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[FantasticDorf]

As a quality of life improvement. Minor game mechanics like the one im suggesting would help navigate around very frequent pathing issues of livestock and help cut down the intense micro management aspect into being complex yet purposeful.

How it works.

> If a dwarf cannot locate a livestock animal it will go grab a piece of applicable food to feed a animal and whistle the animal to them within a certain range, this sets a game waypoint for the creature to beckon to the dwarf, this only applies if the dwarf cannot travel to collect them themselves or there is a explicit reason for not handling the creature.

• This behaviour makes allowances to collect animals from 1 z level above or below by pulling them up/towards (requiring strength and time penalties to larger creatures)

> Animal trainers have additional buffs to this, as  with a certain level of training for the animal and experience themselves, they can do it without a food reward purely on command and at a greater range.

• Animal trainers can also command regular livestock to do complex tasks (see work animals section) such as commanding them to attack, regardless of benign tokens/timidity for a morale boost (creating a no-quarter situation for the animal), and to explicitly stay within a pasture, this command does not have to be re-applied upon domesticated animals, though anything less than domesticated will occasionally forget and wander from time to time.

> A dwarf will always be able to summon their personal pet from whatever distance, a trainer with a personal pet has the most possible advantage.

> Guzzlers/Item thieves require mandatory incentives for commands, but with high training and animal training job experience, there is a diminishing chance of the animal recieving its 'treat'

Work Animals & commands

Naturally if you command such a power of control over a animal, to that it can be liable to do a greater spectrum of work besides milling around gormlessly.

• Command a creature to prone, so that you may equip objects such as armour and mount upon it, which is especially important if you are of small stature like a dwarf

• Assign a large pack animal to haul a wagon/plough to a instruction with supervision of someone commanding its movements.

• Assign hunting animals/separate training class of animals to assist in shepherding/civilian duties and encourage livestock to do commands such as to stay put by chasing them back into the pen/serving as a deterrent like a sheepdog.

These are but a few humble points. Feedback would be much appreciated.

 

[Bumber]

I can't tell if this is for adventure mode or fort mode. Furthermore, I can't see how this cuts down on pathing problems or micromanagement.

Spoiler: Going over it line by line: (click to show/hide)

If a dwarf cannot locate a livestock animal it will go grab a piece of applicable food to feed a animal and whistle the animal to them within a certain range, this sets a game waypoint for the creature to beckon to the dwarf, this only applies if the dwarf cannot travel to collect them themselves or there is a explicit reason for not handling the creature.

If the dwarf cannot locate an animal, how can the animal locate the dwarf? Under what situations can a dwarf not locate an animal?

This behaviour makes allowances to collect animals from 1 z level above or below by pulling them up/towards (requiring strength and time penalties to larger creatures)

Why would they pull the animal instead of guiding them like usual?

Animal trainers have additional buffs to this, as  with a certain level of training for the animal and experience themselves, they can do it without a food reward purely on command and at a greater range.

Hauling doesn't currently require a food reward. If you're adding a food requirement, I don't really have a comment, except that it doesn't decrease micromanagement and adds to the pathing issue of picking up food first.

Animal trainers can also command regular livestock to do complex tasks (see work animals section) such as commanding them to attack, regardless of benign tokens/timidity for a morale boost (creating a no-quarter situation for the animal), and to explicitly stay within a pasture, this command does not have to be re-applied upon domesticated animals, though anything less than domesticated will occasionally forget and wander from time to time.

Forcing a benign animal to attack doesn't sound very realistic. They want to flee above all else.

A dwarf will always be able to summon their personal pet from whatever distance, a trainer with a personal pet has the most possible advantage.

I thought pets already follow their owners wherever they go?

Guzzlers/Item thieves require mandatory incentives for commands, but with high training and animal training job experience, there is a diminishing chance of the animal recieving its 'treat'

No comment, as with previous food reward.

Command a creature to prone, so that you may equip objects such as armour and mount upon it, which is especially important if you are of small stature like a dwarf

This sounds like adventure mode. It makes things more complicated than a simple mount/equip option. In fort mode you probably wouldn't even notice it happening.

Assign a large pack animal to haul a wagon/plough to a instruction with supervision of someone commanding its movements.

Sounds about the same as setting up a minecart route in fort mode. Not sure what to make of it for adventure mode, except that the player usually isn't even around, so most work happens off-screen anyways.

Assign hunting animals/separate training class of animals to assist in shepherding/civilian duties and encourage livestock to do commands such as to stay put by chasing them back into the pen/serving as a deterrent like a sheepdog.

This one seems useful. Frees up dwarves from having to do it.

[FantasticDorf]

I guess its a applicable method for both. Most of the pathfinding is for fortress mode, but the finer commands could be applicable to animal companions in adventure mode too.

