Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Dwarf Mode Discussion => Topic started by: DanielLC on October 14, 2008, 08:12:33 pm
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I'm considering building an auto-butchery, so I don't have to butcher an animal every once in a while. Essentially, the idea is to stick all of an animal of a certain type in a room with a pressure plate and a floor hatch. When one animal is on the floor hatch and another walks onto the pressure plate, it drops the first several z-levels onto the floor next to a butcher's shop, tanner's shop, and kitchen. The frequency of animals being butchered should be about proportional to the square of the number of animals, while the frequency of them being born is proportional to the number. Because of this, the population should be stable. Has anybody done this before?
Should I chain an adult male and female in there, to make sure I don't lose the breeding population?
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Remember that an animal won't path into open space... though there's also nothing to say that multiple animals won't be standing on the plate at the moment it activates...
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I honestly think it's a cool idea, but the best advice I can think of is to try setting the pen so that you can adjust how many hatches/plates are active at once so you can fine tune the rate at which the fall.
Do be sure to post results/pictures.
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If it works, post detailed plans. My current big pit o' livestock is cumbersome, and everything gets let out when I start butchering.
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To prevent them from getting out when you butcher them, build two doors, and make the path to the closer door restricted. The animals will stay near the close door, and the dwarfs will come in and go out through the far door.
I was intending to only have one hatch/plate pair. The best way to control the speed of the animals falling is by making the room bigger. If there's more room, there will be more animals. If there are more animals, they will breed more. When the system is in equilibrium, they will die as fast as they're born.
I might not do this project any time soon. The only important details are the size of the room and the size of the drop, and you can probably find people who can tell you the latter.
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That contraption makes a pretty funny mental image. The butcherdwarf calls up the shaft "NEXT" and a cow splats down next to him
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You might have to put a refuse stockpile under the point of impact to make sure the job gets auto-queued. Butchers don't seem to notice corpses until they're either in the shop or in a refuse stockpile.
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Feasible or not, practical or not, workable or not, I'd just like to congratulate you for coming up with the idea in the first place.
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Whats the fastest breeding animal that isn't a cat?
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A dog I think. There are 1-3 puppies per birth and it takes only one year to grow up.
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Even better would be a drawbridge that covers the square they land in which is somehow triggered when they land, so it would send them flying into the butcher's shop. ;D
-WHAM!-click-Woosh-SPLAT!- "Dinner!"
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This sounds a bit like a Sweeney Todd-inspired idea.
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I wouldn't think it'd be easy to automate, but if you can pull it off, congratulations.
Also, to chained animals breed? I know caged ones don't.
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I wouldn't think it'd be easy to automate, but if you can pull it off, congratulations.
Also, to chained animals breed? I know caged ones don't.
I think caged animals do breed, at least if they're in the same cage.
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Cages animals don't breed, however they can give birth in cages, if were caged while pregnant.
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I wouldn't think it'd be easy to automate, but if you can pull it off, congratulations.
Also, to chained animals breed? I know caged ones don't.
I think caged animals do breed, at least if they're in the same cage.
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I don't think caged animals breed, since every non-pet kitten goes into the cages and I never get any kittens born to unnamed cats.
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I just got a funny idea, do chained animals get hanged when the space below them opens up....just so if you do chain a breeding pair you make sure they dong get executed
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I've heard animals breed by spores. If so, just hang the females. The best way to hang them would probably be:
§§§
§¢§>
§§§
Where §s are ropes, the ¢ is a hatch cover, grate or bars, and the > is a down staircase. Simply attach an animal to each rope, attach a lever to the hatch cover, and put the lever on repeat until all of the animals are hanging down it.
I did some basic calculations about the auto-butcher. When the population is in equilibrium, the frequency of the animals being butchered is proportional to the square of the size of the room. It's also proportional to the speed at which the animal reproduces.
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I think when ppl say they breed by spore, that means that the male and female don't have to be close to each other, or in the same room. You still need males though. In my current fortress, feral stallions impregnated my wagon-pulling mare but without horses in the local wildlife, that has never before happened.
