What's the point of releasing animals in combat?

[thebugmancometh]

I'll keep it short and simple.

I have a small Rhinocerous Task Force. They are there (ideally) to deadlock dangerous enemy gunners and/or block anyone that gets through my killbox and is on their way to murder my colonists.

This last raid was messy. The scythers were taken out easily, but the centipedes weren't going down fast enough and they both had inferno cannons. I set the rhinos loose to halt the ranged attacks, but when I checked their injuries, practically everything was from my own weapons.

Luckily, rhinos can take a licking and keep on ticking...but it did result in two permanent brain injuries to the rhinos, thanks to friendly-fire, and they're soooo slow to reproduce.

Point is, even my colonists with 13-15 shooting skill were hitting the animals more than they were the centipedes.

I thought a rhino army would be cool, but with all the gunfire lately, I'm afraid I'm just going to accidentally kill them with friendly-fire.

[itssirtou]

What is it with friendly fire causing brain damage to animals? I have a battle bear and despite most of my colonists being within 'safe' friendly fire distance he somehow got brain damaged...

Fortunately ADogSaid to the rescue.

But to answer your question Release is more of a tool on its own, used with limited gun support on fleeing or weaker targets.

And honestly combat animals in vanilla is white hot garbage.

[Bouncer]

I mean

You blocked view of the enemies with rhinos.

Its hard to hit enemies when there are huge walls of meat in between you.

To make combat rhinos work you have some other options:
Hold fire and let the rhinos kill things on their own.
Put your gunners directly behind the rhinos once they are in melee combat. Friendly Fire can't happen when units touch.
Have the rhinos attack from behind somehow.
Ditch this while idea for vanilla and get some mods that actually make (war) animals useful.

[Astasia]

You can use release for raid cleanup (chasing runners after they leave the killbox) or for animal combat teams on mission (1-2 handlers and a bunch of animals).

Animals during normal raids are otherwise best used to hold chokepoints, or kept back entirely until the gunfire stops. Releasing them into a heavy crossfire obviously isn't a good idea.

[thebugmancometh]

Originally posted by Astasia:

You can use release for raid cleanup (chasing runners after they leave the killbox) or for animal combat teams on mission (1-2 handlers and a bunch of animals).

Animals during normal raids are otherwise best used to hold chokepoints, or kept back entirely until the gunfire stops. Releasing them into a heavy crossfire obviously isn't a good idea.

This makes sense. Rhinos are cool, but I'll probably do something else next game, lol.

(Honestly, they're eating me out of house-and-home. It's not just rhinos, but alpacas for caravan capacity and an unlimited source of wool, as well as pigs which seem to be far better haulers than my actual colonists.)

[Team Triss]

It must be because they're so big. I use wargs and I generally don't have friendly fire problems.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by itssirtou:

What is it with friendly fire causing brain damage to animals?...

What weapons are being used? The more damage they deal, the more likely a crippling injury to the target, no matter if it was Friendly Fire damage or not. A bullet just doesn't care...

ie: A FF incident with a Sniper Rifle is going to blow someone's limbs off or insta-gimp anything hit with a headshot.

Also - I think "Animals" have less hit/injury locations allowed, by default, than human/colonists. I don't remember, honestly, but if they actually do have less possible hit locations, simple maths would dictate it's easier for them to get headshot than pawns. Worth checking, but I can't atm.

[Refurbished Hamster]

This mod will fix that - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1134165362. If they might hit something friendly, they just won't fire. You know, like actual people do lol

[thebugmancometh]

Originally posted by ATX Ferret:

This mod will fix that - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1134165362. If they might hit something friendly, they just won't fire. You know, like actual people do lol

Thought about trying that mod, but I'd much prefer one that would make your pawns not run in front of somebody who's actively shooting in the first place. You know...like a sane person.

[Refurbished Hamster]

That would be a complete overhaul of how the game handles melee as opposed to a "if this is true then don't fire" mod. Good luck!

Also, your initial question was about animals.

[itssirtou]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

Originally posted by itssirtou:

What is it with friendly fire causing brain damage to animals?...

What weapons are being used? The more damage they deal, the more likely a crippling injury to the target, no matter if it was Friendly Fire damage or not. A bullet just doesn't care...

ie: A FF incident with a Sniper Rifle is going to blow someone's limbs off or insta-gimp anything hit with a headshot.

Also - I think "Animals" have less hit/injury locations allowed, by default, than human/colonists. I don't remember, honestly, but if they actually do have less possible hit locations, simple maths would dictate it's easier for them to get headshot than pawns. Worth checking, but I can't atm.

Mostly ARs. (which was the culprit) With brains any damage scars, if the sniper rifle had hit it I would be dead xD

The point was the bear has taken like 3 friendly fire bullets in its entire time in my service and one was for brain damage. He can't even be a trauma savant D:

The general anatomy is roughly the same with exception of digits. And I think the're is a weighted chance for certain parts or no one would have any fingers ever.

[electroblood]

Originally posted by Bouncer:

I mean


Ditch this while idea for vanilla and get some mods that actually make (war) animals useful.

I have some animal armor mods but nothing that really changes anything. Anyone have suggestions?

[thebugmancometh]

Originally posted by ATX Ferret:

That would be a complete overhaul of how the game handles melee as opposed to a "if this is true then don't fire" mod. Good luck!

Also, your initial question was about animals.

Dunno. I'm looking at the red area in the screenshot of the mod and wondering why that couldn't just be treated as a temporary wall/impassible object for the purposes of a.i. pathing. Once a shooter is no longer actively aiming/firing, the "wall" would disappear and pathing could be recalculated.

Anywho, it's a moot point at the moment. The real reason I don't want to use the mod above is because I'm worried that hardly anybody would actually be shooting very much, resulting in enemies engaging in melee with my pawns constantly. If I was relying mostly on melee rather than ranged, it might be fine, but I usually stick to guns.

[Refurbished Hamster]

I use the mod. It works great.

[itssirtou]

Originally posted by electroblood:

Originally posted by Bouncer:

I mean


Ditch this while idea for vanilla and get some mods that actually make (war) animals useful.

I have some animal armor mods but nothing that really changes anything. Anyone have suggestions?

DogSaid, plus Taming Fixer if you plan to do a LOT of animals.

Just like your colonists armor can only help so much. I guarantee my bear would have died by now without it. Or at least lost more than one limb... Which I replaced with a POWER CLAW. And another one in storage for the next limb lost >:)

God help me if he has a bonded break...

[KalkiKrosah]

Releasing animals can be used that way to converge on an enemy charge and meet them halfway, but you already noticed the risk in that. There will be casualties doing it that way. I usually keep them attached to my shooters and only send them in when the enemy is routed. Cougars and Panthers are exceptionally good at chasing down fleeing enemies as they are the fastest animals you can acquire.

I found that using the zoning tool is a more efficient way of "releasing" the animals because you can send them around the sides of your kill zone, draw some of the enemies attention off your shooting line, and then flank them from behind. This way your animals are behind your enemy reducing the risk of friendly fire.