IMO, mechanoids shouldn't be included on the main comparison table. Perhaps on a seperate one, but they are all DLC-exclusive, don't eat food, and aren't exactly animals (seperated in the caravan tab).
This also lets you make a Capacity/bandwidth instead of Capacity/hunger
They have to be directly comparable somewhere, and heres the most appropriate place. Another page specifically for them is bloat - esoteric pages are hard to find and splitting content makes that issue worse. They also need to be be in the same table for sorting.
What should happen instead is integration into this page, perhaps even up to a respecification of the topic into something more general. If that requires changing some of the information displayed, so be it. We could easily cut wildness and DPS and add bandwidth and capacity/bandwidth for example, especially now (i.e. post 1.3) that animals are so much harder to use in combat.
I would mean having a seperate table just below the one for organic animals, on the same page. This would prevent cross-sorting, sure, but I can expect readers to scroll down a bit more.
Meanwhile, if I didn't have biotech, then it would be hard for me to compare the animals I did have. I consider that more important than sorting animals + mechs, especially because there are more mechs than animals. Basically, sorting as of right now is functionally useless if you're playing vanilla.
Plus, they aren't really comparable in the same way - mechs are "free" carrying space as they have no hunger/power while in a caravan. You simply don't need the same considerations for a mech as you do an animal.
(Major) EDIT: I did what I said to do on the page. I really don't see how it would be hard to directly compare the two.
Basically, sorting as of right now is functionally useless if you're playing vanilla.
The wiki has tiered sorting. If you want to, say, sort by DPS but only want to look at animals (i.e. you don't want mechs interspersed throughout the list), you just sort by DPS and then sort by type. All the animals are now together, and they're sorted by DPS. Simple. If you're concerned about DLC specifically rather than Mech vs animal well then 1) its academic as the split is entirely along the mech/biotech and animal/core lines atm and 2) its easy to add a DLC column to allow the same functionality as above but explicitly for DLC rather than implicitly via type.
So basically, splitting the table doesn't actually help Core only players (DLC are vanilla, they're just not Core) but get in the way of DLC users.
. You simply don't need the same considerations for a mech as you do an animal.
If they can't figure that out from one table, splitting them into identical tables isn't going to help either. Arguably having them in the same table with food sections for mechs and bandwidth sections for animals dashed out BETTER highlights the differences.
Its also worth pointing out that the page doesn't go into detail about why you might pick a muffalo over a horse despite the horse being a better pack animal either, or when and where you might want to use a thrumbo over something with pack capacity. We aim for the lowest common denominator where possible, but this page has to assume some basis of knowledge. Its a table for comparisons where you know what the stats mean and how to interpret them. If you want analysis and a walkthrough, thats what text (and the analysis sections on the individual pages) are for.
The wiki has tiered sorting. If you want to, say, sort by DPS but only want to look at animals (i.e. you don't want mechs interspersed throughout the list), you just sort by DPS and then sort by type.
Alright, that resolves my concernss (I didn't actually know this). Reverting
EDIT: "If they can't figure that out from one table, splitting them into identical tables isn't going to help either."
That wasn't the point. The point was, "why would anyone need to compare mechanoids to animals in the first place?". They are too different to really compare; you would want to compare mechanoids as a whole to animals as a whole, but not a diabolus to a muffalo to a horse, for example.
FYI, Splitting tables also allows each table to be smaller, which is a net positive in my book.
Opening this up again (technically this was never closed)
Animals have a "Move speed" (which I just added to the Pack Animal table) - assumably the speed it moves compared to a pawn (Move Speed 4.6). But how (if at all) does this speed relate to helping/limiting caravan speed? Is that speed carried over to the World map for Caravans? Under Donkey is the statement "...Donkeys are the second-fastest pack animal, outpaced only by horses...", yet the listed "Riding speed" doesn't seem to correlate to the Move Speed for all 4 ridable animals (varying Move Speeds, all "1.3 Riding Speed"). If your pawns are riding horses (apparently the fastest), does bringing different types of pack animals limit the caravan more/less? If not, a Donkey may be the 2nd fastest on the detailed map, but not in a caravan on the World map. The mechanic/relationship (if any?) is not apparent - perhaps that column is more confusing than helpful at this point? (Also, I removed "Adult Mass" as irrelevant in this table, assuming no one is going to carry a pack animal.) Albedo (talk) 19:43, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Before 1.3, caravan speed was derived from the move-speed of the participants, including pack animals. This was removed in 1.3.3066 when the riding speed bonuses were added instead. The line on the donkey page is a left over from when this system was in place.
Adult mass is relevant, given transport podding caravans for the first leg, and then traditionally caravaning the rest of the way and/or back is a common tactic.