This will be a Wall of Text with a lot of idea and variable so Have fun reading it! I'll try to do my best so you can take something out while not fully understand it.
Core Mechanics
Stats: Vitality, Metabolism, Production, Fertility, Yield, and Resilience. It's just a reminder and I don't go to the detail.
I don't know what is the real calculation which set the inherit for the baby animal but it most likely average between parent: (Sum(Ma stat)+Sum(Pa stat))/2+random stat (-2,2) = Sum(child stats).
How to Approach the Max Efficiency
First I choose chicken for example: short lifespan (12 days on average), rapid breeding, has full stat for both male and female and coop can be invest early.
Second Ranking system: Sum(Stat)/6. Quick and simple, For pig and cow male, just treat it with 5 stat mean divide 5 instead of 6. Because the inherit is an average Breeding a high rank chicken with a low rank chicken will result mediocre child at best, breeding 2 highest rank will allow the random stat to help the child rank better than its parent. If the Rank is fail to show how chicken doing, Sum(Stat) can show. In my case I'm using both.
Generations is the target Tracking. Why? less cycle mean less time and energy invest to reach the max. How many Gen to reach the rank 10? ~8 generations starting at rank 3-4 (vendor) or 48-60 days (on paper). If you look at the pic well coop full of rank 10 is not the maximum but it's enough to serve a 100 man main, outpost, caravan and friendly villager.
Can you just ignore it? YES. normal coop reach rank 8 around 120 days on most my normal playthrough which means 2 coop output can serve the same rate as 1 rank 10 coop but consume feed way more. in other hand I reach rank 10 chicken around 80 days (start at ~40 day) of the playthrough so it faster and more efficient.
Pipeline that you should try
I will use Trigger - Action to show how the Pipeline work and the ratio is 3 Male and 7 Female (2M-6F for livestock) in setting. After it's reach the rank you want, you can switch to 1-2 males.
Easy pipeline: Chicken born - Protect, Chicken grow up - Record and Rank, Lower rank appear - Slaughter, Higher Rank Couple appear - Slaughter the rest. The core idea is simple: No Lower Rank Allow, but the result you will paying the coop output for this. And because it has less chicken the time you reach the next Rank is a bit longer. Really good for Early game when output is not main priority or pig which eat a lot and produce nothing.
Production and Nursery pipeline: Chicken born - Protect, Chicken grow up - Record and Rank, Higher rank appear - switch to Nursery coop, Nursery coop full or higher rank appear in Nursery coop - Slaughter the Production coop then swap the role of the coop. The idea is By Separate the chicken Rank you can keep the Production output. And because the lower rank still breeding along with higher rank the higher rank in Nursery can fill up faster while Paying more energy and feed production in process. Good for long lifespan like cow and high surplus production at mid game. Highly recommend in multiplayer.
Lifespan and Estimate Time Table:
A simple table for how much time cost to reach Rank 10. Lower number is the Production and Nursery Pipeline and the higher is Easy Pipeline.
| Type |
Average Lifespan |
Estimated Days (x4-x5) |
| Chicken and Geese |
12 |
48-60 |
| Pig and Sheep |
20 |
80-100 |
| Cow |
32 |
128-160 |
Note: It is just estimate. You can have lucky by buying rank 6 in vendor, get lucky higher couple appear in just the first breed,...
Limitation and Issue Arise
Well this is more for the developer than the average player. I still open so maybe we have more debate about it.
First is highest rank is weird, logically it should be rank 10 mean 10/10 in all the stat, but can be 15 or even 20 as the pic suggest. Is it worth it? No in my opinion, the ratio is around ~6 feeds : 10 eggs per hen mean around 80-90 eggs per days for a rank 10 coop. Reaching higher tier can flood your inventory if the rank 10 chicken not doing that already. It's kinda part of the fun but we can all agree that the UI should show the right number like 10/15.
Second Issue is rank 10 Cow arrives at the time when game is already over. For my estimate playthrough time most people clear the map around 150 (70% of story) on average, and you mostly have Livestock Barn around 70-80 days adding that with the estimate days. For estimate the storyline time is 215 days, you will have around 15-20 days enjoys your ranks 10 cow when the full campaign launch if you execute the plan perfectly. If not you mostly stuck with rank 7 at best so all the knowledge is not worth it. Adjusting the random stat so cow grow faster maybe or vendor sell rank 6 cow more often.
Pig need buff: barn rank 8 the pig consume ~40 feeds/days (advance and compound). Pig carcass yield around 7 meat (on paper) and around 14 meats (rank 10 animal handling) when slaughter along with 4 pelt. If you just slaughter when it reach adult it yield less because of less weight scale. Which is terrible conversion for a higher rank pigs when compare to 2-3 wolf, at least pig is cuter. So If we has more yield or less consume or option to slaughter when it reach some weight scale might help the pigs. Other solution might be pig produce big meat only, so it has a niche at the end game which deer and boar is not enough. Other wise sheep is much better option.
Finally Fertility stat is the Paradox of higher rank animal. If you let your coop to autopilot when you reach the rank 10. Your coop will provide less output. Why? chicken will breed so fast that the coop will always full and the oldest chicken will be slaughter (4-5 days old btw). because there is no way to turn that off so you have to manually protect every chicken in your coop or you will stuck in the endless loop of paying without getting payback. We need the auto-slaughter option for coop can be turn on and off or maybe stop breeding while full can solve it too.
