[DEVBLOG#323] Vanilla Ranching Expanded (Patreon)

Hey everyone!

I am thrilled to share our upcoming plans for Vanilla Ranching Expanded! It popped up on the roadmap not long ago, but Sarg and I have been hard at work at making it, well, work. It's something I wanted to tackle a long time ago too. In fact, take a look at some of the original conceptualising work we did for it:

Back then, I didn't really know that much about deeper, meaningful game design, and we didn't have Biotech to take inspiration from, but now we do, so I've decided to approach the idea from another angle.

We are introducing animal genetics to make keeping livestock a deeply rewarding and engaging experience. Finally you will be able to have that proper ranching playthrough where you keep herds of grazing cattle. While we're not changing pen mechanics or how animals work in general - because I think everything is working fairly well in base game - we are introducing some depth to animals themselves, so get ready to cross-breed your animals and curate the perfect herds for your colony's survival and production needs!

Feratypes and the New UI

Animals will now have "Feratypes," which function just like xenotypes but do not require the Biotech DLC. To keep things intuitive, we are matching the Biotech UI flow.

You will find a new "Genes" button exclusively on ranching animals. We're not adding animal genes to elephants, tigers and what not. Only livestock, and only specific livestock.

Clicking it opens a window displaying the animal's feratype icon, current genetic stability, and all their genes.

Genes are color-coded by tier: red for low-level, green for high-level, and white for average genes with no effects.

Gene Structure and Animal Stability

The genetic system revolves around Animal Stability, which represents the complexity of an animal's feragerm.

Every gene has a level ranging from 1 (awful) to 5 (excellent).

Level 3 is the baseline and costs 0 Stability.

High-tier genes cost negative Stability, while low-tier "dump stats" grant positive Stability.

Your goal as a rancher is to aim for a Stability level of 0.

Stability never goes positive; it caps at 0 or drops into negative values.

Breeding and Genetics

When you breed two animals, their offspring inherit a blend of their genetics through a detailed mathematical system:

Visuals: If parents are of different feratypes, the baby has a 60% chance to inherit the mother's feratype and a 40% chance to inherit the father's.

Universal vs. Specialized Genes: Universal genes (like movement speed) are always inherited and averaged. Specialized genes (like milk yield) will not be inherited if the baby is born as a feratype that doesn't naturally support that gene, preventing unrealistic outcomes like wool-giving angus cows.

Regression to the Mean: If parents have high-tier genes but no dump stats, their combined negative stability creates a massive "Pull Factor". This heavily drags the offspring's inherited genes back toward the baseline of Level 3. This also means that their negative genes will be dragged up.

Dump Stats: To breed perfect production animals, you must intentionally breed in dump stats—like awful movement speed—to generate enough positive stability to protect your Level 5 production genes from regressing!

Mutations and Spawning

Genetics aren't completely static.

Mutation: Every time an animal is born, there is a chance for up to 5 genes to randomly mutate. Mutated genes have an equal chance to move up or down a level.

Spawning Animals: When animals spawn in the world—whether from traders or cargo pods—the game runs a mutation check, ensuring wild or bought animals have slightly randomized genes rather than perfect baseline stats. This primarily serves the purpose of providing you with virtually any gene of any level - even if feratype doesn't naturally spawn with Size gene 5 (Hulking), it may appear with that gene due to mutation.

The Gene Families

We have designed a vast selection of gene families to alter animal stats. Every family has 5 gene levels ranging from awful to excellent:

Vitality: Dictates the animal's physical resilience, wound healing speed, immunity gain, and toxic resistance.

Speed: Alters local movement speed and caravan riding pace.

Size: Changes the physical body size, affecting body mass and visual draw size.

Filth: Determines filth generation rates and the animal's susceptibility to random illnesses.

Wildness: Modifies wildness levels, making animals either docile or unruly, and dictates their manhunter chances.

Hunger Rate: Affects the animal's metabolism, altering how often they need to eat, eating speed, and max nutrition.

Meat Yield: Adjusts the amount of muscle mass, directly dictating the base meat yield upon butchering.

