Making Muffalos useful

[Jannik2099]

I thought about Muffalos and how they could be actually useful for our colony, and i came up with some ideas:

Muffalo Ranch:
It all starts here. You can catch Muffalos and keep them here. If you gather enough (and feed them), baby muffalos will appear after some time. The max. amount of Muffalos is proportional to the size of the Ranch. The Ranch is a zone but it needs to be surrounded with walls. You can add jobs to the Ranch as you do it with a cooking place. Things Like: kill until there are xxx remaining/ Kill until there are just enough to reproduce. You could also order the Ranch to train and tame Muffalos so your colonists can ride them and even carry cargo with them. Obviously, a Muffalo would be able to carry much more than a human.
Dont forget about combat rider Mufallos! Just imagine it
Or maybe Cyborg-Muffalos with miniguns on their left and right side? oh well now im getting crazy

[bobucles]

Ranching is not a bad idea. It offers a way to turn useless crops into tasty meat for sale or use.

While players have fences, they have no current way to herd animals. I think a ranching zone is ideal for this. "Claimed" animals which wander outside the zone will get ranched back in.

Ranching is probably best implemented as an extension of the rarely used hunting job. Characters with higher melee skill are more capable of moving their animals around and staying out of trouble. And obviously they use hunting skill to eat them.

[Jannik2099]

the hunting skill was one of my inspirations for this idea because no one really uses it

[Bog]

the hunting skill was one of my inspirations for this idea because no one really uses it

I use hunting all the time. For "normal" colonists it gives you loads of food, trains their shooting skill and drastically cuts down on the wildlife population. (useful when psychic waves come, 3-4 squirrels are a lot easier to deal with than 30+)

For colonists that are passionate about shooting it means that I can have a few crazy accurate people for the big fights that come. You don't know firepower until you have a level 20 shooter wielding a minigun.

Oh, and you need meat for lavish meals anyways, so not hunting reduces your maximum morale potential.

Finally, there's always those colonists that have basically everything but shooting disabled. I think Victor the Kingpin (or was it crimelord?) specifically only has social and shooting/melee, but still has wardening disabled. So he's only useful for trading (which isn't an all day every day job) and hunting. So I make him hunt whenever I get him.

[Somz]

I thought about Muffalos and how they could be actually useful for our colony, and i came up with some ideas:

Muffalo Ranch:
It all starts here. You can catch Muffalos and keep them here. If you gather enough (and feed them), baby muffalos will appear after some time. The max. amount of Muffalos is proportional to the size of the Ranch. The Ranch is a zone but it needs to be surrounded with walls. You can add jobs to the Ranch as you do it with a cooking place. Things Like: kill until there are xxx remaining/ Kill until there are just enough to reproduce. You could also order the Ranch to train and tame Muffalos so your colonists can ride them and even carry cargo with them. Obviously, a Muffalo would be able to carry much more than a human.
Dont forget about combat rider Mufallos! Just imagine it
Or maybe Cyborg-Muffalos with miniguns on their left and right side? oh well now im getting crazy

Old MacDonald had a farm E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm a Muffalo E-I-E-I-O... xD
But seriously, animal husbandry was suggested a few times already if my memory serves right (I wanted to as well).
Anyway, it's still a good idea, but I want to F-ing milk my muffalos. I love milk. And beer but that's irrelevant now...or... Ohboy, new idea. ^^

[Bog]

I'd like to be able to domesticate boomrats and train them to fight.

Then I could set them upon my enemies en mass. The more they'd die the more they'd kill.

[tommonius]

I absolutely love the idea of having a ranching system, extra awesome if we can have our colonists wear a cowboy hat.

Also hopinng we can possibly start to domesticate other animals into other useful roles and have guard pets for attacking/ scouting/ fodder and running down fleeing enemies.

As there is nothing that irks me more than a raider who got away and my colonists just cannot catch him, but imagine us unleashing the hounds on him! 

