Chickens, Assorted Animals, Meals and Power

[handsomegrape]

Disclaimer; I'm a person who likes to talk, who likes to complain and use sarcastic remarks whilst doing so. If you're the sort who likes to whine about people complaining, or say anything along the lines of "salty", do us both a solid and don't bother replying. I still like this game if that is at all important to you for whatever reason, I wouldn't be spending time writing this if I didn't. If you feel at all personnally offended by anything I have to say, here's a tip, be an adult and walk away, the world won't end over it, I promise.

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So I started a new map, with 1 dog, at some point I must have gotten more. Got a few chickens, figured hey some easy protein will help out on this desert map. Not so. The damn buggers breed like rabbits and go through a stack of 50 kibble in less than 2 seconds, so now pretty much all I do is cook for the damn chickens, until I run out of meat at which point the chickens start to mass starve to death, I then use the dead chickens to make more kibble and then it starts all over again. I started growing hay as well, store hay and kibble in the coop, it doesn't matter the amounts, they eat it all in less than a few minutes. You can't automate it and you sure as heck can't keep up, I tried slaughtering about half to 75% of the population several times, they're right back at it within a few minutes.

Meanwhile, I can hardly keep up to cook meals for my 9 colonists, especially since those damn dogs keep breeding and eating my meals. But at least they're good for hauling, if only they would do so more reliably... Not like I can keep them out of the freezer either or I would end up with a situation similar to the chickens, where they have to be starving to warrant feeding.

It seems animal handling does not include feeding the animals idiotically enough, at least not until they're starving, at which point they end up raiding the freezer and use meals to feed those stupid critters because yeah you can't limit that to hay/kibble/plants/whatever somehow either, they're gonna pick whatever is closest that counts as food, be it raw or a meal.

Desert maps, yeah you don't want to go hunting on those. Pretty much everything can kill and maim ya. I had two colonists lose a hand each to some damn dromedaries...dromedarians, big yellow spitting bastards with too much hp and insane melee damage, oh and they flock together too. Then you have the cougars, the iguanas. Even the damn rats I'm sure could end up downing someone if you're not careful. And just recently I got boomaloops wandering in as well, so yeah that'll be fun when they go crazy and attack out of nowhere... And see, I've got fully armored soldiers using modded weapons, they're still no match to a vanilla animal if they get too close I mean wtf.

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The balancing is still the biggest issue I have with this game, the fact that you go from woah too much power gonna explode now, to brownouts without hardly doing anything... I mean seriously, as soon as you build that high tech research bench, you're gonna have to more than double your energy production. I had 3 solar panels and 3 wind gennies, and at first it was looking like I needed to keep everything running to maintain some sort of balance, but then all of a sudden it wasn't enough and now it can hardly refill the batteries even when I switch off the research bench. It doesn't help that at least the wind generators are partly rng based either, and obviously certain events can screw over the solar. And you can't even get a grip on what's going on, it says the amount being produced/stored, sure. But good luck trying to make an estimate like oh this research bench is gonna require at least X power per day hmm, then I need 2 more gennies blahdiblah. Nope, not gonna work. You don't have a set amount of power you're getting, you don't have an overlook estimate on how much power you've produced over the last few days. More often than not you don't even have the room or resources to build a massive wind and/or solar park. Especially not with constant raiders blowing them up. You can't upgrade them, they're what you've got to work with.

What's that, geothermal you say? Oh you didn't build next to a geothermal geyser because it wasn't defensible? Aww, tough luck. And even when you did, they cost massive amounts, blow up just as easily and gives hardly any power at all. Whoop-dee-doo.

Fueled Generators? Not on a desert map with hardly any trees buddy boy, because apparently in the future, wood is still all you can burn.

