Boomalope

Boomalopes, called boomalope calves when babies, are herbivores with a high hunger rate. They produce 11 chemfuel per day, and explode on death.

Acquisition

Boomalopes can be found in temperate forests, temperate swamps, tropical rainforests, tropical swamps, arid shrublands, and deserts. They can either be tamed by a Handler or self-tame in a random event.

Boomalopes can be bought and sold in other faction bases and from bulk goods traders. Boomalopes purchased from traders will be already tamed.

Summary

Boomalopes are pen animals. Once tamed, pen animals cannot and do not need to be trained any further. But if left outside of a pen or caravan hitching spot, pen animals will eventually roam outside your colony. Making a caravan is not required to tie animals to a caravan hitching spot. As pen animals, raiders will not attack boomalopes.

Boomalopes (both male & female) can be milked for 11 chemfuel per day when fully fed. Production decreases as saturation drops. Production drops to half when the animal is hungry, one third when urgently hungry and completely stops when starving.

Boomalopes have 90% Toxic Environment Resistance rendering them highly resistant to environmental effects such as rot stink and toxic buildup from non-attack sources.

Explosion

On death, boomalopes explode, doing 10 flame damage in a radius that depends on the age stage of the animal. Baby boomalopes explode in a 1.9 tile radius, juveniles in a 2.9 tile radius, and adults in a 4.9 tile radius. This explosion does not itself set fires nor provide chemfuel puddles to burn but the flame damage might ignite surrounding objects and pawns. Note: This explosion will still occur if the boomalope is slaughtered or dies of natural causes.

Shambler boomalopes do not explode on death.

Analysis

Boomalopes are an efficient source of chemfuel, more efficient than a biofuel refinery in almost every way. It is naturally risky to handle boomalopes due to potential collateral damage, but they can be a vital part of a colony's infrastructure.

Chemfuel

Each boomalope produces enough chemfuel to fuel ~2.44 chemfuel powered generators.

An adult boomalope consumes 17.2 hay per day. In 100% fertility soil, this would require 12.4 tiles of haygrass to grow. In order to produce the same 11 chemfuel per day in a biofuel refinery, 21 tiles of corn plant would be needed.

This advantage is further increased if the boomalope is allowed to graze instead of requiring pawn-grown crops. This can partially or totally negate the ongoing resource costs of boomalopes, which the refinery cannot replicate.

In addition, the process of milking tends to be faster than refining. It takes 400 ticks (6.67 secs) of work for 11 units of chemfuel, or 36.4 ticks (0.61 secs) of work per chemfuel. A refinery would take 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) for 35 units, or 71.4 ticks (1.19 secs) of work per chemfuel. Milking could be slower at low Animals skill, as it relies on animal gather speed rather than general labor speed. So long as a pawn has a skill of 4 or more, they'll be faster at milking. And unlike refining, boomalope milking speed can be reduced even further at high Animals skill.

Safety

Wild boomalopes spawn in areas with long and year-round growing periods. If you really need to kill a boomalope, use ranged weapons to kill them, preferably during rainfall to prevent fires from spreading. Manhunter boomalopes can be devastating to a colony, but, as explosive animals, they are prone to chain reactions.

For tamed boomalopes, it is relatively safe to let them sleep outside. However, one should have animal sleeping spots in a separate, fireproof safe area, to avoid bringing injured boomalope inside your base. If you need to kill a tamed boomalope, then you can make a fireproof room, put a pen marker in there, and shoot the boomalope. It may be a good idea to keep boomalope in a separate pen as other animals to minimize collateral damage in case of accidental death. It's generally better to limit the number kept in the same spot as multiple boomalopes can lead to a chain explosion. One option would be to disable boomalopes in the setting of your pen marker and to keep the animals exclusively tied to caravan markers outside your walls. If a large herd of boomalope get sick, it can be a good idea to move them to a caravan on the world map as boomalopes that die in caravans won't hurt each other.

Training

This animal can be trained as follows:

Guard:
Attack:
Rescue:
Haul:

*As of version 1.1.2610, all animals can be tamed. The percentage of likelihood of success depends on factors such as the Animals Wildness Percentage, Pawn Handling Skill, and others. More information can be found on the animals page.

Health

Body part	Health
Head	16
Skull	16
Brain	7
Nose	7
Neck	16
Jaw	13
Eye ^[1] (left, right)	7
Ear (left, right)	7
Body	26
Kidney^[2] (left, right)	10
Lung^[2] (left, right)	10
Liver^[2]	13
Heart^[2]	10
Spine^[2]	16
Stomach^[2]	13
Limbs (left, right, fore, hind)	20
Appendage (left, right, fore, hind)	13

↑ Located inside of Head.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 ^2.3 ^2.4 ^2.5 Located inside of Body.

Gallery

Normal

Facing east
Facing north
Facing south

Dead

Fresh corpse

Dessicated

Facing east
Facing north
Facing south

Version history

0.12.906 - Added
0.18.1722 - Can now be milked for chemfuel, at a rate of 20 fuel per 2 days.
Beta 19/1.0 - chemfuel production reduced by 40%, hunger rate 1.0 -> 1.3
1.3.3066 - Trainable Intelligence reduced from Intermediate to None. Became pen animals.
1.4.3555 - Boomalopes given 90% Toxic Environment Resistance, rendering them resistant to toxic fallout and other sources of toxins.