Are wargs good early on?

[Nox]

Hello again,
wanted to ask if wargs are viable animals for other stuff besides being a good boy or girl for pets and snuggles.

Mainly asking since I started with a female warg, somehow managed to tame a male warg without any incident (lucky me I guess lol) and now my female warg (DumDum) is about to have a litter of fluffy warg puppies.

Is it viable to have a pack of wargs for hunting / defending?

Are warg pups self sufficient or do I need to feed them?

[Cannenses]

A few things about wargs:
1. The most they can do is defend, not haul nor rescue
2. They need meat, so your biome has to be suitable
3. They are good for fights -- until you get better ones, the bigger animals
4. Make sure your pups are trained early. Early training is feeding. Do you have meat ready? They will hunt, individually, after that. Back to point 2.
5. Learn zoning well, actually ... very well so that you can play with animals productively.

Good luck.

[HunterSilver]

Yes, animals are surprisingly useful.

If wargs can get into melee range with most mechanoids, they'll tear them to shreds. They're also amazing at ambushing raiders coming through doors or into rooms. A pack of wargs in a room with drop pod raiders will deliver you a quick, tasty victory.

I'd recommend creating a body freezer for dead raiders. Restrict your colonists from entering as much as possible, but let your wargs eat from there. Free calories.

[Nox]

Ok thanks for the tips!

[Wasted]

pets are mostly useless for defense

i always send them all to a safe zone when a raid starts

they also increase raid sizes so thats a disadvantage

imo wargs are useless. the only worthwhile pets are haulers.

you can sell them to some traders (exotic) i think , thats likely the best use for them.

[Veylox]

Never tried trainable pets and probably never will because of biotech and mechs, but I'm curious to see if anyone thinks they're worth it

[Morvana]

Originally posted by Veylox:

Never tried trainable pets and probably never will because of biotech and mechs, but I'm curious to see if anyone thinks they're worth it

You should try them. Early in game any attack pet is a huge help.

Wargs are very good. It's not that easy to have a huge pack because they eat meat, but having a few of them can be easy if you feed them raider corpses (a freezer dedicated to them with the pets inside works well).

They are effective (the ones saying they aren't are certainly the same people making killboxes... Of course anything seems bad comparend to abusing the AI). With their speed they are best against ranged enemies, which can't do much against them once they are in contact.
But don't grow to attached to them, it's still war dogs versus guns...

[Astasia]

Originally posted by BananaChumpus:

Is it viable to have a pack of wargs for hunting / defending?

Viable? Yes, absolutely.

Particularly efficient or convenient? Not so much.

If you think they are fluffy pets, don't send them into combat. Combat animals in RimWorld are highly disposable. They get permanent injuries easily without any reasonable way to fix them. After a few raids they will likely be blind, brain damaged, and/or missing a few limbs, if they are still alive. There are mods that let you fix those injuries with like bionics, but it's not really worth the cost. They reproduce fairly quickly so you can replace the injured ones with freshly trained animals, and the hobbled ones that have seen a few raids become dinner. It's a fair amount of extra micro and resources, and there are probably better ways to spend your time, but it's definitely something that "works" if you want to do it, maybe you will enjoy the process. The vast majority of playthroughs I avoid using combat animals.

[Nox]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Originally posted by BananaChumpus:

Is it viable to have a pack of wargs for hunting / defending?

Viable? Yes, absolutely.

Particularly efficient or convenient? Not so much.

If you think they are fluffy pets, don't send them into combat. Combat animals in RimWorld are highly disposable. They get permanent injuries easily without any reasonable way to fix them. After a few raids they will likely be blind, brain damaged, and/or missing a few limbs, if they are still alive. There are mods that let you fix those injuries with like bionics, but it's not really worth the cost. They reproduce fairly quickly so you can replace the injured ones with freshly trained animals, and the hobbled ones that have seen a few raids become dinner. It's a fair amount of extra micro and resources, and there are probably better ways to spend your time, but it's definitely something that "works" if you want to do it, maybe you will enjoy the process. The vast majority of playthroughs I avoid using combat animals.

Is there any kind of armour I can give them?

[Yaldabaoth]

I never used one for it but I am 100% sure that if >we< can think of that, there is a mod for it.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by BananaChumpus:

Is there any kind of armour I can give them?

