How do I keep my pets out of my freezer?

[Gold♥Shield]

I know I can just shrink my home zone to exclude that area and keep them to only roam in the home area, but is there an easier way of doing that?

[Cinemax]

Create a new area, put it around the freezer and anything you want out of bounds, go to manage areas in the animal menu, click invert, and assign all animals to the area.

[Kittenpox]

I'd advise against editing the Home zone, because your people won't extinguish fires that occur outside of that place - and you don't want a battery short-circuit destroying your freezer because your pawns were all like "not my home, not my problem". :-)

Creating a new zone for animals, which excludes meal storage areas (as Cinemax has suggested) is a solid option; but prevents your hauling animals from delivering resources.

I'd suggest using this mod - or more specifically its prerequisite: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1802372097&searchtext=Animal+food+restriction Tip: When you start a game, rename the default (Lavish) food allocation and edit it to what you want animals to be allowed to eat; then switch your colonists over to a different food restriction which better suits them. This way when animals self-tame, by default they'll be set to the Animals food restriction you've just set up.

[Gold♥Shield]

Thanks.

On the topic of pets, is there a way to give orders to my pets to haul stuff? My three colonists are overworked as it is just trying to maintain the colony and my two prisoners and I haven't had anyone free to build or gather in a long time but my two pets are just wandering around, even though they are both fully trained (and yes, haul is selected in their menu).

[Kittenpox]

Without using mods I'm not aware of any, no.
They just do it by themselves; and about 3 dogs seems comparable to a regular colonist, so its not a 1:1 hauling efficiency ratio.

I know this mod has a later-game research option to make things to control creatures - but I'm not sure if that's combat-only or if it includes hauling: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1113137502 (I have been using the mod in my own colonies, but for human bodymods rather than creating hybrid creatures. So it's not an aspect of that mod I've tried yet.)

There are probably more specific hauling-animal mods that might be better suited, if you wanted to take that route. But I'd just let your (vanilla) animals breed, and train more haulers instead of complicating your game with unnecessary mods.

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by Kittenpox:

Without using mods I'm not aware of any, no.
They just do it by themselves; and about 3 dogs seems comparable to a regular colonist, so its not a 1:1 hauling efficiency ratio.

I know this mod has a later-game research option to make things to control creatures - but I'm not sure if that's combat-only or if it includes hauling: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1113137502 (I have been using the mod in my own colonies, but for human bodymods rather than creating hybrid creatures. So it's not an aspect of that mod I've tried yet.)

There are probably more specific hauling-animal mods that might be better suited, if you wanted to take that route. But I'd just let your (vanilla) animals breed, and train more haulers instead of complicating your game with unnecessary mods.

The control for hybrids only works as if they were drafted...so no; no hauling included.

OP; have you ever considdered making seperate area's(zones) to focus on the job you want your pets to do? For instance...I have multiples of suchs zones so that, when it's harvest time, I restrict all my animals to the zone "fields" which only has my growing zones and storage freezer (with all zones set to low) included. Animals will haul stuff my colonists harvest and deposit them in my freezer...from there I have a zones that include the freezer and some preffered stockpiles so that when harvest time is over I can set my hauling animals to say "tailoring" so they move everything from the low priority freezer stockpile to my tailoring area (which they'll do because that priority is higher)....just a matter of logistics; I use my freezer as a distribution center for the rest of my colony...downside is that I have a BIG^&* freezer but I'm sure it works with regular stockpiles too as long as the receiving stockpile has a higher prio than the collecting stockpile.

[Kittenpox]

Originally posted by Overeagerdragon:

OP; have you ever considdered making seperate area's to focus on the job you want your pets to do? For instance...I have multiples of suchs zones so that, when it's harvest time, I restrict all my animals to the zone "fields" which only has my growing zones and storage freezer (with all zones set to low) included. Animals will haul stuff my colonists harvest and deposit them in my freezer...from there I have a zones that include the freezer and some preffered stockpiles so that when harvest time is over I can set my hauling animals to say "tailoring" so they move everything from the low priority freezer stockpile to my tailoring area (which they'll do because that priority is higher)....just a matter of logistics; I use my freezer as a distribution center for the rest of my colony...downside is that I have a BIG^&* freezer but I'm sure it works with regular stockpiles too as long as the receiving stockpile has a higher prio than the collecting stockpile.