The idea is that with skilled animal handlers (which already have animal hauling attached to the exp, though any dwarf can lead a tame pet) and pet owners, can move animals about and get them to interact in a much more advanced way so that the rest of the workforce isn't obliged to pick up the pieces when the game goes wonky and a cow ends up in a tree with no path down.

I didn't explicitly mention adventure mode because it'd just be rehashing a compilation of the threads points in a different spectrum, most of the points are left up to the feedback and speculation of the reader.
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Response

If a dwarf cannot locate a livestock animal it will go grab a piece of applicable food to feed a animal and whistle the animal to them within a certain range, this sets a game waypoint for the creature to beckon to the dwarf, this only applies if the dwarf cannot travel to collect them themselves or there is a explicit reason for not handling the creature.

If the dwarf cannot locate an animal, how can the animal locate the dwarf? Under what situations can a dwarf not locate an animal?

• Circumstances such as z level differences where they do not share the same plane primarily, birds pastured above ground in a non-enclosed area serve as a good example, though this can apply to a extent to aquatic creatures or creatures divided by a water crossing which is not a problem for the natural swimmer but a huge problem for a dwarf which is reluctant to path over water. Naturally if a dwarf can just grab a creature they will go ahead and do so.

> Circumstances in which a animal cannot locate a dwarf is commonly when the creature exceeds the range of the dwarf able to locate the animal to path to them. Reasonably drawing upon combined observation skill for spotting and the 'sensory' range of animal trainers, a un-trained peasant dwarf with no stats can call a creature from 1 z level above it and 1 z level below (like archery range), where as levels as a trainer adds a mandatory 1 z level each exp level to that range for 2 - 2 for on top of observation skill adding 1 or 2 z levels of range on top of that. A highly observant legendary trainer commands almost omnipotence.

• Im not entirely decided on the horizontal range of the dwarf, which might be kept to its localised sight range plus the additive trainer range adding tiles to its invisible sensory range

• When the game prompts that the creature is in range of a dwarf and the job is relevant, it'll give the dwarf a encouragement to run the job, might get messy with peasants but it should work flawlessly with animal trainers as intended.

    This behaviour makes allowances to collect animals from 1 z level above or below by pulling them up/towards (requiring strength and time penalties to larger creatures)

Why would they pull the animal instead of guiding them like usual?

• Because guiding them up a vertical smoothened wall with little to no climbing ability attached to the material, on top of the weight of the animal is going to complicate it immensely, if the dwarf could guide up a natural climber, then that's less of a problem. Trying to pull up a large cow up and over a wall is significantly harder.

Animal trainers have additional buffs to this, as  with a certain level of training for the animal and experience themselves, they can do it without a food reward purely on command and at a greater range.

Hauling doesn't currently require a food reward. If you're adding a food requirement, I don't really have a comment, except that it doesn't decrease micromanagement and adds to the pathing issue of picking up food first.

• The command themselves to summon a creature to yourself is meant to be executed rarely in exceptional circumstances where the dwarf cannot reach the said creature. The food incentive is gameplay mechanic wise, meant to be bait, like i mention above with my animal trainers its relevant to put skilled animal trainers onto the case to stop regular dwarves raiding your supplies to do this action.

• I should probably mention that the command to summon to yourself is EXPLICIT to the animal hauling labour, without it enabled dwarves will make no attempt to gather even domesticated and tame creatures out of bounds like usual. Its enabled on job list settings for animal trainers by default.

Animal trainers can also command regular livestock to do complex tasks (see work animals section) such as commanding them to attack, regardless of benign tokens/timidity for a morale boost (creating a no-quarter situation for the animal), and to explicitly stay within a pasture, this command does not have to be re-applied upon domesticated animals, though anything less than domesticated will occasionally forget and wander from time to time.

Forcing a benign animal to attack doesn't sound very realistic. They want to flee above all else.

• A animal trained to do this job, especially with war training (therefore making it more relevant) or not would simply receive a morale boost, if they sustain any kind of significant injury, their morale is likely to decrease and revert back to normal running away routines, think of it like a Kolbold quickflee, when they run low on morale from the tide turning they run away, tail between their legs.

• During world war one where there was a enourmous amount of horses involved on the frontline, most of the war horses on the trenches were trained to bite the faces off the enemy to inflict damage, in the same sense a horse or indeed many large benign animals are actually very dangerous creatures, with horses kicking legs able to shatter bones and skulls into disfigured messes.

    A dwarf will always be able to summon their personal pet from whatever distance, a trainer with a personal pet has the most possible advantage.

I thought pets already follow their owners wherever they go?

• Usually, but its just a perk if they ever become explicitly seperated, the firm emotional bond between them draws them together

Guzzlers/Item thieves require mandatory incentives for commands, but with high training and animal training job experience, there is a diminishing chance of the animal recieving its 'treat'

No comment, as with previous food reward.

