animals skill below 4 practically useless, the skill between 0-3 may as well not exist

[Nonbinary]

i dont know if this was because of an update or if i remember wrong, but how i remember it, is that it used to be that as long as there was a tame animal it could be trained, even with no skill in animals. that was handy if animals self-tamed, and you had a pawn with burning passion in the skill with a low level

someone suggested to me when i brought up the problems with this skill up a year or two ago that it is possible to beat down a wild animal, rescue it and heal it up, and then there is a chance that it will join you, so you can train animals skill by training the animal. i thought back then that sounded like a handy loophole to start training a pawn in animals skill. i have tried to make that occur with manhunting animals, but it has never self-tamed them. the animal just roams peacefully but wild inside the building once it has healed. this would also be useless now anyway, since you still need the minimum required skill of the animal to also train them

pawns can cook at 0 cooking skill, albeit with high risk of food poisoning. they can cut down large trees at plant skill 0 though it takes a very long time. they can build at 0 construction with a lot of failures, they can mine, they can craft, make art, treat someone or themselves, etc at skill level 0. animals skill is the only skill where having a low level renders the skill impossible to use or train naturally. there has to be some way to let the pawns train, and i mean without neuro trainers. if you can with all other skills, you should be able to with this skill. if its too powerful to be able to tame some animals at a low level, then maybe it should be an option for anyone assigned to handle to socialize with already tamed pets now and then to train the skill, giving the handler a mood perk like they get from being nuzzled, as they learn about animals by playing and interacting with them. or this could be something all pawns can do, as long as pets are around, not pen animals (maybe not for psychopaths). it could work like socalizing pawns boosts social skill, but instead its animals skill when pawns pass by a pet and interact with it on the go

[whatamidoing]

Animals skill can be trained from 0 through milking/shearing animals. If you're desperate you can even draft-undraft the pawn to reset the action to keep farming the xp. Neurotrainers too, of course.

[Twitch.tv/KAEN_SG]

Alpaca's require 0 skill to train. They are the ideal target to start training someone up from 0 skill. Useful to keep a few in your pens if you need to start someone fresh on Animal Handling.

[glass zebra]

Almost every domesticated animal you can think of needs skill 0-1 to tame and dogs can be trained afterwards. Every animal that needs shearing and milking will also level you.

Whoever gave you the tip also either didn't meant "join you" but "soul bonds to you" or didn't understand the mechanic entirely. Bonded animals ignore the minumum handling skill and bonding instantly tames an animal. Animals won't just join you after being downed, they just have a chance each time they get tended to bind the the doctor. Your animal handler will not be able to train them afterwards with ignored minimum skill. Only the doctor who bonded ignores that.

[Astasia]

AFAIK the minimum handling skill on animals has always applied to both taming and training. The person giving you that advice perhaps meant you could then shear/milk said animal for skill exp, as whatamidoing mentioned that doesn't have any minimum skill requirement to do. There are wild animals in every biome other than the extreme cold ones that have 0 skill required to tame like Alpacas, Donkeys and Yaks. Then Horses and Dromedaries are 1 skill animals that are also pretty common.

It is entirely possible to start with 0 handling and train that up by just taming and taking care of wild animals you find. Most of the farm animals sold by caravans and towns have 0 handling requirement and can be used to jump start your ranching, they are generally more effective as well.

As far as rescue bonding, it's something like a 0.5% chance to form a bond per wound tended, so it's pretty rare.

[ArtofWar]

I do not have an issue using skills between 0-4, almost every skill works

[Nonbinary]

the bonding after treatment makes so much sense now, i was trying to get the wounded animal to join me... with an ideology that is against bonding thank you all for your tips, i think i even knew about the level 0 and 1 animals but i somehow keep forgetting and think the rat must be the minimum requirement

[coyo7e]

There are lots of animals that you can tame with a pretty low Handling skill. If you stick to rabbits and rats and squirrels and alpacas etc and even boomalopes, it's not tough to level up pretty fast. The hard part is just setting things up so the Handler doesn't spend all their time walking around the map to refill the food they carry to tame, or doing other jobs.

