Tamed Animal Performance Improvement

Big ranches are fun. Lag from hundreds of tamed animals pathfinding is not.

Tamed Animal Performance Improvement (TAPI)

TAPI aims to improve performance / TPS in colonies with large ranches containing many tamed animals by adding barns that de-spawn and simulate assigned animals. It ultimately provides an alternate approach to managing tamed animals and includes various ranching QoL features.

THIS IS AN EXPERIMENTAL MOD!
There will be bugs, please report them.

How TAPI works

Adds small, medium, and large barns that each can hold one tamed animal type per barn off-map. Stored animals no longer tick for costly map AI/pathfinding and instead are performantly simulated for hunger, filth, animal products, breeding, illness, egg incubation, and optional pet thirst. Colonists still provide food, clean barns, collect animal products, lead animals in, render medical care, and slaughter as usual.

Highlights

• Capacity based on body size with detailed barn policies via gizmos for gender/age, newborn handling, cleaning threshold and more.
• Barn food storage + refill floor helps colonists load food more optimally. Loading is in order of Storage priority -> Food deficit (target food - stored edible food, larger deficit first) -> Round-robin (if tied), allowing for load-balancing. Partial nutrition consumption lets barns use only the nutrition needed without wasting food potential. Optional Vanilla Nutrient Paste Expanded support via nutrient pipes and food gizmo Auto mode if loaded.
• Optional Dubs Bad Hygiene pet thirst (enable in DBH mod settings) support via adjacent water pipes and/or manual internal water reserve if loaded.
• Animal product harvesting with manual or automatic toggle. Tune accumulation and collection modes (disabled / any ready / threshold), with drop and haul-to-storage options.
• Fertilized egg incubation including hatch progress batching. Collect as normal products or incubate in-barn (batches preserve hatching progress, powered incubator protects eggs at freezing temperatures).
• Vanilla-like breeding via a stochastic fertilization model (similar to vanilla). Number of males stored in barn increases fertilization frequency. Gizmo to control newborn preferences (store if space / release). Genderless asexual animals are supported.
• Stud management lets you dial in reproduction rates in mixed gender barns.
• Auto-slaughter with keep-counts per adult/juvenile × male/female with youngest / oldest / random priority.
• Filth accumulation based on animal comps and number stored in barn, as well as from slaughtering.
• Animals, Food and Storage tabs for detailed inspection and monitoring of barn contents.
• Disease and Illness support for animals in barns. Animals can be treated for illnesses and their status can be tracked in the Animals tab.
• Caravan formation is supported without preemptive release of animals stored in barns.
• Modded animal support including much of Vanilla Animals Expanded and Alpha Animals. Additional patches can be added upon request.
• Mod settings for global defaults, multipliers, features and many other mod values so you can play your way.

Quick start

• Place a barn inside a valid enclosed pen. The pen marker must allow the assigned animal type.
  -- Non-pen animals are excluded and override this requirement.
• Assign Handling to load nearby eligible animals (first load sets the barn’s animal type and can be cleared with a gizmo after emptying).
• Set food target/refill, filters, newborn handling, product rules and other barn functions from gizmos and tabs.
• Optionally copy/paste settings between barns using the copy/paste gizmos. Change barn defaults and tune other values in the mod settings menu.

Requirements

• Harmony

Load TAPI after Harmony.

RimWorld Version

1.6

Performance

In saves with large ranches, greater TPS and often noticeably less lag when herds of tamed animals live in barns.
-- Performance improvements cannot be guaranteed but have been observed in testing.

Compatibility

VNPE and DBH are optional. Features activate when those mods are present. Many modded animals work via vanilla-style comps and fallbacks, while deeply custom production/breeding may need patches. Please feel free to post a comment if you have any requests.

Saves

Safe to add mid-colony, but back up saves first. Removing the mod after using barns is risky unless every animal is released and every barn deconstructed. Keep an older save as a precaution.

FAQ

• Can I add this mid-save? Yes. Enable Harmony, restart if prompted, then build barns. Back up your save first (a good habit for any new mod).
• Can I remove the mod later? Yes, but risky once barns hold animals. Before removal, release every stored animal, deconstruct every barn, save to a new slot, quit, disable the mod, then reload. Keep a save from before you added the mod in case of errors.
• Are VNPE or Dub’s Bad Hygiene required? No, only Harmony. Nutrient paste pipes and DBH pet thirst are extras when those mods are loaded and settings enabled.
• Why isn’t production or breeding progressing? The barn must be inside a valid enclosed pen, and the pen marker must allow that species (excluding non-pen animals). Animals in barns whose needs are not being met (food / filth / water) will also halt production and breeding.
• Can I have more than one animal type per barn? No, one type at a time per barn. To change a barn's animal type, release all stored animals and use the clear animal type gizmo.
• Where are my barned animals? They’re not walking the map, they’re held in the barn. Check the barn’s Animals tab, the vanilla Animals table will list In Barn in the allowed-area column for stored animals.
• Do barns need power to function? No, only barns set to incubate fertilized eggs consume power. The amount of power needed scales based on ambient temperature vs internal incubator temperature.
• Can new features or support for additional mods be added? Yes! Please leave a comment if you have any requests for new features, want support for new modded animals, have suggestions or feedback, or if you encounter any unexpected behavior you think might be related to TAPI.
• Can I localize TAPI to support my language? Yes! Please refer to README.md for additional localization details. If you localize the mod and wish to share it with the community, please get in touch with matt on Steam - I can add you as a contributor in a Localization Credits section on the Workshop page as thanks.

Localization Credits

• Simplified Chinese - Thank you Kagurazayoyume & Metal LED

Full documentation

Refer to README.md in the mod folder for a changelog and detailed info about mod mechanics & localization.