Not without mods, and that is the main issue with using them. Humans can get like 95-99% effective damage reduction in battle, animals have nothing and are just bullet magnets. I know there was a mod that added some sort of animal armor, but I never looked into it and don't remember what it was called.

[Veylox]

Originally posted by Morvana:

Originally posted by Veylox:

Never tried trainable pets and probably never will because of biotech and mechs, but I'm curious to see if anyone thinks they're worth it

You should try them. Early in game any attack pet is a huge help.

Wargs are very good. It's not that easy to have a huge pack because they eat meat, but having a few of them can be easy if you feed them raider corpses (a freezer dedicated to them with the pets inside works well).

They are effective (the ones saying they aren't are certainly the same people making killboxes... Of course anything seems bad comparend to abusing the AI). With their speed they are best against ranged enemies, which can't do much against them once they are in contact.
But don't grow to attached to them, it's still war dogs versus guns...

Ok so they're bad

What about elephants ? Does anyone use them ?

[Wasted]

Originally posted by Veylox:

Originally posted by Morvana:

You should try them. Early in game any attack pet is a huge help.

Wargs are very good. It's not that easy to have a huge pack because they eat meat, but having a few of them can be easy if you feed them raider corpses (a freezer dedicated to them with the pets inside works well).

They are effective (the ones saying they aren't are certainly the same people making killboxes... Of course anything seems bad comparend to abusing the AI). With their speed they are best against ranged enemies, which can't do much against them once they are in contact.
But don't grow to attached to them, it's still war dogs versus guns...

Ok so they're bad

What about elephants ? Does anyone use them ?

yes elephants are the best easy to get animals imo. they make a lot of filth so keep them outside usually. (I always send them to an inside safe zone at the very start of when I get raided, same for household mechs)

I don't use pets for combat unless i need to use them as bullet sponges in the early game where I would get wrecked otherwise

elephants are the best pack animals, sell for a high price, and give lots of meat when slaughtered (if you need meat), the leather is decent, also the males yield tusks

elephants don't require a pen.

don't horde animals, the game will keep giving you more and more. so I usually sell em all off on occasion so i can buy things I wouldn't otherwise be able to afford from traders.

[-HoK- Cian]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Originally posted by BananaChumpus:

Is it viable to have a pack of wargs for hunting / defending?

Viable? Yes, absolutely.

Particularly efficient or convenient? Not so much.

If you think they are fluffy pets, don't send them into combat. Combat animals in RimWorld are highly disposable. They get permanent injuries easily without any reasonable way to fix them. After a few raids they will likely be blind, brain damaged, and/or missing a few limbs, if they are still alive. There are mods that let you fix those injuries with like bionics, but it's not really worth the cost. They reproduce fairly quickly so you can replace the injured ones with freshly trained animals, and the hobbled ones that have seen a few raids become dinner. It's a fair amount of extra micro and resources, and there are probably better ways to spend your time, but it's definitely something that "works" if you want to do it, maybe you will enjoy the process. The vast majority of playthroughs I avoid using combat animals.

Blind, Deaf, and limbless animals have a purpose. I call them simple meals :)

[Wedge]

Nah just purchase dogs if you want a small decent pet. They're a lower maintenance, can be trained well, still serve as good fodder in fights etc. Bears would be better then warg in pretty much every aspect. Though fairly wild and messy they're at least omnivore. Thrumbo and elephant are your top tier.

[HunterSilver]

I'm actually a bit surprised so many people prefer larger combat animals over smaller ones, and omnivores/herbivores over carnivores. Carnivores eat next to nothing while herbivores have to chow down on a lot of hay/grass in comparison.

Given injury rates from combat, you'd think everyone would prefer high reproduction rate with large litters, that are relatively easy to support large numbers of.

Its been awhile since I've gone over the numbers for animal nutritional needs, but I remember it being something silly like 20 tiles of hydroponics producing rice and meals to support 1 elephant. Meanwhile you could be wildly inefficient and produce simple meals to feed Wargs and support 5 wargs with that same setup. Which is an almost meaningless comparison since there are always plenty of raider bodies to supplement carnivore diets. I think/hope elephants were buffed since then to eat less and reproduce faster, but the numbers haven't changed that much.

Thrumbo weren't too bad, only about twice as much upkeep as an elephant. The issue there being taming one.