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Animals on chains DO NOT hang. They will simply disconnect from the chain and fall.
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Animals on chains DO NOT hang. They will simply disconnect from the chain and fall.
So then they're... erm, cat storage?
For butchering?
Just pull this and you get, and you get butcherable cats, and it took some time to get this cat farm working, thee more cats, the more breeding, and the more breeding, the more butchering, the more butchering, the more food, and stuff, the more food and things, the more crafts and food, and the more food and crafts, the more survival and trade, and the more trade and salvation the more this place lives and is prosperous, the more this place live and prosperity the more legendary this place is... ... ... the more we dominate, the more power we'll have..............
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Yeah, it'll have to drop down onto a refuse pile, and if it isn't controlled right, you may end up with a lot of dead animals.
But, good god man you're awesome.
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Yeah, it'll have to drop down onto a refuse pile, and if it isn't controlled right, you may end up with a lot of dead animals.
But, good god man you're awesome.
A one floor drop never harmed anyone, except adventurers...
Anyways, animal farms, the greatest thing ever, they produce more animals for you're quantum cages, lol...
Jaque-"Why Urist, EBay ( pun! ) are selling six-packs of cats now."
Urist--"Okay, we'll buy 10 for the party, Jaque"
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As I have a ridiculous number of animals, I played with this some. I have a 6-z-level fall, covered by a hatch cover, linked to a pressure plate, and I can confirm that on occasion the hatch cover opens, animals (or, once, a dwarf) fall, and die upon hitting a refuse stockpile beside my butcher shop. Unfortunately, while I have my butcher locked in with a butcher shop and the landing-point, I'm not sure Stray Animal corpses are butcherable; my butcher has made no motions toward making my dead bodies meat.
(Another problem lies in possibly overwhelming the pressure plate if animals walk on it too often; I have 300 animals crammed into 58 tiles, and I've had very few actual hatch-cover-state-changes.)
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Are the bodies forbidden? You might have forbid-on-death turned on.
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I can confirm that on occasion the hatch cover opens, animals (or, once, a dwarf) fall, and die upon hitting a refuse stockpile beside my butcher shop.
(Not trying to be sarcastic, just pointing out something you missed)
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*whistles* I don't know what you're talking about
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I just tried this. The animals fall and die, and they land on the refuse pile next to the butchery, but they aren't butcherable. Dang.
Is this a bug?
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I just tried this. The animals fall and die, and they land on the refuse pile next to the butchery, but they aren't butcherable. Dang.
Is this a bug?
Depends. Are they (former) pets?
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They're slamming into a refuse stockpile. Try removing the stockpile and see what happens.
Also, stray animals who die get auto-butchered.
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Perhaps we should try it with wild animals? I have a steady supply of wild horses in my cage traps. I've been training them, but I could stop.
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Depends. Are they (former) pets?
Nope, just regular tame strays.
They're slamming into a refuse stockpile. Try removing the stockpile and see what happens.
Also, stray animals who die get auto-butchered.
Nnnope. Still nothing.They're falling five stories into a room next to the butchery, but they're not butchering. Even if I enter the workshop jobs and do that, it cancels because it thinks there's no butcherable non-rotten corpses nearby.
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Hate to ask, but they aren't forbidden, are they?
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Hate to ask, but they aren't forbidden, are they?
Nope.
I'm stumped, really. Maybe it's a bug that animals that fall to their death can't be butchered?
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what happens if they fall 1 floor instead, and are killed automatically by a blender?
(big trap och menacing spikes triggered by pressure plates)
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Actually, I put a spike at the bottom, initially. I thought that was the problem, but removing it doesn't make them more butchered.
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I just tried this. The animals fall and die, and they land on the refuse pile next to the butchery, but they aren't butcherable. Dang.
Is this a bug?
Dead strays can't be butchered. I reported this, and wasn't very clear about it, so I'm not sure Toady put it on the list (and I'm too lazy to check now).
It makes fish farming hard, too.
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In other words, this currently only works with captured, untamed animals.
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In other words, this currently only works with captured, untamed animals.
Exactly.
Oh, it's bug # 000833, so it's on there.