• It might be a unsavory thing to talk about but it kills two birds with one stone, in keeping a guzzling animal you are going to lose resources to them occasionally looting your stockpiles, however if they constantly carry out commands (such as re-issues of the 'stay' pasture command applied automatically when they forget thier last command and begin craving) the trainer dwarf will offer the incentive and regardless of whether they have it or not, the creature will be satiated until the next time it craves acting as normal

• It also forces the player to think about if they have the nessecary means to take on a guzzling creature anyway, as they are often difficult to handle with intense eagerness to ignore pastures and make beelines for stockpiles.

   

Assign a large pack animal to haul a wagon/plough to a instruction with supervision of someone commanding its movements.

Sounds about the same as setting up a minecart route in fort mode. Not sure what to make of it for adventure mode, except that the player usually isn't even around, so most work happens off-screen anyways.

• Easy, assign work animal, assign tool plough vehicle and attach field/fields, fix up your hauling route (if applicable) settings to start ploughing when 50%/100% of crops (depending on when they were planted if the user is taking note) are ready and the animal will be guided, hooked up and lead over the field popping off ready to harvest plants for collection at the farmer's planter level, earning him half xp points for every one that is harvested.

• Yeah im not sure how that'd turn out explicitly in adventure mode either, though farming in adventure mode has yet to be seen properly by toady, though it is a devlog thing for the future.

[Bumber]

I forgot about flying animals.

Dwarves can't do jobs while climbing. You'd have to build stairs or ramps anyway. (Or a moving fort section, once those are implemented.)

Horses have size going for them, but what about training a sheep or a sloth to attack?

[FantasticDorf]

I forgot about flying animals.

Dwarves can't do jobs while climbing. You'd have to build stairs or ramps anyway. (Or a moving fort section, once those are implemented.)

Horses have size going for them, but what about training a sheep or a sloth to attack?

No problem. I occasionally forget about flying animals too, especially when all my geese decide to go for a fly around and also forget to return back.

The climbing is not for dwarf personally, its for the animal trying to scale the wall with the help of the dwarf if it cannot do it by itself, yes ramps/stairs would be easier because you could just move your dwarf to level ground to guide where you need to go, but sometimes there are definite reasons. (such as designating a pit or a pond) Aquaculture (calling a fish to yourself from the middle of a pond, pulling it up and transferring into the cage in one action from the water so you can haul it about) is also supported by this mechanic to a extent.

Fitting example - pit all your catsplosion (if you dont want to waste a cage or find death by cats amusing) into a smooth stone pit with a 1 z level overhang (to which the dwarf will try to pull the creature up directly veeery slowly from above because the air tiles have no climbable surface) and remove 1 cat at a time as needed to stop the selection process besides shoving them in a cage or remove your tame pit beasts without having to build a access point that can be exploited (for no good reason) those are some unusual but relevant examples mind. Some river edges are also not marked with ramp additionally, and for reasons you might not want to channel a river because of overlap or construction plans which is also.

There is probably a threshold to how far morale will stretch in comparison to the size and strength of a animal its facing, equal size or less seems to be fair game without additional numbers. For example, a small gathering of rams could totally break every bone in a wolf or a goblin's body with their horns before they start to get freaked out. Goats are a good example of a smaller scale benign example, since both castes possess horns and can very easily be given a temperament (billy goats along with rams/bulls notorious for their tempers, which are likely to trigger in battle requiring no extra commands or input from dwarves to send a creature into a murderous spree)

Unlikely dorfy results - A wise dwarf sage leads a group of human adventuerers to combat a deadly beast

Spoiler:  warning, not for the sensitive or the faint of heart (click to show/hide)

https://youtu.be/cCI18qAoKq4

[IndigoFenix]

I'd like to see more complexity added to animal training; instead of simply having TRAINABLE tags different species should have different  average personalities, and the personality and attributes of a given animal and the skill of their trainer should both play a part in how easy an animal is to train.  Gregariousness, violence, bravery and focus should all come into play.  A legendary trainer might be able to train animals that would not be possible ordinarily, like herds of war sheep.  Wagon pulling, pack animals, and mounts could also be soft-limited based on personality and body size.

[FantasticDorf]

I'd like to see more complexity added to animal training; instead of simply having TRAINABLE tags different species should have different  average personalities, and the personality and attributes of a given animal and the skill of their trainer should both play a part in how easy an animal is to train.  Gregariousness, violence, bravery and focus should all come into play.  A legendary trainer might be able to train animals that would not be possible ordinarily, like herds of war sheep.  Wagon pulling, pack animals, and mounts could also be soft-limited based on personality and body size.

Well having a cleanout of non-existent 'animal thoughts' to a more up to spec personality system like we have in dwarves right now in a basic form as you describe would certainly be a direct way of addressing additional bugs/implementing features like socially needy (visiting worshipping sites to repent for bad pathfinding through doors) dogs, inherently greedy guzzlers and ticking time bomb bad tempered large live stock that really dont like brushing up in thin hallways.