1.1 for Animal Farming - what's the use case for new animals?

[Cannenses]

I have this thing in my head that 1.1 update is for players who love to farm animals. The Vanilla Expanded was a welcomed surprise.

For me, horses and donkey were the key difference because I can now set up my base the way I wanted to without having to depend on meat-eaters (dogs). Now it's perfect for an (almost) clockwork-like system of hauling.

Does anyone else consider horses and donkey the key addition to animals - as primary haulers? I have sheep, yak, duck, etc. but I don't know why they were added other than for variety.
Anyone else want to share info about they use the new animals?

(I play vanilla, no mods)

[Hykal]

I didn't actually consider horses could be primarily be haulers. While I do have them as well, I still mostly rely on dogs if only because they have 0% filth. Dogs are also useful if you have no veggies for whatever reason, and dogs can still eat veggies and vegetarian simple meals.

Sheeps and yaks provide more furs, and their furs are quite valuable.

[Cannenses]

OK. That explains the other trader was not an oddball wanting to pay more for sheep bowler hat than higher grade (excellent) birdskin / plainleather bowler.

I still use dogs for hauling inside homebase, even within fridge, exactly because of 0 filth rate. Horses and predators that haul are outside and they haul to staging zones, where my small dog pack do the rest and bring inside. Couldn't do this without herbivore haulers ... my setup anyway.

[The Nut Champ]

geese farm are actually nice if you manage to set them up they can chunk up alot of eggs in a short time.

the difference from chickens is that its hard to replace them since they grow up really slow.

i havent tried ducks yet though im guessing you go for a scheduled slaughter for their meats

[Hykal]

I can never do chickens because they breed too quickly and eat all the food quickly. There's also no automatic way to slaughter them in vanilla.

[Cannenses]

There's geese? What? Where? ... lol

Never seen any. To be fair, first playthrough after 1.1. Maybe not my biome nor my traders. I'll give it a go.

Yep. Chickens are just extensive zoning exercise because they take up too much too quickly so we have to keep them moving to different pastures.

[Evil Overlord]

Early in the game I used Bison as a combination caravan animal and meat shield for my sniper who tamed all 3. Other than that they don't really do much, just eat your stuff and bum around the colony until needed.
Around mid game I had a herd of horses migrate into my map so I tamed a pair. Overall they're better than Bison for pretty much everything so no more Bison for me, that said I still prefer dogs as haulers. I've never had an issue with dogs going rogue and leaving the colony when their population explodes but I've had horses do just that because I didn't set them to be trained fast enough.
Very late in the game I encountered a merchant selling goats so I grabbed a breeding pair for my secondary colony. I have to say I rather like them as they are very low maintenance milk producers that don't seem to eat much and reproduce and grow quickly. Besides being a food source they are however entirely useless as they have no training options and can't haul for a caravan.

Besides those 3 the only experience I have with donkeys, guinea pigs, and yaks is as hunting targets as (at least to me) donkeys just seem like worse horses, I don't have any use for a cute pet like guinea pigs on the rim world, and yaks haven't appeared for me outside of a man hunter event.

[Kittenpox]

Originally posted by cannenses:

There's geese? What? Where? ... lol

I have yet to see them myself, but its entirely possible that https://www.rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Goose are like Labradors and tend not to show up as wild animals.
(Disclaimer: I say this purely from my own experience - I have no data beyond that to suggest how these creatures spawn into your game.)

[Hykal]

Bison wool is one of the better wools, but the wiki hasn't updated yet, and I don't exactly recall how better it is atm.

[Cannenses]

Really? Didn't realise bison too as good textile. Will check it out (have 1 breeding pair).

Appreciate the input and so, in gratitude, I'm thinking of showing anyone interested why we should keep predators. In my case, it includes Thrumbo, Megasloth, Rhino as the big boys with the usual panthers, etc. I just got reminded why I have them -- the infestations.

It literally just happened. RNG forgot I have critters of my own. So many of them, but mine had guns, and it was absolutely nuts. Wonder if I can do a gif. I will post it if I can figure out how. 630 insect jelly was the result.

[Scathe]

Originally posted by cannenses:

Appreciate the input and so, in gratitude, I'm thinking of showing anyone interested why we should keep predators. In my case, it includes Thrumbo, Megasloth, Rhino as the big boys with the usual panthers, etc. I just got reminded why I have them -- the infestations.

It literally just happened. RNG forgot I have critters of my own. So many of them, but mine had guns, and it was absolutely nuts. Wonder if I can do a gif. I will post it if I can figure out how. 630 insect jelly was the result.

this sounds like an interesting screenshot. your critters have guns? interesting mod...

my experience is limited, I looked at the new animals stats by using prepare carefully to give myself 1 of each at the start of a new game, was not impressed, started over without them, current game I have 5 alpaca and 2 huskys tamed in my colony, and I'm thinking about adding a grizzly bear. alpaca wool does not have the best stats of wools, but they produce it fast and they can be trained to attack, and have a reasonable wildness stat.

[Evil Overlord]

Originally posted by Hykal:

Bison wool is one of the better wools, but the wiki hasn't updated yet, and I don't exactly recall how better it is atm.

I have a bunch of various wools (muffalo, alpaca, sheep, bison, yak) and the values line up, bison wool is no more valuable than muffalo wool and actually has worse heat insulation. Unless megasloth wool is an outlier all wools are identical value wise with slight differences in insulation stats.

[Cannenses]

@Scathe - Lol, shot myself there just like my 2 critters, killed by my own pawns. It was kind of like melee but with bullets in that fight!

On the textile front, grizzly would be good. But I normally focus on them later. Muffalo and Alpaca is pretty standard for winter wear. But for summer, I use predators - either the panther or the cougar in the beginning and wolves. I prefer panther over cougar (altho both gets you panthera fur when they die from fights). I don't use Lynx because they don't haul altho they also give you panthera fur.

For me, dogs will be needed only after the trainers have worked with predators (which, in the beginning, might take an entire season or two). Dogs are later because I use them inside the base/fridge, and I don't have a lot to haul inside the base during the early stages (I'm talking mainly raw meat here).

Predators, once trained, are more useful than dogs because they protect my early tamers (still not strong enough for grizzly or the sloth). Dogs tend to lose the fight and I cannot afford losing any animals in the beginning (no more time to train another batch).

Finally, probably during mid-game, I beef up with the bigger predators because that's when the crazy mechs come over for coffee and infestations (as I've just experienced).

In short, during early game:
- For winter (parka) - muffalo and alpaca
- For summer (whether jackets or dusters) - panthera and wolfskin

Mid- to late-game
- work on taming the bigger predators using the smaller ones (wargs, panthers, lynx) as protection.

I prefer the panther/cougar over wolves because of their better DPS (4.67:3.51), which is still better than wargs (only 4.02).