Might comment again later with further thoughts (if/when I get chance to put more thought into the subject), but my immediate thoughts for now are:



1 - Yes I use them and I do find them very useful (my favourite RimWorld update was at the time, and still is, A12). Although it can depend a lot on how readily disposable, or not, any particular animal might be. With readily disposable, readily replaced animals seeing far more usage than their opposite counterpart (but that's probably just obvious logic at work).



2 - A few annoyances, but for now I'll limit it to one point that hasn't been mentioned yet, but which has annoyed me for some time, and which I admit might be outside the remit of the question/this discussion.



Which is that one tactic I use in battles is to try and flank the enemy from behind, and/or try to ensure a 100% kill rate by covering the potential escape route of the raiders in advance of them fleeing, or rear attack as reinforcements if the battle isn't going as planned. I tend to do this by taking a time-out to create an allowed area for Pawn(s) that follows a route around and away from the action zone, and ending at a point where I intend to ambush the fleeing raiders. I then order a Pawn(s) to move to that end point (and be confident I don't need to do any babysitting because of the allowed area).



Now I would like to send some animal support along but there is usually a problem. Because if I just assign the animal to the Pawn as it's Master, the animal won't adhere to the allowed area the Pawn does, and so their path around and away from the danger zone might be, and usually is, anything but a path around and away from it. Depending on how closely matched their speeds are. So the only option right now is taking another time-out to create an animal zone that mirrors the Pawn zone.



Which to be honest is annoying, time-consuming and exudes pointlessness. Since why can't I just use the same zone for the animal that I just created for the Pawn? Why do I have to draw another identical zone? I'm not sure why there has to be separate zones for animals and Pawns, why one can't be assigned to the other, and why it can't be up to the player to decide if any particular zone is for Pawns only, animals only, neither or both.



As I said, something to do with zones is likely outside the scope of this discussion, but it has played a fair part in my own annoyances with how I like and tend to use animals in combat for a long while now. And that is the topic of this discussion, hence why I'm mentioned it (as a source of annoyance).



Suggested solutions. Either have free usage of zones and then have check boxes the player can use (if they wish) to designate a particular zone as animal only, Pawn only etc. Or when assigned a Master, the animal should adhere to their Master's allowed area rather than their own Although I suspect this latter solution to be fraught with implementation issues and likely asking for bugs and even more annoying behaviour. But the former solution seems straightforward to me (as a player).



3 - Mainly to deal with melee enemies (such as blocking their path), and/or as an alternative target to my Pawns for ranged enemies to shoot at. Faster animals I like to keep in reserve for chasing down those fleeing enemies. Raids convey a similar message to Pokémon for me. Gotta catch kill them all.