Hello Survivors!
We know you are all incredibly excited for the new Tame and Train Update coming soon to Stranded: Alien Dawn! We're here with a new developer journal, featuring our friends from Haemimont Games, to talk about all things animal taming. Let's dive right in to learn more about this exciting addition to the game:
Hello! Thank you for joining us for the dev journal! Could you please introduce yourself and what you do on Stranded: Alien Dawn?
Hello again! So happy to be back for another dev journal. My name is Bisser Dyankov, I'm CEO at Haemimont Games. I oversee production on Stranded: Alien Dawn, and try to make the lives of the developers easier.
Animal taming is an interesting addition to a game like Stranded: Alien Dawn. What made you decide to add this mechanic?
We felt that animal taming was a pretty natural choice for Stranded: Alien Dawn. Looking at real-world situations where life and death is on the line, we see people go the extra mile to not only save themselves, but also their pets. We wanted to explore this premise by adding in animal taming. We think animal taming, where you turn wild animals into your pets, was the perfect fit for a survival game.
How should a player go about taming an animal in the game?
First you'll have to research Animal Taming in the Research Bench. Then you should focus on observing the animals around you. Observation will provide you with key info on how to start the animal taming process, like the animal's favourite food. Once the animal's favourite food is secured, the survivor can make a taming attempt. You'll also need a specific level of the Farming skill. Not all taming attempts will be successful, but there's also a new survivor on the way who is an animal expert and great at taming.
How do you tame an aggressive creature?
By using a dedicated tool for the job: the Pacifier! The Pacifier is a type of crossbow that tranquilizes the animal, making it calm enough so that it can be approached for a taming attempt. The pacifier requires specific technology that needs to be researched. You'll need to be careful and figure out what's the best approach, while also taking into account potentially other aggressive animals, for example.
What are some of the benefits of taming animals? What can the tamed animals be used for?
The benefits are varied: from using the animals as resource providers for resources like Manure and Feathers; to breeding the animals for raw foods and other resources when slaughtered; to training some animals for providing support when the base is attacked; to playing and bonding with them - which makes both the animal and the survivor they have bonded with happier. However, taming and breeding come with their own challenges and long-term requirements to keep the new members of your group both fed and happy - so there are new tasks for the survivors as well. Anything new you add to your group is another mouth to feed, and a potential drain on your resources.
What are the benefits of playing with or training a tamed animal?
Playing with a tamed animal has a positive effect on the happiness of both the animal and the survivor. There is also the possibility for the animal to bond with the survivor, forming a permanent bond between them. The training, on the other hand, has a more strategic potential - the trained animals are more effective in combat, and have a higher chance of survival. Keep in mind, that not all animals can be played with, and not all animals can be trained.
What are some of the challenges players can expect when adding animals to their group of survivors? Do animals have the same type of needs as the survivors?
The immediate challenge to expect is keeping the animals both fed and happy. If this fails, the animals can go berserk, and start attacking everything and everyone. The longer-term challenges are related to adding another set of issues you need to keep in check - from providing food and protection, to making sure there are sleeping places and roofs over the animals' heads. Ultimately, the more effort you put into taking care of the animals, the higher the stakes when something bad happens - like having your best trained animal go berserk or eating all your food.
What can you tell me about Hugo Delano, the new survivor?
Hugo is one of our favourite survivors, from his looks to his bio, he literally lives for animals! If you plan to do some taming in your game, it is a good idea to bring him along - until you become familiar with the feature, at least.
What's been most fun part of creating and implementing animal taming?
Figuring out how taming for each type of animal would work was probably the most fun for us! We hope that the players have fun learning what makes these animals tick and how to integrate them into their survivor groups.
That's all we had time for this time, survivors! Please join us in thanking Bisser for joining us for this Developer Journal. We're looking forward to seeing everyone check the new update yourselves next week. It's not long now until the release of the Tame and Train Update on 24 January 2023.
Don't forget to join the Stranded: Alien Dawn Discord and you'll never miss any news! You can also follow the game on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, or join the discussions on Steam and the Frontier Forums. On 23 January at 3:30pm GMT, the community team will be joined by developers from Haemimont Games for a live demonstration of animal taming and the new update on Twitch and YouTube. We'll see you there!