How To Train Animals in Rimworld Odyssey

By Ambar Jimenez | 2025-07-15 09:34:02
RimWorld: Odyssey significantly expands the already rich animal system of the base game, allowing players to tame, train, and integrate a wider variety of life forms into their sci-fi colonies. These trained animals can become invaluable assets, contributing to defense, resource gathering, and even colonist well-being.

Rimworld Odyssey: How To Train Animals

The Odyssey expansion truly shines in how it enhances the utility of animals. Gone are the days when many creatures were just food or fur. Now, trained animals can scavenge for items, protect your base, haul goods, and even provide mood buffs as beloved pets. The game offers a diverse array of life forms, and while some are easier to train, others require more effort and a skilled hand.1. The "Animals" Skill is Key: To effectively tame and train animals, you need at least one colonist with the "Animals" skill. This skill governs their proficiency in taming wild creatures, training tamed ones, and handling livestock.
  • Improving Animal Skills: Even if your colonist isn't a natural animal expert, their "Animals" skill can be improved.
    • Consistent Training: The most direct way to level up the "Animals" skill is by having colonists continually attempt to tame new animals or perform training on existing tamed animals. Every successful (or even failed) attempt grants experience.
    • Easier Targets First: To get started, focus on taming animals with lower "wildness" and "minimum handling skill" requirements. Good starter choices include:
      • Rats: Very easy to tame and often plentiful.
      • Huskies and Labrador Retrievers: These dog breeds are highly trainable and make excellent early-game choices for defense and hauling.
      • Alpacas, Boars, Chickens, Cows, Dromedaries, Pigs, Yorkshire Terriers: These typically require minimal to no "Animals" skill to tame and are great for starting out and building up your handler's experience.
    • Keep Pets Fully Trained: Once you have tamed animals, assign a colonist to "Handle" them with high priority. Consistently maintaining their trained skills (like Obedience, Guard, Haul, Rescue, Attack, Comfort, Forage, Dig, etc.) will provide continuous XP to your handler's "Animals" skill.

2. Choosing Your Animal Companions:RimWorld: Odyssey adds over 40 new animals, significantlybroadening your choices. When selecting animals to train, consider their inherent capabilities ("Trainability" in their info window) and yourcolony's needs.

  • For Base Defense:

    • Huskies and Labrador Retrievers: Excellent choice for early-game defense; they can be trained to "Guard" and "Attack." They also provide "Nuzzle" mood buffs.
    • Timber Wolf, Cougar, Grizzly Bear, Warg: These predators are strong combatants.
    • New Odyssey Animals for Combat:

      • Mastodons, Scimitar Cats, Greatwolves: Prehistoric megafauna that can be trained as powerful companions.Mastodons and Elephants can even learn a "War Trumpet" ability todisorient foes.
      • Alpha Thrumbo: A legendary, incredibly tough creature that can learn a "Terror Roar" to cause panic.
      • Hive Queen: If you're bold enough to tame this monstrous matriarch (found deepunderground), she can be trained to "Egg Spew" acidic sludge and spawnlarvae.
      • Bog Hounds: While adapted to harsh conditions, they are tougher to tame but can be powerful in packs.
      • Hippos: Enormous and capable of devastating attacks.
    • "Sentience Catalyst": For animals that are not normally trainable (like alligators with "None" trainability), the Odyssey expansion introduces the Sentience Catalyst. This ultratech mechanite injection can increase an animal'sintelligence and trainability, allowing you to train almost any creature into a capable ally!
  • For Utility and Colony Support (Odyssey additions):

    • Cats and Pandas: Can be trained for "Comfort," providing stronger mood buffs through frequent nuzzling.
    • Pigs and Raccoons: Can learn to "Forage," snuffling out treats and resources.
    • Megasloth and Megavole (Clawed Creatures): Can be taught to "Dig," assisting in mining designated ore veins.
    • Birds (Crows, Macaws): Some intelligent birds can be trained for various tasks.

3. Managing Trained Animals:

  • Allowed Areas: Use the "Allowed Area" function (Architect > Zone) to restrict yourtamed animals to specific parts of your base or map, preventing themfrom wandering into danger or eating valuable resources.
  • Assigning Masters: Animals can be assigned a "master." They will often follow their master when drafted or performing fieldwork if designated to do so in the"Animals" tab.
  • Training Progress Decay: Be awarethat training progress for animals (especially at higher skill levels,usually above 10-11) can naturally decay over time. Consistent handlingand retraining by your colonists are necessary to maintain their skills.

By investing in your colonists' "Animals" skill and carefully choosing and training the right creatures, your colony in RimWorld: Odyssey can benefit immensely from a loyal and capable animal workforce and defense force.

Developer(s): Ludeon Studios
Publisher(s): Ludeon Studios
Mode: Single-player
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