Intelligence: Enhances intellect to allow intermediate and advanced trainability, while poor intelligence increases aimless roaming.

Milk Yield: Determines the resource yield per milking session and the time required between milkings.

Wool Yield: Alters coat density, affecting both total wool harvested and shearing intervals.

Litter Size: Modifies the litter curve multiplier, increasing the chance of higher offspring counts per pregnancy.

Bacon Yield: Exclusive for suidae animals (pigs), bacon yield increases or decreases the amount of an additional bacon butcher yield. That's right: we're adding bacon.

Lifespan & Stability

Genetic stability isn't just about breeding predictability; it directly dictates how long your animals live.

If an animal's stability is perfectly balanced at 0, it lives a full, normal life.

The further an animal's stability drifts from 0, the shorter its lifespan becomes.

Highly unstable animals will age rapidly and suffer from a new "old age" health condition, which impacts their movement and fertility,much earlier than normal.

If you breed highly unstable genetic outliers, don't expect them to be around for long.

Alpha Mechanics

Herd hierarchy matters now, or at least for some species such as cows and sheep it does, as only the Alpha male of a herd is allowed to reproduce with the females.

One Alpha Per Family: Each pen can only have one Alpha male per animal family (e.g., one Alpha bull and one Alpha ram can coexist in a mixed pen).

Challenge: If a pen has no Alpha, or if a new adult male is introduced (or grows up), an "Alpha fighting" event triggers, and the males will fight for dominance until one is downed or the timer runs out.

Cooldowns: To prevent your pens from turning into constant bloodbaths, there is a strict 30-day cooldown period for fights within a pen after an Alpha is decided.

Status Changes: Alphas get an "(alpha)" tag next to their name. If you remove an Alpha from the pen (to slaughter, sell, or take on a caravan), they immediately lose the title and trigger a power vacuum among the remaining males.

New Specialized Breeds

The update introduces a roster of new, specialized animals across three major families to help you tailor your ranch's production. Each of these species comes with a unique feratype - which means by default it has a specific set of genes. You can, for example, improve the meat yield of your jersey herd by introducing an angus bull to it!

Bovines (Cows)

Angus: Stocky and hardy, bred specifically for maximum beef.

Dairy Cow: The gold standard for high-volume milk production.

Wooly Cow: Fluffy cows valued specifically for producing warm wool instead of milk.

Jersey Cow: A compact cow that efficiently produces high-quality milk.

Zebu: A humped, spirited cow with high wildness that thrives in extreme heat.

Suidae (Pigs)

Iberian Pig: A slightly wild forager that requires minimal upkeep but yields smaller litters.

Duroc Pig: A massive, hungry heavyweight that produces exceptional amounts of meat.

Berkshire Pig: A premium, docile heritage pig that yields the absolute maximum amount of bacon.

Ovis (Sheep)

Merino Sheep: Extremely docile and bred purely for rapid, massive wool production at the cost of its meat and speed.

Dorper Sheep: A muscular hair sheep that doesn't produce wool at all, bred strictly for meat.

Dairy Sheep: A specialized sheep that provides an abundant supply of milk alongside standard wool.

We're also patching some base game animals, making them join their respective families. Muffalos and Bison will be able to breed with cows, wild boars will be able to breed with pigs and so on! This way, you can introduce some exciting genes!

Did I mention we're also adding a ranching trader who will bring various different ranching animals to you? They will also buy your animals too!

We're also adding sexual dimorphism to all livestock animals, so you can easily tell which one is the male and which one is the female.

Oh, and did I mention... babies? That's right, every species now has a unique baby graphic.

We are incredibly excited for you to get your hands on this and start curating your own herds. There is still some work that needs to be done though. I'm evaluating what other livestock animals should join this system. I'm looking at horses and goats next.

Sadly, our system does not work with egg-layers, so it's unlikely chickens, ducks and geese will make it in. Plus, drawing flying animations for dozens of new animals just doesn't sound as fun to me.

I owe you a roadmap too, don't I? It's coming soon!