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So these are still my two greatest issues, I'm having fun and all but such things have remained the flies in my proverbial milk here for quite a while now. Like why can't the colonists cook more than 1 meal at a time so they can keep up with demand, why do they not feed the animals, and with chickens they would need to do way better than feeding one at a time. How bout some nuclear power or maybe even some kind of hotwiring or similar dodgy impromptu means at getting more juice out of the stuff we've got so we don't have to go from oh crap the batteries are near full again switch everything off, to oh crap the researchbench has drained the batteries again. Oh and have you seen the description of the cooler? Oh yeah it consumes 200W no matter what size room you're trying to cool, but sometimes it goes down to 20W but then if it's warmer outside or if the walls aren't thick enough or if a fairy dances on a pinhead it goes back to 200W again. With logic like that, is it any wonder that it's near impossible to maintain a balance with the power level.

I mean ideally, what you want is to build up power during the day and then spend most if not nearly all of it during the night, basically a zero sum gain to avoid draining within intervals. Except for when some big negative event happens that might affect your power production, like a solar eclipse or something. Then you would want to have power stored away to make up for the lost production, but as far as I know, there isn't a way to do this. I'll be honest and say I haven't even tried, this just occurred to me and I haven't seen anyone else do it, but I do believe the batteries drain even if they're not connected to something? I mean I might be wrong, I'm gonna go ahead and try it. If you could switch between several sets of batteries, then that might be the way to go. It would also be nice to have switches that flick themselves during certain hours of the day.

I spent way more time on this than I should have...

[Mytheos]

Try a different mix of power...3 solars for every windmill or 3 solars for every two windmills.

Keep them enclosed in a stone wall to keep them protected. ( Feel free to look at my most recent screenshots. )

Create zones for your animals and dont allow them in your kitchen, restrict them to areas where they can eat grass and so forth.

When a raid hits, have a safe place for them to be by using a "Animal Red Alert Zone"

Dont cook kibble for chickens, just grow fields of hay and let them eat that....keep your population small until you get it sorted.

You can always make kibble from eggs, or you can use eggs to cook meals.


You can let the dog hunt wild animals on their own by not allowing them access to your food storage by use of zones.

Dont auto-hunt on dangerous maps...take several armed colonists and attack animals from range in case they attack...then haul back what you can and go get the rest later.

[=яενєηąŋŧ=]

Yeah, kibble for chickens is a waste. They only eat 3-4 hay when they eat. Also, kill all but one of the male's, because that's all it takes to breed more and the hens give you eggs while the roosters give you nothing. Make sure they're zoned out of your hay field.

As far as your power goes, build your battery bank and have it connected to your grid by a switch. Turn the switch off when the batteries get full, then turn it on when you need to use them.

As far as hunting goes, yes, it's often best to hunt in groups with drafted colonists. Another alternative is to assign a war animal or two to your hunters who will engage revenging animals in melee. Also, set your hunters to "attack enemies" rather than flee, especially if the animals on the map are faster than them.

[handsomegrape]

Alright, though they're still quite the investment. What ratio of batteries would you suggest to go with that?

Walls generally don't work I've found, when you wall yourself in, you end up getting more raiders with mortars and the like. One way or another, you're getting the short end of the stick. I'm not sure which screenshots you're referring to, but you seem to have a very different layout than mine, I usually go mountain base, dig my way in.

I did create a zone, I'm guessing you skimmed through? When you put them away from the kitchen, they have no way of feeding themselves except for eating raw plants which sometimes gives them food poisoning for whatever reason, a chicken eating raw corn shouldn't pose a problem one would think but it does. An outdoor zone would be problematic in that the small spots of fertile soil are far enough apart that it would make it awkward to wall it in.

I haven't tried something like a red alert zone, but I haven't needed to yet either, since I made a coop for them and that's not a priority target.

Yeah the field part of that, again could prove problematic. I've got hardly any soil to work with in proximity to my base and most of what I do have I need to use for things other than hay, but as I said I do grow hay, maybe like 20% - 30% of my current field use is hay right now, just not in a very good spot.

I did try to utilize the eggs, they sadly don't seem to count as meat towards kibble, though they all end up fertilized for whatever reason, I was under the impression that if you cooked those as meals that it wouldn't be very hygienic/appetizing. As it is now, they still seem to think they're eating something raw sometimes even if it is a cooked meal and that's with normal ingredients.

