dumb question: are insects animals?

[ephemeraltoast]

For the purposes of Ideologies, I mean. If a pawn has a vegetarian ideology with extra tame and bond chance, will they freak about slaughtering insects, will they get an extra debuff from eating insect meat, will they be be better able to tame bugs, etc.? Does the animal specialist calming ability work on bugs?

[Limdood]

Insect meat still counts as meat, and so still violates vegetarian.

Insects are NOT innocent animals. They can be attacked without penalty if your ideology hates "killing innocent animals" (mostly because they're not innocent. They're hostile)

I'm not sure about slaughtering, sorry.

If I remember correctly bugs can only be tamed via the random chance from rescuing and tending them, and the tame animal interaction doesn't work? If that's the case, tame animal chance is irrelevant, since the tend tame chance is separate. If that's not the case, any tame chance bonuses should apply to normal taming, whether on animals, bugs, or wild humans.

Insects should count for tamed animal body size counts for the purposes of satisfying the "ranching: central" precept happiness thresholds of the rancher meme.

[ephemeraltoast]

Originally posted by Limdood:

Insects are NOT innocent animals. They can be attacked without penalty if your ideology hates "killing innocent animals" (mostly because they're not innocent. They're hostile)

That is great news. Do you happen to know if a bug becomes "innocent" once it is downed? I could use some bug meat to make kibble for my pets, but don't want to piss off the vegetarians.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Limdood:

If I remember correctly bugs can only be tamed via the random chance from rescuing and tending them, and the tame animal interaction doesn't work?

If you kill their hive and drop agro (usually by downing them) then they become more or less normal animals and you can tame them like any other animal. They might still attack your pawn during the taming process but it doesn't interrupt it as long as they are set to ignore. I don't know if they count as "innocent" at this point, but I doubt it since they still belong to a hostile faction.

[Halfshell]

Originally posted by Limdood:

Insect meat still counts as meat, and so still violates vegetarian.

This is weird. I can kinda get fish counting, but insects? If someone goes to the trouble of farming them then they deserve it as a food source in my book.

[ephemeraltoast]

Originally posted by Astasia:

If you kill their hive and drop agro (usually by downing them) then they become more or less normal animals and you can tame them like any other animal. They might still attack your pawn during the taming process but it doesn't interrupt it as long as they are set to ignore. I don't know if they count as "innocent" at this point, but I doubt it since they still belong to a hostile faction.

I suppose I will give it a shot and report back. Thanks for the replies.

[marcusaddamsson]

Yea, I went to a Ancient Complex and after I killed the little guys, the large bugs were non-aggressive. I think it was a 30% chance of attack on tame... I had an ambush inbound on that location, and it was two males... so even if I got 'em.. I wouldn't make little bugs. But I was curious what would happen if I did get 'em trained. Looking forward to an update.

[boytype]

Yep, looking it up, insects are in fact animals;

ANIMAL Any of numerous multicellular eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Metazoa (or Animalia) that ingest food rather than manufacturing it themselves and are usually able to move about during at least part of their life cycle. Sponges, jellyfishes, flatworms, mollusks, arthropods, and vertebrates are animals.