[Nonbinary]

i have a few questions now, i am getting curious about how the animal migration, biomes and seasons work together

do the rate of animal migration change depending on the season (fx sometimes animals come and go alot versus few animals sticking around for long and no new arriving), does animals leaving and appearing happen at random intervals? like is there a way to foresee when animals leave and new appear, + how does it depend on the biome? not counting in that animals spawning on ice sheet will disappear much faster because of the lack of food, and other similar issues. it would be good to know in general when to look out for new wildlife so i dont have to check the tab every day to see if something has changed

does migrating happen more rapidly during some seasons, where checking the tab often can become a necessity? i am ok with that, as long as i dont end up checking it often with clearly nothing new happening. are there other factors to look out for that can change animal migration?

i am currently playing on a perma summer jungle biome, and there is a large herd of elephants that has sticked around for two months, fewer animals in general during the 'coldest' month, and looks like there is no migration in and out during this season. overall five different animals, but currently all too high in taming skill. should i just keep an eye out when the season changes, or is there still a chance that potential tame-able animals can roam in, so i should keep a lookout on the wildlife tab? any explanation on how wildlife and migration is handled by the game is much appreciated

another thing i noticed is that this current biome reaches a temperature during cold season that is very alike temperate forest, but i am guessing since the biome is still different with different plant growths, with some of the animals themselves thriving in hotter temps, is why the animals treat it like a harsh temperature and stay away


putting the list of questions more neatly below:

1. is there a way to predict animal migration (in and out) through season/temperature changes? any biome examples appreciated. can there be other factors overlapping, besides obvious ones like food/plant shortage or bad temps?
2. is there an interval or threshold between animals coming and leaving to keep in mind? like one day minimum/two months maximum, or below 40 celcius, or something else
3. can random migrations happen in an otherwise predictable outcome of a season? like a herd of alcapas or one rat appearing by chance that otherwise (seems like) would not appear during the cold season in the jungle?
4. anything else i should keep in mind or is good to know?

any other information can be valuable to mention. better too much info that is already known than too little. thanks!

[kevinshow]

Llamas, rabbits, squirrels, rats...those were some of the things I remember taming at very low levels of Animal Training skill to build up the skill. This was before donkeys, horses, yaks were added...or maybe there were yaks but I didn't play in that biome.

That's not to say you can train a rat to attack or haul but it means, start out taming them. Butcher them for food if you don't want to keep them. Tame the next rabbits or rats that show up in your map.

However, as the case was, I usually didn't have a lot of spare food at the beginning of a new colony to spend on taming anyway...so by the time I get a few new colonists, I even look specifically for some with good animal training skill already, including Minor or Major passion for it.

[Nonbinary]

Originally posted by navorskatie:

Llamas, rabbits, squirrels, rats...those were some of the things I remember taming at very low levels of Animal Training skill to build up the skill. This was before donkeys, horses, yaks were added...or maybe there were yaks but I didn't play in that biome.

That's not to say you can train a rat to attack or haul but it means, start out taming them. Butcher them for food if you don't want to keep them. Tame the next rabbits or rats that show up in your map.

However, as the case was, I usually didn't have a lot of spare food at the beginning of a new colony to spend on taming anyway...so by the time I get a few new colonists, I even look specifically for some with good animal training skill already, including Minor or Major passion for it.

those animals were at least a minimum 4 as far as i know, rat has always been minimum 4. back when i was still new to the game i would click tame on anything just to see if they could be tamed or not, and i remember rat was often the go-to starter pet. i think its the first actual pet you unlock now, now that the pen has been introduced. i know it used to be a problem, but there was a mod that added more animals and the official game took that mod in, so now there are animals that require below 4. alcapas, donkeys, yaks, horses and dromedaries were officially not part of the game two years ago or so, dont remember with llamas, but they currently have a minimum handling of 6 (just checked)

it is possible for a colonist to have an extremely low skill and still a burning passion in it. i tailor my colonists work so they only do their passion skills when eventually all roles are filled out, with the few exceptions where things go wrong and roles need quick changing. i feel like this is especially useful or even necessary on higher difficulties where the mood is on average lower by default. better keep them distracted with tasks they actually like