RimWorld Alpha Animals Guide and Tier List
All 93 tameable Alpha Animals creatures sorted S to F by one rubric read straight from the mod files — and the few worth building a colony around.
RimWorld Alpha Animals adds more than a hundred vanilla-friendly creatures, and this list is for the modded players deciding which are worth taming. Every tameable creature in the mod is scored by one transparent rubric and dropped into S–F tiers — with extra tabs for riding mods and the hand-picked best of each job — so you can see at a glance what to build a colony around for war or for production. Tapping any animal opens its job, the stats behind its rank, and the catch.
There are three ways to read this list. All animals ranks the whole tameable roster the same way; flip the Compare against vanilla toggle and it overlays every vanilla RimWorld animal (the dashed chips) so you can see exactly where the mod’s creatures land against the base game. With Giddy-Up re-runs that grid for players who can ride their animals, lifting every mount a tier — vanilla included when the toggle is on. Best picks is the editor’s cut — the few Alpha creatures worth building a colony around, with the longer case for each.
Alpha Animals 4.x RimWorld 1.6 Mod content
RimWorld Alpha Animals
Our verdict on the mod, after 1000+ hours with it in the load order: Alpha Animals is the rare content mod that adds a hundred-plus creatures and makes almost all of them mean something. The variety is the point — walking tanks, uranium you can milk, alien things that only make sense once Alpha Biomes is on the map — and it stays vanilla-friendly while doing it. It's a lot to absorb and it inflates colony wealth, so it isn't for players chasing a tight roster, but for a content-forward game it's close to essential. The tier list below is a meta read of the roster; this score is for the mod itself.
Alpha Animals is a content mod for RimWorld that drops multiple unique new animals — well over a hundred new vanilla-friendly creatures — into the diverse biomes of the rim. The philosophy of this mod is that every new creature has to earn its place by bringing a new mechanic into the game rather than just another pelt, which is exactly what makes the roster worth ranking. Some of those mechanics are simple, others much more involved, but they tend to fall into a few recognisable shapes:
- Walking tanks — megafauna with health pools that soak an entire raid while they swing back.
- Living resource farms — creatures you milk or shear for uranium, steel, devilstrand and the like.
- Indestructible plant monsters — slow, near-unkillable flora-beasts that wall off a fight.
- Night-time stalkers — nocturnal predators that hunt in the dark, plus plenty of plain speedy giant spiders and other weird creatures.
That mechanic-first design is why a tier list is the right way to read it: the value of any one of these creatures is in what it changes about your colony, not its stat block alone.
Alpha Animals mod
The creatures spawn in certain biomes, and some are trader- or quest-only, so part of the draw is that you have to explore to meet them all. Bear in mind that spawn probabilities have been calculated with no other animal mods installed; run it alongside other animal mods such as Vanilla Animals Expanded and fewer animals from this mod will appear, obviously, since the vanilla animals and these share the same spawn budget. Beyond the wildlife it also adds a new faction — the Black Hive, a swarm of new insects — and raids from that faction can be disabled via mod options, where you can also disable individual animals that don't suit your game. It is safe to add to an existing save (the Black Hive faction is added when the Vanilla Expanded Framework prompts you), and it needs Harmony and the Vanilla Expanded Framework to run. The animal textures are by A_Friend, aka SentientLine, with alternate "cute" textures by Roidgy and the original implementation by milon, Skullywag and kaptain_kavern; some sounds are by Mike Koenig. With well over six thousand Workshop ratings, it's one of the most-subscribed content mods on the rim and a flagship of Sarg Bjornson's wider Alpha family.
Alpha Biomes
Alpha Biomes is the companion mod most worth pairing with it: it adds several new alien biomes built to house these weird creatures, so the stranger animals have somewhere fitting to live on the world map. Install it and expect to explore further afield — a lot of the odder creatures only really make sense once those alien biomes are on the map.
Vanilla Factions Expanded
Alpha Animals runs on the Vanilla Expanded Framework, the same backbone behind the Vanilla Expanded series, so it slots in cleanly next to those mods. Vanilla Factions Expanded is the natural partner if you want the new-faction angle taken further: where Alpha Animals contributes the Black Hive, the Vanilla Factions line builds out whole new factions to meet on the world map.
Vanilla Psycasts Expanded
For the same ecosystem reasons, Vanilla Psycasts Expanded pairs well with it. The Vanilla Psycasts overhaul reworks psychic powers into paths you build up, and it shares the framework Alpha Animals already needs, so it adds no new dependency. Together they round out a modded run — new creatures, new factions and new psycasts — without leaving the Vanilla Expanded family.
How the ranking works
Every creature is scored for two jobs, and its tier is the better of the two — a great fighter that produces nothing still ranks on its fighting, and a defenceless animal that sheds devilstrand still ranks on its output. The numbers come straight from the mod's own definition files, not a fan wiki, so the stats are the ones the game actually runs.
War only counts creatures you can train to release on a target — everything else scores zero here, however nasty it looks in the wild. For the ones that fight, the score is melee damage per second times health scale (staying power), docked for a dangerous, skill-hungry tame and for a meat diet you have to keep feeding. A big predator that can't be ordered around is noted as "defends itself" and ranked on whatever else it offers. Attack-trainable mounts — the aves — are credited on the game's own combat-power rating and their cavalry role, since a small body's melee number understates a fast, rideable fighter.
Utility is about what an animal hands you and how cheaply it lives. Alpha Animals' signature is the living resource farm, so the rubric weights those heavily: a creature that renews uranium, steel, devilstrand, synthread or luciferium outscores one that only gives milk, wool or eggs. Free grazing, eating trees or fungus, pack-hauling and digging all add points; a carnivore's meat upkeep takes them away.