But if I do that, then the dogs would end up hurt or dead... I've found them the most useful as haulers.

Yeah that sounds sensible.

[handsomegrape]

Originally posted by =яενєηąŋŧ=:

Yeah, kibble for chickens is a waste. They only eat 3-4 hay when they eat. Also, kill all but one of the male's, because that's all it takes to breed more and the hens give you eggs while the roosters give you nothing. Make sure they're zoned out of your hay field.

As far as your power goes, build your battery bank and have it connected to your grid by a switch. Turn the switch off when the batteries get full, then turn it on when you need to use them.

Right, I read that he completely removed the no incest for animals thing. I'll settle for the one rooster then. One tells me to zone them with the hayfield, the other tells me to keep them out. :P

Oh so that does work? Neat. Of course I would prefer some way that doesn't include manually forcing a colonist to switch on and off stuff every day, but that's something at least.

[Grishnerf]

Originally posted by handsomegrape:

Right, I read that he completely removed the no incest for animals thing. I'll settle for the one rooster then. One tells me to zone them with the hayfield, the other tells me to keep them out. :P

no, you make an animal zone in a barn (any room with animal sleeping spots = barn)
in there you set a 2x2 stockpile only for hay on critical.
make the barn next to your fields to minimize hauling work.

[=яενєηąŋŧ=]

As far as the hay and whatnot goes, if the chicken eats the hay cell in the field, it eats *everything.*. Don't let it do that, it's much better to harvest the hay. As far as keeping them from starving goes, don't store the hay in your freezer, just store it somewhere roofed in your animal zone, because it'll keep for several seasons. Same goes for kibble.

For the food poisoning issue, fertilized eggs are fine. It sounds like you have a low-skill cook. Below skill 6 or so, you'll get a lot of food poisoning even from prepared meals. Eggs'll also be auto-gathered as long as they're in your home zone. They're nice because you only need one egg per meal.

For making kibble, make sure it's just the dogs eating it first. Then set a work order to make kibble using meat and hay until you have x, and another to make kibble from insect meat and hay forever. You're in a mountain, so you'll get infestations which is kind of good because the insect meat is perfect for kibble.

[handsomegrape]

Originally posted by GRISH.NERF:

no, you make an animal zone in a barn (any room with animal sleeping spots = barn)
in there you set a 2x2 stockpile only for hay on critical.
make the barn next to your fields to minimize hauling work.

Well I pretty much got it that way already, the coop is basically a cave room with sleeping spots and a small stock pile in it set to kibble and hay on critical, and just outside is a few spots of dirt with hay growing in them. Next wall to the coop is also a big walk in fridge full of assorted dead animals, corn, potatoes, and when available hay and kibble.

[Orpheus]

Don't let livestock of any sort into your hay field. Place a very small stockpile (at most 2x2, if you have LOADS of animals) in the animal zone, set to accept only hay and kibble, with the highest possible priority. The reason for this is that harvesting crops gives more than one unit of food per plant, but if you let animals eat the plant itself you lose this multiplication effect. This way, the stockpile will get refilled pretty often, but only enough to keep pace with the animals' food consumption. They won't starve, but can't eat you out of house and home either.

Also, like revenant said, allow only one male per "flock" of chickens. If you have space you may wish to separate you chickens into two or more flocks in separate zones (so your eggs aren't all in one basket in case of wildfire, hungry wildlife or chicken-hating raiders). One rooster per zone only. This should usually apply with other animal species too, though if you are explicitly planning to breed a large population you might allow two or three males for some less fertile species. Generally speaking, as in real life, female animals are the money-maker, while males are just meat.

EDIT: three posts while I was writing this? Lol I need to focus more!

