While picking colonists is a research of its own, there’s an equal field of study to be made in what animals to bring along to start your colony. Each animal has its own set of quirks and advantages, and can often serve as a great boon to a colony when managed right. Be it for labor, protection or, generating resources for survival, animals can provide. Below are a few animals to consider, not so much in terms of what may be the strongest animal, but the options that are reasonably within reach of any start and able to match any particular needs.

5. Alpaca

The humble alpaca can easily be a part of any early game colony thanks to their low skills required to tame. While they are not sturdy combatants by any stretch of the word, they can be sheared for wool to solve the need for clothes or simply sold to traders for a steady source of income. Beyond that, they are also capable pack animals, allowing them to carry your burdens on caravan trips. Ideally, you’ll move on to more difficult animals to handle, but alpacas will serve as the stepping stone for your tamers to get better at the task. 

What is great about Alpacas:

• Easy to tame.
• Produces wool for clothes or trading.
• Capable pack animals.

For more details about alpacas, check here.

4. Boomalope

While somewhat grotesque, a boomalope is a decent source of chemfuel to run your generators. So long as they have enough grazing land to maintain their large appetites, having one or two boomalopes under your care reduces the need to busy your colonists with other more hands-on approaches to chemfuel production. Definitely do not tame or raise too many of them, as they can eat your colony out of house and home. Another unique trait of boomalopes are their explosive deaths, which can lead to large fire if you don’t protect them.. On the other hand, if you have a few extra boomalopes you’d rather get rid of, they can be ejected out of pods like a mini missile as a surprise gift for hostile colonies. 

What is great about Boomalopes:

• Produces chemfuel.
• Living bomb.
• Use the point above to send them into enemies as cannon fodder.

For more details about boomalopes, click here.

3. Cow

If you’re looking for animals to feed the colony with, cows are on the top of the list. Compared to its competition, cows are the only animal able to produce enough milk to feed a colonist on a daily basis. The math of nutrition can be complicated in Rimworld but know that the milk they produce is enough to make simple meals to feed one colonist. If you’re looking to spice things up, however, the more popular choice is to mix cow milk with some sort of grown crop to instead have fine meals. Either way, they’re great as a food source and can be taken along on caravans as a food truck on the go (whenever you take a stop to milk them). 

What is great about cows:

• Produces more milk than most animals.
• Can be butchered for a lot of meat if there are extra cows around.
• Can be used as a pack animal for caravans.

For more details about cows, click here.

2. Wargs

If you’re looking for a strong animal that could haul around your colony and also fight off raiders, there’s not much better than a warg to get the job done. Essentially, they’re wolves but greater in size and lethality. Compared to other animals that could haul such as horses, wargs will not nibble on the crops as they primarily feast on meat. So long as they don’t have access to your meat stockpile, you can instead keep your wargs fed on raiders corpse while they mill about on hauling duty. Quite reasonably manageable creatures that will prove their uses when the going gets tough. 

What is great about wargs:

• Tough and can hold their own in a fight.
• Advanced intelligence means it can do rescue and hauling duties.
• Feeds on corpses, which makes it ideal for cleaning up raiders you’ve wasted.

For more details about wargs, click here.

1. Rats

You thought it was going to be a thrumbo here? Too bad. It’s rats! Requiring only a small dingy room and as many corpses as you can stuff in it, rats are a low-maintenance pet that can procreate rapidly so long as given something to nibble on. Given time, you will find yourself with an endless horde of vermin to overwhelm raiders. Sure, they’re not exactly lethal at any point in time, but as cannon fodders they tend to trip up raider groups packing explosives, resulting in no small amount of friendly fire. 

Jokes aside, it is important to remember that all animals in Rimworld have their place depending on the scenario you find yourself in. While Thrumbos would likely earn their first place as attack animals, they are difficult to tame and require far too much food to keep around for most cases. Understand what you need and plan accordingly, that is the key to survival in Rimworld. 

What is great about rats:

• Easy to tame and maintain in any room.
• Can be fed anything and will feed upon each other if there is no food available.
• Great cannon fodder that can overwhelm raiders in numbers. 

For more details about rats, click here.

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