Exotic reproduction — asexual splitting, metamorphosis, egg clutches — is too varied to reduce to one breeding number, so unlike a vanilla list the tiers lean on the mechanic each creature brings plus its combat and upkeep profile rather than a single food-throughput figure. Treat the tiers as a strong starting read, and tap a chip for the stats behind it.
All animals, ranked by the numbers
The whole tameable roster in one grid, S to F, each creature at the better of its war and utility score. This is the baseline with no riding mod: flip to With Giddy-Up to see the mounts climb. Turn on Compare against vanilla above to overlay every vanilla RimWorld animal (the dashed chips) for side-by-side ranking; tap one to jump to the full vanilla tier list. Tiers: S 4 · A 8 · B 17 · C 22 · D 37 · F 5S 17 · A 27 · B 29 · C 44 · D 62 · F 21.
Gallatross S
What's good
- Attack — can be ordered onto targets
- Hits hard and soaks hits (16.7 DPS × 40.0 health)
- Eats trees — free feeding in any forest
What's not
- 30% manhunter chance on a failed tame
// tap any animal for its job, the numbers behind the rank, and the catch
The same roster, with Giddy-Up
Giddy-Up lets a colonist ride any animal big enough to carry them, which turns a slow tank into a mobile platform and a fast animal into cavalry. Every rideable creature moves up one tier: the five aves go back to their full mount value, and every other animal over the riding size threshold (body 1.2+) gains a tier for the mobility. A few oversized oddities clear the gate too — that is the mod’s own rule, not ours. Vanilla mounts climb the same way when the comparison toggle is on. Tiers with Giddy-Up: S 8 · A 17 · B 16 · C 26 · D 25 · F 1S 27 · A 33 · B 25 · C 49 · D 49 · F 17.
// tap any animal for its job, the numbers behind the rank, and the catch
The short list: the creatures actually worth building around. War first — the ones you can field in a fight — then production, the ones that feed and supply the colony. The longer case is on each chip. Turn on the vanilla compare toggle and the base game’s standouts (dashed) join each list.
War creatures
Ranked S to C by what they bring to a fight. Tap any animal for the full case.
// tap an animal to see why it's in that tier
A high health scale is a weapon in itself — a gallatross or a behemoth in your line is a wall of hit points soaking fire meant for your colonists. Thrown in front of a raid, the mod's megafauna are a real tactic, not a meme.
That's the fighting half. The other reason to keep Alpha Animals creatures is what they hand you between raids — and this is where the mod earns its reputation.
Production creatures
Ranked S to C by what they produce against what they cost — the living resource farms that make Alpha Animals worth installing.
// tap an animal to see what it produces and what it costs you
The catch
- Many of these are carnivores. A hungry predator will hunt your tamed producers when its meat runs out. Keep them fed and zoned away from livestock.
- Manhunter tames bite back. Several creatures have a high chance to turn on the handler if a taming attempt fails — bring a skilled animal handler and a backup, not a level-three colonist.
- Resource farms are a trickle, not a tap. A radyak or ironhusk beetle supplements your supply; it doesn't replace a real industry overnight. Build the herd before you rely on it.
- Wealth raises raids. Every tamed creature adds colony wealth and nudges raid points up, so a high tier only pays off if the animal earns more than the tougher raid it invites.
FAQ
How are the tiers decided?
By one rubric, read straight from the mod's own Defs. Each creature gets a war score (melee DPS × health scale if it can be attack-trained, docked for taming risk and a meat diet) and a utility score (what it produces and how cheaply it feeds — exotic resources like uranium, devilstrand, steel and luciferium count for most, milk, wool and eggs less, with bonuses for free grazing and work jobs). Its tier is the higher of the two. Exotic breeding is too varied to put a single food-throughput number on, so the rank leans on the mechanic each animal brings plus its combat and upkeep profile.
What's the difference between the two tabs?
All animals is the full tameable roster scored the same way, so you can see where anything lands and why. Best picks is the curated short list — the few creatures genuinely worth building around for war or for production, with the longer case for each. Same rankings underneath; one is complete, one is the editor's cut.
Do I need any other mods?
Alpha Animals needs Harmony and the Vanilla Expanded Framework, and that's it for everything in this list. A handful of creatures spawn only in modded biomes (for example companion packs like Biomes: Islands), but they still work without them — they just won't appear in the wild. Anything that truly needs an add-on is tagged on its chip.
Can I add Alpha Animals to an existing save?
Yes — the author states it's save-safe to add to an ongoing game; you'll just need to add the Black Hive faction when the Vanilla Expanded Framework prompts you, or the hive raids won't fire. The unsafe part is removing it: like almost any RimWorld mod, taking Alpha Animals out of an existing save will break that save, so add it freely but commit once it's in.
Which creatures aren't in this list?
Only the ones you can tame and keep. The Black Hive insects and other faction enemies, the indestructible plant colossi and bosses, environmental hazards, and the untameable forms are left out, along with baby and alternate growth stages — a chip is the adult, tameable animal, not its larva or its hostile cousin.
What's the single best animal in the mod?
For pure value, the radyak — a grass-fed animal you milk for uranium replaces an entire mining and refining chain. For a fight, the gallatross: a forty-point health scale means one tamed individual can absorb a whole raid while it swings back.
Do tamed animals make raids harder?
Yes. Every tamed animal counts toward colony wealth, and raid strength scales with wealth. A few high-value producers or a gallatross earn their slot; a menagerie of low-tier critters just buys you tougher raids for no payoff.
