Whats the point of dogs/cats?

[John]

I checked the wiki and came to a conclusion that pigs, chickens and cows are the bests animals to have but they are difficult to get so there are other less efficient alternatives like boards, turkeys, turtles, muffalos, etc. Also pigs and boars can haul.

So the, whats the point of dogs, cats, cougars, wolfs, etc? They seem like good for nothings.

I ask this cause i really like the wolves but i dont see their use.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Dogs are easy to train, cats will often hunt small critters (free food), Cougars are tough and can take on one or two tribals with ease same with wolves. Most are handy bullet sponges/force multipliers if need be and can become dinner if they die (unlike turrets).

[Madman666]

Dogs can do all the hauling for your colonists if you have enough of them and get them trained. They require less food then a colonist, but they can do hauling better (they move a bit faster and are not influenced by mood and mental breaks, so they can haul items from across the whole map without any mood\hunger related problems). So that your guys will have more time to do other stuff like crafting, art and research.

[dwobwinkle]

Wolves can haul like dogs, and are less likely to get murdered in the wild. They're harder to train, so probably not worth until you have a higher animal handling skill, but eventually it's nice to replace my huskies with wolves.

[Madman666]

Originally posted by dwobwinkle:

Wolves can haul like dogs, and are less likely to get murdered in the wild. They're harder to train, so probably not worth until you have a higher animal handling skill, but eventually it's nice to replace my huskies with wolves.

Actually if I have decent 10-13 animal skill I usually train wolves first because huskies can be quite rare in trader stocks and I do need hauling to be done much earlier then I find proper dogs)) Then later I replace them by huskies. Sure they have 1 less DPS, but otherwise they have same health and they eat veggies, unlike wolves who only eat something with meat (kibble, corpses and meals, which can be expensive with a lot of colonists) and don't create atrocious dirt amounts everywhere they go in a colony. Dogs on the other hand have animal filth rate of 0.

[Swat__Raptor]

Big Dogs are more trainable than most animals (lower Wildness compared to their equivalents) can be trained to attack, rescue (good if you don't want to risk another colonist todo it) and haul, also they have large litters and can be sold for extra cash (albeit not as efficient as pigs or chickens)


small cats and dogs, kill small animals if you don't give them access to food,

Big Cats can be trained to attack and have somewhat better stats than dogs

be careful with restricting big animals access to food while they prefer wild animals over the ones you have domesticated, a tamed bear will eat your monkey if the only other option is a wild muffalo, Guess the bear think his friend of 3 yrs the monkey isn't worth going toe to toe with other big game (don't know if the mechanics actually work this way but I have had several pets eat each other when they were hungry enough)

[Madman666]

^If you have a couple of dedicated cleaners that is. Or if you don't care for negative moodlets for hideous rooms and environment.

Because animal filth rate on pigs is through the roof.

[8beater]

Boomalopes and boomrats can be used as suicide bombers.

[SakuraKoi]

To quote a certain someone from very few days ago:
"Cats will nuzzle your colonists and buff their mood. And if you just disallow your food storage area, they'll feed themselves by hunting too (assuming the biome has prey). You can even eat the rest of their prey!"
https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/54wgnw/i_hate_cats/d867ib3
This quite likely goes for dogs too, especially those Yorkshire Terriers

[Psycho Sloth]

If your colonist is about to break, lock them in the puppy room to get nuzzled back to sanity. Or if it's too late, get a room full of dead puppies.

[Madman666]

Wolves will. They still have some dirt rate on them. Dogs - won't their filth rate is 0. If you want decently sized hauling squad - animal dirt will be everywhere they work. With them there won't be any more dirt other than left by your colonists.

In the animal info window you can see their dirt producing rate under Animal filth stat. Its not that much something like 1.71 filth per 1000 tiles walked for wolves. But when you have 20 of them and sending them out to far ends of the map to pick up something useful - you colony will quickly turn into hideous place.

Dogs do not produce "animal filth" on constructed floors which is different from usual dirt left by colonists. But they still i think produce regular dirt with same rate as a colonist walking around. Pigs in addition to regular dirt - add animal filth. when you have 20 of them - it adds up insanely quickly without at least 2 dedicated cleaners, turning otherrwise beautiful rooms into hideous giving -10 mood to anyone that works there for a long time.

If you a have a couple of cripples or otherwise useless guys to set to clean as priority one - you can forget about filth and use pigs still. If you don't - I highly recommend huskies. They don't produce dirt, they learn faster than any wild animal and they are most sturdy dogs to use in a fight (little weaker than wolves though).

[ASMR gaming]

i tamed a megathron and a thrombos, interesting times when a small enemy attacked :) actually having a tame pack of boomalope can be handy when under siege.

[Jack]

A question please, how to make tamed animals carry stuff for you? I have got a husky and he got 8/8 in Haul (Haven't get his training in Release and Rescue though).

I set all my guys to not do any hauling. I set 2 stone chunk to be haul. After the whole day the stone is still there.

Did I miss something, or are they limited to hauling something only?

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Originally posted by Jack:

A question please, how to make tamed animals carry stuff for you? I have got a husky and he got 8/8 in Haul (Haven't get his training in Release and Rescue though).

I set all my guys to not do any hauling. I set 2 stone chunk to be haul. After the whole day the stone is still there.

Did I miss something, or are they limited to hauling something only?

They will only haul if there is somewhere designated to haul to and a single husky won't constantly haul, they also need access to both the item and destination and won't just haul chunks but anything (and everything) else too. More huskies will deal with the slack.

[Jack]

I try putting several chunk of stone for them to work on, and got a large area that can store set very close by, but not working.

However after a while he run to fetch electric component to place in the stock pile area. So it is working but seems very slowly :D

Thank you

[Zubenelgenubi]

Originally posted by Madman666:

Wolves will. They still have some dirt rate on them. Dogs - won't their filth rate is 0. If you want decently sized hauling squad - animal dirt will be everywhere they work. With them there won't be any more dirt other than left by your colonists.

In the animal info window you can see their dirt producing rate under Animal filth stat. Its not that much something like 1.71 filth per 1000 tiles walked for wolves. But when you have 20 of them and sending them out to far ends of the map to pick up something useful - you colony will quickly turn into hideous place.

Dogs do not produce "animal filth" on constructed floors which is different from usual dirt left by colonists. But they still i think produce regular dirt with same rate as a colonist walking around. Pigs in addition to regular dirt - add animal filth. when you have 20 of them - it adds up insanely quickly without at least 2 dedicated cleaners, turning otherrwise beautiful rooms into hideous giving -10 mood to anyone that works there for a long time.

If you a have a couple of cripples or otherwise useless guys to set to clean as priority one - you can forget about filth and use pigs still. If you don't - I highly recommend huskies. They don't produce dirt, they learn faster than any wild animal and they are most sturdy dogs to use in a fight (little weaker than wolves though).

Are dogs the cleanest pets people can have? That would be hilariously backwards.