That's actually a good point - you *could* split your freezer(s) and have a sub-zero Loading Dock area at 'Normal' priority (for example) that's accessible to your animals, and another Main Freezer area that's at 'Preferred' (or higher) Priority that's only accessible to your colonists. That way one colonist could take short walks between the loading dock and the freezer, while your animals do the longer walking trips.

I'm not sure how well it would work in practice, but a possibility, so that your animals don't have access to your main storage area (especially during solar flares) but can still contribute with raw-food delivery.

[Gold♥Shield]

Originally posted by Overeagerdragon:

OP; have you ever considdered making seperate area's(zones) to focus on the job you want your pets to do?

Yes I've considered this and was hoping this could be done as I wanted to do this from the start. However, the game is incredibly bad at explaining the mechanics of this game and I haven't figured out how to add zones yet.

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by Gold♥Shield:

Originally posted by Overeagerdragon:

OP; have you ever considdered making seperate area's(zones) to focus on the job you want your pets to do?

Yes I've considered this and was hoping this could be done as I wanted to do this from the start. However, the game is incredibly bad at explaining the mechanics of this game and I haven't figured out how to add zones yet.

If you go into your animals or restrictions tab then there's a big button labeled "Manage Zones" (or area's don't remember the exact word) which allows you to make new zones. Once you have made new zones you can then use your architect menu and use the "zone" button to draw seperate zones for the specific zones you created (you can enter the manage zone menu from the dropdown on the button too). Then it's a simple issue of using the Assign tab to assign colonists (or pets; in which case you need to go into the animals tab) to specific zones.
If I have time today I'll illustrate this with some pictures to clarify this.

Originally posted by Kittenpox:

I'm not sure how well it would work in practice, but a possibility, so that your animals don't have access to your main storage area (especially during solar flares) but can still contribute with raw-food delivery.

I do it all the time and it works perfectly....it's why I have my freezer set to low too....the main issue is that you want goods out of that central freezer ASAP (unless you want to get debuffs from corpses there, for example) whilst also keeping ample space for new stuff coming in (in case of a resource droppod in the middle of harvest season) AND to avoid a large collection of goods that could be vulnerable to external factors (think droppod raids, infestations, an ill-placed molotov). If you set it to normal you run the risk of clogging stuff up OR continuously having to setup the rules for any NEW stockpiles you create. An additional benefit is that once stuff ISN'T moved out there then you know you have a surpluss and all excess goods in there are superfluous (it allows you to beacon your freezer and ONLY sell excesses without fear of selling stuff you might need later).
I won't say it's the "end-all" solution, though. A drawback is that you need to setup different stockpiles based on "themes" (you'll need to have a dedicated stockpile for metals to avoid clogging your freezer up with stuff that normally doesn't spoil or detriorate unless you want to clog up the logistics) AND it requires you to pay close attention to what colonists/pets are assigned to which zones (which has a benefit in itself that non-combat pets are never caught out in the open where raiders can shoot them) unless you want to get some serious mood penalties for colonists who haven't had a bed in ages because you forgot to assign them back to their living quarters after harvest season.
It also requires a very STRICT eye for detail...you don't want your housecats hauling corn whilst your muffaloes are hauling clothes for instance (I know cats don't haul but included as an example for inefficient use of hauling pets).
So it takes some time to find your own "sweet spot" in the logistical aspect of it...but once you've found it...oh man does it work. I've gotten it down to the point where my colony usually reaches a point where my colonists don't haul at all anymore (it's simply turned off in their worktab entirely) and they ONLY do the work pets can't. Considdering I play with mods that means I can simply turn off mining too (got groundrunners for that). Packanimals haul stuff from my fields to my central freezers, dogs then redistribute the goods in the freezer to other area's...combat pets haul ores from mining (or droppods, or corpses)...you won't believe how much this saves on filth inside your colony too....not to mention food because smaller animals don't eat as much and larger animals (that usually do bulkhauling) can graze.