Heh, in my first long-running fort I had a batsplosion. I was concerned they'd attack my fort so I mobilized my crossbowdwarves. >.<
Amazing to see how we're still discovering things that have been quietly sitting in the game for (at least) a year and a half, possibly longer. Remember moss?
That aside, it's a bit unsettling to think about all those hundreds and hundreds of fish moving in one river-blotting blob like that. There's something kind of horrifying about looking at that picture.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I've noticed that effect before in the ocean with jellyfish. It's quite surreal to see what looks like a swarm of statues suddenly washing up on shore. The pattern in the ocean is a lot more circular at first and flows with the waves towards the shore.In DF 2010 there will be contact poisons.
Do weapon traps work on fish? Because I'm imagining a section of the river blocked off with floodgates, but flowing down through a channel filled with weapon traps. It would end at a fish collection area covered in grates, next to some fisheries. The good part is that water pressure would push the dead fish along after they get "processed."
Do weapon traps work on fish? Because I'm imagining a section of the river blocked off with floodgates, but flowing down through a channel filled with weapon traps. It would end at a fish collection area covered in grates, next to some fisheries. The good part is that water pressure would push the dead fish along after they get "processed."
Not sure this would work. I once tried to make a more efficient butchery by spike trapping horses, but the dwarves refused to collect the meat of the dead horses. Then I tried it again drowning puppies, but the dwarves again wouldn't collect the meat. At least with land animals, it seems dwarves won't butcher anything that wasn't killed by dwarfy hands.
IIRC, no matter how you kill wild land animals, they can be butchered. But I'm not sure how it works for fish.Yep, wild animals can be butchered no matter how they die. Tame animals can only be butchered after being deliberately slaughtered at a butcher's shop. And vermin (including fish) leave behind 'remains' if killed, which can't be used for anything. You can only get food from vermin fish by having a dwarf performing the fishing job, and I'm not convinced that the fish returned from that process have anything to do with the vermin fish you see moving around in the water.
Moss doesn't really do anything but sit there. But it's really hard to actually see it in Fortress mode - you have to have a fort that lasts something like 15-20 years (my 13 year fortress doesn't have any moss yet). So it took a long time to discover (since most forts don't last longer than 5-7 years).
Moss only grows on constructed structures, outside, after a long period of time.
Now setup a system to drain the river, killing the fish. Then you send in hordes of butchers to create a massive fishing industry.
We've already gone over this; they're vermin fish, have to be fished, not butchered.
Fishermen do appear to catch Shad instantly when fishing in the river during these runs though, so a small horde of Fishermen would seem to be a good way to feed the fort, at least for a short while until the fish run out.
Someone should ask Toady whether this is intentional. I suspect it is, but you never know.Right, but then we would have to decide which is more awesome.
They're Bi-anually at this site; once at the start of spring, once at the start of autumn.
They're Bi-anually at this site; once at the start of spring, once at the start of autumn.
I suspect that the upward spring run is the movement of adults up to the safe lakes to breed (and then die) and the downward autumn run is the movement of new juveniles into the food-rife ocean.
Apparantly this is what Shad do. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shad)
Says the fry (young, small fish) live in fresh water for two years before moving into oceans. I expect the numbers of shad are drawn from a world population and that if you significantly disrupt this process you will badly damage the shad population, however you may not see the effects for another couple of years.
Neruz: On your site with salmon, shad, and trout runs, for the sake of experimentation could you create a copy of your DF folder and remove the ocean biome tag on one, the river biome tag on the second, and the cluster_number tag on the third? Then we'd be able to see which tokens in combination affect it (or if all stop working we'd see it was only a combination of all three).
CONCLUSION:
The combination of all 3 results in Fish Runs.
Not having Cluster Number removes all Fish Runs.
Not having one of the Biome tags creates Fish "Blooms", where one vermin fish will appear and then the cluster will explode outwards, the blooms hang around for a minute or two, and then fade away.
After experimenting, i can conclude that Vermin having a Cluster Number means you get clusters of that size randomly appearing around the biome the Vermin live in (hence, batsplosions), the 'run' functionality where they move up\down the river on a seasonal basis is tied to having both a cluster number and ocean\river biomes; presumably so the fish can move from one biome to another.
CONCLUSION:
The combination of all 3 results in Fish Runs.
Not having Cluster Number removes all Fish Runs.
Not having one of the Biome tags creates Fish "Blooms", where one vermin fish will appear and then the cluster will explode outwards, the blooms hang around for a minute or two, and then fade away.
After experimenting, i can conclude that Vermin having a Cluster Number means you get clusters of that size randomly appearing around the biome the Vermin live in (hence, batsplosions), the 'run' functionality where they move up\down the river on a seasonal basis is tied to having both a cluster number and ocean\river biomes; presumably so the fish can move from one biome to another.
Wicked. I'm gonna go add this to the wiki.
It makes me wonder, though. If something this simple took so long to be discovered, Toady could really hide just about anything he wants in the code... even, perhaps... a way to... win.
>_>