What to do with a Thrumbo?

[Merder]

I had a couple of Thrumbos wander into my map. One of them decided to take a tour of my killbox (so much for being the wisest creature in the universe) and stepped on a few traps. It was bleeding out so I had a my doctor rescue it and nurse it back to health.

Now it's just hanging out in my barn and won't leave through the animal flap and since it's wild I can't set it free. I have someone trying to tame it, but I'm not sure I want to keep it even if that's successful because it consumes a ton of food.

I don't want to kill it or do anything mean to it. Any suggestions?

[P O P]

It pretty much feeds itself as long as there are trees or grass. It is amazing at combat. I've had it nearly solo entire mid-level mech clusters. Train it and you got yourself a literal tank. If you don't want to keep it, just break the animal flap and let it run free or slaughter it when it gets tamed for the loot. The horn and fur apparently are worth a good bit and I'm pretty sure the horn is a good melee weapon.

[Steelfleece]

Thrumbofur is probably better kept than sold - only material better for clothing is potentially hyperweave, and that is usually even harder to acquire.

As far as keeping thrumbos, the hardest part for me was always having someone with enough animal skill to work with them, even more than the food issue. The filth issue isn't great either.

[P O P]

You can just use the area system to get around the filth issue. So far hasn't failed me. For the training/maintaining, sending someone with a burning passion to tame random creatures works good (at least with my limited experience). You can train them to max and either keep them or sell them for some good cash or just eat them. Get some elephants or other intelligent rideable creature for each colonist and maybe 1 spare and you kill two birds with one stone.

[Merder]

So one of my colonists got the random instant taming buff so I decided to go ahead and use it on the Thrumbo. Instantly, things started going sideways. It was eating all the kibble and even eating trees! It even ate a cow that my colonists had just slaughtered. Once there was no food left in the animal pen, it headed for the base. It left a trail of destruction wherever it went, eating food, getting floors filthy, and just generally acting like it owned the place.

Ultimately I ended up selling the Thrumbo to a trade caravan because there was too much other stuff going on and I couldn't find the time to deal with it properly.

[Wasted]

its zonable

[Некатя]

there is also a great mod that allows trumbo to be useful in exchange for eaten trees and dirty floors)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=859466666

[KnightlyKestrel]

Originally posted by Merder:

So one of my colonists got the random instant taming buff so I decided to go ahead and use it on the Thrumbo. Instantly, things started going sideways. It was eating all the kibble and even eating trees! It even ate a cow that my colonists had just slaughtered. Once there was no food left in the animal pen, it headed for the base. It left a trail of destruction wherever it went, eating food, getting floors filthy, and just generally acting like it owned the place.

Ultimately I ended up selling the Thrumbo to a trade caravan because there was too much other stuff going on and I couldn't find the time to deal with it properly.

the thrumbo... ate a cow...? are you sure? not trying to be mean, just genuinely confused as to what happened since (AFAIK) the thrumbo only eat trees (and mabye fruit/veg, cant recall).

as for the story, that *was* a smart thrumbo - played you like a fiddle to swindle you out of kibble and trees. seriously though, the zoning tool is great for large 'pets' like thrumbo's.

if you had kept it, as people mentioned before they make great combat support, and I find they make great caravan support as well - though at the cost of increasing your colony's wealth a decent bit too.

[Некатя]

I just loaded my game to check - thrumbo eat plants, seeds, trees, food, alcohol and combicorn, no meat or corpses. It looks like someone else ate the cow)

[Merder]

Originally posted by KnightlyKestrel:

Originally posted by Merder:

So one of my colonists got the random instant taming buff so I decided to go ahead and use it on the Thrumbo. Instantly, things started going sideways. It was eating all the kibble and even eating trees! It even ate a cow that my colonists had just slaughtered. Once there was no food left in the animal pen, it headed for the base. It left a trail of destruction wherever it went, eating food, getting floors filthy, and just generally acting like it owned the place.

Ultimately I ended up selling the Thrumbo to a trade caravan because there was too much other stuff going on and I couldn't find the time to deal with it properly.

the thrumbo... ate a cow...? are you sure? not trying to be mean, just genuinely confused as to what happened since (AFAIK) the thrumbo only eat trees (and mabye fruit/veg, cant recall).

as for the story, that *was* a smart thrumbo - played you like a fiddle to swindle you out of kibble and trees. seriously though, the zoning tool is great for large 'pets' like thrumbo's.

if you had kept it, as people mentioned before they make great combat support, and I find they make great caravan support as well - though at the cost of increasing your colony's wealth a decent bit too.

I could be mistaken about it eating the cow because my attention was divided. A colonist slaughtered a cow and left it on the floor of the barn. Next thing i know, the Thrumbo is standing right there and the cow is gone. Its body was not where my colonists take animals to be be butchered.

I do see in the wiki that they are herbivorous and dendrovorous so apparently i'm wrong about it eating the cow but at the time it certainly did seem that way.