This could apply from the awakening stage all the way to spacefaring.
I know there is already a thread about domestication, but it doesn’t touch on pets and it was a few years ago. How will domestication of pets work? I am assuming that they would be different from normal domesticated animals, and instead of producing something or helping in a task, they would instead increase happiness or equivalent.
I’m not going to immediately merge these threads, but I’ll just say that pets seem just a subset of domestication.
the older thread was more about HOW animals were domesticated. this is about what pets and other domesticated animals actually affect.
I have an idea where there are categories for domestication: food production, transportation, pets, etc. and when you domesticate an animal, you get to chose which ones you want. (note the plural).
sry for long tread, but i want to summarize what i know about that
First, we have 4 type of animals:
Food: pigs, cow
Work: horse, camels
Fan: gold fish, chinchilla
and Pets: Cat and dogs
Any type have his benefits and сonditions:
its my ideas and opinions, soo take it in grain of salt:
Food type animals: Many of them are vegetarian or omnivorous in a vegetarian direction. If I remember right, most likely they got domesticated by steeling eggs or caught animals at a young age or refugees of some herd (depending on the genus). Probably can be seen as in the famous experiment of the Soviet Union of fox domestication (still to this day it is active). That with the help of a selection of species that are less afraid and less aggressive will move on and change over time (I think I dragged a bit, but this is true for the other types).
bonuses given: FOOD and animal products (eggs, milk, leather etc… Based on the features of the animal).
Work type animals: They are usually creatures with other traits that can help besides food (strong muscle power for carrying, transport, etc.). The domestication process is similar to the previous tag and can cross with him.
bonuses given: early game bonuses movement and carrying…
Fan type animals: just happiness, can be anyone for bonuses moral in late game, soo I leave that open, also like the first type…
bonuses given: bonuse moral…
Pet type animals: its cross all type soo its uniqe type on level of cats and dogs, if I remember right, the ancestor of dogs, the type of less aggressive to humans, fond food, over time the human give them remnants of food and become more and more closer. in the end, They became real in their vicinity, perhaps because of their social nature that they connected at the end. (I suggest you watch the series Cosmos Episode 1, explains it better than me). and cats… they domestication as… still no fully understood (I have cats, soo I know them XD).
bonuses given: Based on the features of the animal, behavior and type they cover.
Besides, there are a number of animals in reality that have been domesticated more than once (I know at least there have been 3 domestication of cats: Chine, Egypt and Probably Thailand but I do not remember, I will look at the sources. )
Summary:
It is long, but there is more than one type of domestication, the question: what can be done if it is …
I hope this helped, it took me half an hour to write and translate from 2 more languages.
What is the difference between pets and fun type animals? Dogs are used as protection, but that probably counts as work. How about Pet type animals give a small happiness boost (less than fun type)but also provide a work type bonus. For example, a dog would make people happier and also guard settlements. Cats would also boost happiness slightly, but they would hunt rats and rodents.
Depending on what has been used in the past:
For example parrots, they are caught straight for the purpose of beauty or training, it is as if straight for this purpose.
On the other hand, there are animals that have been used for one purpose and in the making of artificial selection, they have simply become for fun, like poodles. They have lost some of the features in exchange for something else, which is useless or even harms if they are released back into nature.
I think I strayed from the path, but I think you understand where I’m heading.
I agree, but I wouldn’t parrots count as fun type animals?
They have other use but for fun? not like the raptor, they not hunt and eating them are too small.
is not like u got a parrot pet for like an agent “mimic the enemy voice” and they will do it… isn’t hw its works
I have a problem with pets, name one that can’t or wasn’t used for some sort of work. Dogs hunted until the industrial revolution, and cats still do today. Goldfish I think can be eaten. I suppose pet birds can be used as messengers or canarys, with the birds of prey hunting until it became a sport. That either means hamsters are the only tru pet or it takes work to make an animal a pet. You breed it for some task and then that task is totally made irrelevant and who wants to kill their cute dog or cat? Once your basic needs have been all met I suppose you could get hamsters. I mean, dog, cats and birds of prey hunted until the industrial revolution (and most cats and birds of prey still do, but not for survival), when huge farms meant food was less of an issue, and some lame person invented mouse traps.
That is what I suggested earlier. But all pets still should grant a happiness bonus (even if it is tiny). maybe once the industrial age starts, the fun domestication type is unlocked, and you can put some animals in there (like goldfish, and hamsters).
Yeah I like that maybe you have to “retire” a critter so it gives a happiness bonus instead of a food or cleanliness bonus.
The ‘food-work-fun-pet’ system, while it works for the domesticated creatures of Earth, is extremely limited in scope. For example, what category would a parasitoid’s host occupy
It might count as food? or maybe work, but being a Parasite would be extremely complicated, and it would take a lot of specific work for the developers to create, so it might not even be in the aware stage to start.
A parasitoid is just a creature that lays on something, and affects the creature by doing so. Unless there are no diseases or toxins in the aware stage, this should be easy to implement
I parasite’s host is usually a habit and not a domesticated critter. For endosymbiotes, tics and the like this is obvious, they live in the critter. But a fly analoge that just lays it’s eggs in a critters ear and the larva eat the brains, that’s no habitat right? It is. In my opinion. There are exceptions, two that I can think of. Brood parasites victims can be a domesticated critter, of the unique type known as Parental. The second and last exception is, odd. The Body type. Think, like, every Sci-Fi parasite ever, or in real life, F&*$ING ZOMBIE MUSHROOMS! I still can’t beleave they exist it’s just too cool. Okay thanks for hearing my ranting
I find the idea of distinct roles for pets interesting, but also not necessarily meaningful.
Rather than trying to categorize the roles of a pet in your society either by player decision or otherwise, I would personally be more inclined to see a sort of scaling benefit brought by the pet based on it’s behavior.
Let’s say you have a socially inclined predator species on your hands. When domesticated, this species would make colonists happy when around your people (Social score based), and be able to help hunt/defend when required (Aggression/diet based).
Perhaps the player could still have some measure of control for what animals are used for of course. Such as designating a domesticated species as livestock, but this would only be a decision based on the player’s ideals regardless of species stats, rather than strict categorization.
By assigning benefits to an animal based on their behavior (which would presumably be an already present feature at this point), we could entirely forgo the need for strict categorization of animals and such restrictive roles. Ultimately leaving things up to the player’s imagination.
Why not domesticating your own species?
well, that is slavery. that doesnt count as domestication does it?
how about enslaving a caste
also, HOW can you domesticate your own species?
Eugenics, probably. Aside from the strange choice of terminology @blackjacksike does have a point that most mechanics could be shared between domestication and slavery; it’s basically the same concept.