[Kirid]

I've heard this suggestion several times. But personally I don't think Muffalo should ever be tamed.
Some form of space sheep/cows/pigs/horses sure, but Muffalo like Buffalo are supposed to roam the plains wild and free.
Muffalo probably wont produce milk(or near as much as a genetically engineered cow) and a creature of that size takes a lot longer to grow to full size than other species.
I think they should remain the main hunted species and nothing more.

[Bog]

...personally I don't think Muffalo should ever be tamed.
...Muffalo like Buffalo are supposed to roam the plains wild and free.
Muffalo probably wont produce milk(or near as much as a genetically engineered cow) and a creature of that size takes a lot longer to grow to full size than other species.
I think they should remain the main hunted species and nothing more.

I've been to a number of bison farms. Up in Canada they're a lot more common than in the states, as bison went extinct south of the border back in the day. (the north american Bison we have now are all descendants of Canadian herds)

Also Mozzarella is traditionally made with only the milk of Italian water buffaloes. Today there are farms starting to make it with north american bison milk as they handle the colder climate better.

So I don't have a problem with domesticating muffalos.

[theapolaustic1]

I've always loved the idea of cattle raids in rimworld. A small group of bandits who arrive in the dead of night and tear down part of your fence to drive the herd out and claim it as their own. Even better would be if you had to have actual watch schedules set up and whatnot to prevent being snuck up on, but I don't know how feasible that is (or even necessary; how many events and features would even rely on it?).

[Fruit loops]

Adding to the animal husbandry part in real life it takes at least 2 years for animals to mature enough to eat in the game maybe like 6 months in game because if you could make 1000+ meat in a month or so there would be no limits so instead of I guess we could use some more
omg man are we gonna make it another month Idk man but we need that food
so basically have a wait time for the muffalo to mature maybe you could kill them a month early if you were desperate but not get as much meat
just a thought though

[StorymasterQ]

"Oh, good, we've tamed this muffalo. Let's ranch 'em."
"What are we going to feed it, though, potatoes?"
"Can't they just eat the grass? We'll make the pen where the grass is."
"A herd of muffaloes will decimate any patch of grass. It won't be sustainable."
"We'll plant grass!"
"Who's gonna go gather grass seeds, you?"
"Ahh, eff that, let's just eat the muffalo."

[tommonius]

"Oh, good, we've tamed this muffalo. Let's ranch 'em."
"What are we going to feed it, though, potatoes?"
"Can't they just eat the grass? We'll make the pen where the grass is."
"A herd of muffaloes will decimate any patch of grass. It won't be sustainable."
"We'll plant grass!"
"Who's gonna go gather grass seeds, you?"
"Ahh, eff that, let's just eat the muffalo."

But the Muffalos in game seem content to wander around and not eat to much, they either eat small amounts of grass, they sustain themselves perhaps on water alone or some other means as they an alien creature.

In future patches we may see them more active and go grazing and migrating but for now there ain't a lore problem with sticking a fence around then when they are content to stay around in the same place anyway.

[cj9999]

I like the ranching idea

[putsam]

I thought about Muffalos and how they could be actually useful for our colony, and i came up with some ideas:

Muffalo Ranch:
It all starts here. You can catch Muffalos and keep them here. If you gather enough (and feed them), baby muffalos will appear after some time. The max. amount of Muffalos is proportional to the size of the Ranch. The Ranch is a zone but it needs to be surrounded with walls. You can add jobs to the Ranch as you do it with a cooking place. Things Like: kill until there are xxx remaining/ Kill until there are just enough to reproduce. You could also order the Ranch to train and tame Muffalos so your colonists can ride them and even carry cargo with them. Obviously, a Muffalo would be able to carry much more than a human.
Dont forget about combat rider Mufallos! Just imagine it
Or maybe Cyborg-Muffalos with miniguns on their left and right side? oh well now im getting crazy

Ink order to ranch them they have to have high enough morale and human relation (if you kill or butcher a muffalo in plain sight of another one it will get a "saw ally death status"
It would be cool if the buffalo had herd instinct so if you kill a bunch of buffalo in close vicinity they go crazy