animals increase wealth of the colony? If not, then that could be a big late game thing. You could breed a huge horde of wargs just to be released against the raiders, and use the casualties as meat.

[bbqftw]

They contribute to wealth, and thus contribute to raid strength through that.

In addition, all release capable animals contribute to raid points through another term, but this contribution is proportional to their combat power (which you can look up in game files).

[Ukas]

They contribute to wealth, and thus contribute to raid strength through that.

In addition, all release capable animals contribute to raid points through another term, but this contribution is proportional to their combat power (which you can look up in game files).

Thanks for the answer. I've been thinking about breeding battle wargs for a while, but guess I have to keep their number smaller than the number I was dreaming about.

[Scavenger]

I remember that post and reeeally looking forward to the changes! But i don't think anything came of it and the game really needs it... And animal taming is maybe my fav part of the game idk why he dropped it, if he indeed did, but that's the only disappointment I've seen thus far in the game.

And I would LOVE if tribals had war animals to set loose on you!

[Scavenger]

Are you there Go.. Tynan? It's me, scavenger. I know you're listening, you see all. I humbly ask that you give animals more viability in warfare! And preferably with emphasis on smaller numbers of animals, so you can use a few favorite named pets with effectiveness instead of just a nameless hoard. Amen.

[AileTheAlien]

you cannot unleash muffalos as they got nerfed and can no longer learn unleash

Nooooo-oh-OH! My dreams of breeding war-muffalos died before I even knew I had them! ^^;

[bbqftw]

muffalo loss of release is not a nerf.