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[OMG PIXELS HELP]

I just started playing this game.

It is delightful.

While reading some beginners tutorials, I came upon the concept of a 'birdsplosion.' I have endeavored to harness this avian power for the benefit of all dwarvenkind.

This is the basic concept I have come up with:
There's a big room full of nestboxes, and birds. One far wing of the room consists of a drawbridge hanging over a meat-chute which leads to the food-prep area. Across the bridge is a pressure plate which lifts the drawbridge.

Birds roam about the room, and accidentally send one another down the meat-chute. '

Food for all.

Bones for all.

Turkey leather for all.



Any thoughts/comments/bird jokes? Is this feasible?

[They Got Leader]

I think your idea is very fowl.

This idea would work, but you would have to be careful because it might kill all of your birds off in the end. You would need to have some kind of kill-switch to not accidentally kill all of your birds.

[ibanix]

Yeah that was my thought, bad diffusion could kill a ton of birds at once. The dimensions and number of breeding birds would need to be calibrated to ensure reasonable "drop" rate.

Also, keep one male of each species in a cage somewhere, because bad luck = no more meat machine

[They Got Leader]

This also would apply to literally any [animal]splosion. Keep a male breeding mate on the map somewhere, because everyone knows animals breed through spores.

[JimboM12]

There's potential wasted bird product if the drawbridge comes down on them. Instead, just try a regular retracting drawbridge. That's the only problem I see with this, other than the potential for wiping out the meat machine accidentally.

[doublestrafe]

This sounds familiar. According to that thread, domestic egglayers are too light to trigger a pressure plate.

[MDFification]

To avoid killing all the birds, just pasture a few where they can't wander into the drawbridge.
Birds won't activate the pressure plate on its own? Simple; put it in the dining room or another high-traffic area and let your dwarves trigger it. Remember to switch it on and off when you want to pasture birds.

[OMG PIXELS HELP]

Curses, weight does seem like it will be an issue.

I've got a separate hatchery breeding the initial fodder for MIGHTY-BIRD. While waiting for them to grow, I penned all my cats/kittens in the bird room. Many a cat stepped on the trigger, but alas not a single feline was tipped into the meat-chute.

This is most disappointing, I guess I'll just have to go the tight-quarters-sheer-cliff dodge route.

I was looking forward to the moment of dread when an innocent poult stepped on the plate, heard an ominous click, and could only flap his wings in futile opposition to the doom he had visited upon his kin.

Birds won't activate the pressure plate on its own? Simple; put it in the dining room or another high-traffic area and let your dwarves trigger it. Remember to switch it on and off when you want to pasture birds.

I like this option (doubly so if the trap remains active while the bird wranglers go about their business).

[Linkxsc]

I did something like this a while ago. However it was the floor of the breeding room itself was 2 retracting bridges. With nest boxes around the edges.

Hook it all up. Had a special aside room where there were a couple extra of each species incase of over use. Every year id flip the lever to drop half the room (id do it while all the females were laying. So i wouldnt lose them or many chicks) then bam hundred or so birds would drop. And my workers would go to town for a while.

Later cause i like fun. I changed it around so id drop the birds into a room with a goblin with naught but a knife. Ofteb the birds would win after losing a few dozen.

[MDFification]

I did something like this a while ago. However it was the floor of the breeding room itself was 2 retracting bridges. With nest boxes around the edges.

Hook it all up. Had a special aside room where there were a couple extra of each species incase of over use. Every year id flip the lever to drop half the room (id do it while all the females were laying. So i wouldnt lose them or many chicks) then bam hundred or so birds would drop. And my workers would go to town for a while.

Later cause i like fun. I changed it around so id drop the birds into a room with a goblin with naught but a knife. Ofteb the birds would win after losing a few dozen.

That's hilarious. I would have used that to gradually train an elite force of goblin fighters to take on the HFS (since they have, like, no armor or shield user skills even as elites).

[Linkxsc]

^ thors nuts I never thought of that. I could take it and train the shield and armor on the gobbos. So when i use them as live training subjects. They survive even longer. This could even be done with catsplosions that you cant get ahead of. (Once i had almost 150 cats plaguing my fort and my fps. All owned by the same dorf. I had him chained in an arena and unleashed 45 goblins on him and his kitties. While everyone else watched. A most satisfying operation if i do say so myself.)

[darkflagrance]

You guys do know that there are no ROTATING drawbridges in Dwarf Fortress right? Unless I am badly misreading that diagram, the "north-rotating" drawbridge is impossible. The minimum one tile that raising drawbridges occupy will also atom smash any birds unfortunate enough to stand on it.

[Sadrice]

To clarify, raising drawbridges don't work how you would expect.  A north raising drawbridge would throw birds every direction but north, and any birds on the tiles that become the raised bridge would be atom smashed.  You could avoid this problem by just using a retracting drawbridge to drop them down a hole.  Retracting drawbridges also fling creatures a few tiles, stunning them in the process, so they can be used to chuck birds off a ledge, or alternately, to trap trapavoid creatures or dwarves/friendly critters.


You could solve the weight issue by just putting a few pigs in with the birds, which might be nice to do anyways.  You could also just put the pressure plate somewhere where dwarves will step on it.  The meeting hall would probably deplete your birds too quickly, but I'm sure you could find somewhere appropriate.