[handsomegrape]

Originally posted by =яενєηąŋŧ=:

As far as the hay and whatnot goes, if the chicken eats the hay cell in the field, it eats *everything.*. Don't let it do that, it's much better to harvest the hay. As far as keeping them from starving goes, don't store the hay in your freezer, just store it somewhere roofed in your animal zone, because it'll keep for several seasons. Same goes for kibble.

For the food poisoning issue, fertilized eggs are fine. It sounds like you have a low-skill cook. Below skill 6 or so, you'll get a lot of food poisoning even from prepared meals. Eggs'll also be auto-gathered as long as they're in your home zone. They're nice because you only need one egg per meal.

For making kibble, make sure it's just the dogs eating it first. Then set a work order to make kibble using meat and hay until you have x, and another to make kibble from insect meat and hay forever. You're in a mountain, so you'll get infestations which is kind of good because the insect meat is perfect for kibble.

Yeah that makes sense. Well I did try to store it in my animal zone, but they keep eating it all! I can't keep up, even if I slaughter tons of em.

I've got one main cook at 6 or above, 2 others below atm. Slim pickings. Alright, I'll use them for meals then, but won't the population of chickens grow old and die then?

Hay seems to take so long to grow though, and I haven't really noticed much of a difference in the rate at which they consume kibble versus hay, and since I've got plenty of corn and potatoes, and dead chickens for meat, kibble is actually quicker than the hay, it just requires so much more work it seems, work I could put towards making meals instead.

Funnily enough I haven't gotten a single infestation yet on this map, oh well guaranteed to happen so I'll give that a try.

[handsomegrape]

Originally posted by Orpheus:

Don't let livestock of any sort into your hay field. Place a very small stockpile (at most 2x2, if you have LOADS of animals) in the animal zone, set to accept only hay and kibble, with the highest possible priority. The reason for this is that harvesting crops gives more than one unit of food per plant, but if you let animals eat the plant itself you lose this multiplication effect. This way, the stockpile will get refilled pretty often, but only enough to keep pace with the animals' food consumption. They won't starve, but can't eat you out of house and home either.

Also, like revenant said, allow only one male per "flock" of chickens. If you have space you may wish to separate you chickens into two or more flocks in separate zones (so your eggs aren't all in one basket in case of wildfire, hungry wildlife or chicken-hating raiders). One rooster per zone only. This should usually apply with other animal species too, though if you are explicitly planning to breed a large population you might allow two or three males for some less fertile species. Generally speaking, as in real life, female animals are the money-maker, while males are just meat.

EDIT: three posts while I was writing this? Lol I need to focus more!

Yeah things are moving fast here! XD Yup that seems to be the consensus so far.

[Orpheus]

You might want to consider splitting your chickens into two flocks. One is a large flock of hens only, producing unfertilized eggs. The other has one rooster and a smaller number of hens, producing fertilized eggs. If you do this, disallow your cooks from using fertilized eggs (to maintain the population) but still use the unfertilized ones.

Yeah, successful farming in this game takes quite a lot of planning and micromanagement.

[handsomegrape]

Originally posted by Orpheus:

You might want to consider splitting your chickens into two flocks. One is a large flock of hens only, producing unfertilized eggs. The other has one rooster and a smaller number of hens, producing fertilized eggs. If you do this, disallow your cooks from using fertilized eggs (to maintain the population) but still use the unfertilized ones.

Yeah, successful farming in this game takes quite a lot of planning and micromanagement.

I might do that in the future, but for now I think I've finally managed to stabilize things. Turns out hay does indeed make a world of difference from kibble, especially when you get stacks of 200. So now meals are gathering and everything is dandy. Except for some minor power fluctuations, still working on that.

[[[Cheers people for all your good advice!]]]

Uploaded some images if anyone's interested. I went ahead and walled off the crops as well, when I realized those damn dromedaries kept eating my produce, not pretty but it does the job.

Quite a rare feat for me in managing to keep the original 8 alive for so long, only had 2 deaths (newcomers). Cleared out the first infestation tonight and a mech pod dropping on their heads. Things are looking bright for Team Maid Force Alpha, unless all that art and silver brings worse things to come.