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Author Topic: Special hives  (Read 2945 times)

DerMeister

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Special hives
« on: October 16, 2019, 04:26:03 pm »

I think, DF need special hives for special creatures. This may be token for hive tool or forhiveable creature (or even both). Dwarves hove only bees, humans hive bees and bumblebees, elves hive pixies for pixie dust, goblins hive worms for worm meat. Probably, dwarves hive worms for fertilizer and also achieve useless remains, when goblins hive worms for cookable remains and also achieve useless fertilizer. Hives with different names work in current version of game, but bees can live in worm bin or pixie house.
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Ninjabread

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Re: Special hives
« Reply #2 on: October 17, 2019, 12:52:25 pm »

Bumblebees irl don't produce enough honey to be a viable source for anything other than their own hive, but it would be nice to have some more uses for domesticated vermin. Personally I'd like to see some sort of spider nest structure for a smaller, easier to set up, but less profitable alternative to the GCS silk farm. Would only need 1 spider but you'd also need to keep it fed by catching other vermin.

Also really hoping that at some point colony-making vermin get giant variants that make hives big enough to explore in adventurer mode.
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Special hives
« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2019, 04:38:16 am »

Bumblebees irl don't produce enough honey to be a viable source for anything other than their own hive, but it would be nice to have some more uses for domesticated vermin. Personally I'd like to see some sort of spider nest structure for a smaller, easier to set up, but less profitable alternative to the GCS silk farm. Would only need 1 spider but you'd also need to keep it fed by catching other vermin.

Also really hoping that at some point colony-making vermin get giant variants that make hives big enough to explore in adventurer mode.

It would take more than one spider to make a viable amount of silk.   :)
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Ninjabread

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Re: Special hives
« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2019, 01:23:20 pm »

It would take more than one spider to make a viable amount of silk.   :)

Depends on what a viable amount is and how long you wait. Besides, social spiders aren't in DF so putting more than one spider in the same enclosure would result in one spider eating the other.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Special hives
« Reply #5 on: October 18, 2019, 05:31:14 pm »

It would take more than one spider to make a viable amount of silk.   :)

Depends on what a viable amount is and how long you wait. Besides, social spiders aren't in DF so putting more than one spider in the same enclosure would result in one spider eating the other.
We're not talking about mods here. These are suggestions for Toady to put into the game. What the game has now is irrelevant (as you know). If social spiders are required he's not going to leave them out, watch the spiders eat each other and say "hey, 6 months work on my new spider silk industry down the drain".
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Ninjabread

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Re: Special hives
« Reply #6 on: October 18, 2019, 06:29:30 pm »

We're not talking about mods here. These are suggestions for Toady to put into the game. What the game has now is irrelevant (as you know). If social spiders are required he's not going to leave them out, watch the spiders eat each other and say "hey, 6 months work on my new spider silk industry down the drain".

If they're needed, yeah, they'd probably be added, but as I said, depends on what a "viable amount" of silk is. I'd say just producing a web every month or so would be plenty for a single-tile hivelike structure, which sounds like a one-spider job to me, it's not like you can't have more than one enclosure if you need faster silk production, just as you'd build more beehives if you weren't getting honey/jelly/wax fast enough.

I didn't mean that GC's spider colony idea was impossible, just that I didn't think it was necessary, that most spiders don't work like his idea suggests, and that the one spider that does work like that isn't in the game yet, which means more work for Toady.

That said, if the social spider, plus a giant variant, were added, we could have Mirkwood style forests eventually, which would be pretty cool.
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Special hives
« Reply #7 on: October 22, 2019, 08:21:47 am »

Depends on what a viable amount is and how long you wait. Besides, social spiders aren't in DF so putting more than one spider in the same enclosure would result in one spider eating the other.

That is why spider silk farms are not a thing in reality.   :)

We're not talking about mods here. These are suggestions for Toady to put into the game. What the game has now is irrelevant (as you know). If social spiders are required he's not going to leave them out, watch the spiders eat each other and say "hey, 6 months work on my new spider silk industry down the drain".

Maybe Toady One should add stuff in to facilitate modders modding the game?
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Special hives
« Reply #8 on: October 22, 2019, 08:45:27 am »

Depends on what a viable amount is and how long you wait. Besides, social spiders aren't in DF so putting more than one spider in the same enclosure would result in one spider eating the other.

That is why spider silk farms are not a thing in reality.   :)

We're not talking about mods here. These are suggestions for Toady to put into the game. What the game has now is irrelevant (as you know). If social spiders are required he's not going to leave them out, watch the spiders eat each other and say "hey, 6 months work on my new spider silk industry down the drain".

Maybe Toady One should add stuff in to facilitate modders modding the game?
Yes, that would be nice. Irrelevant to this thread though.
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Ninjabread

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Re: Special hives
« Reply #9 on: October 22, 2019, 11:03:16 am »

That is why spider silk farms are not a thing in reality.   :)

... Because social spiders aren't in DF? You know they exist irl right?

Also you're wrong about spider silk farms. Although rare they do exist, cause even though silkworms are significantly quicker and easier to farm, spider silk is much stronger, is more useful as a surgical material because it doesn't trigger an immune response, and the farms get less animal rights complaints cause silk worms are killed when farmed while spiders are not.

That said, if silk worms were added they would require less effort for Toady to add hives for, because they'd pretty much work just like beehives except they would contain silkworms and produce minimum value silk, no need to code in any spider feeding behaviours or hives that don't kill everything inside when you harvest.
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GoblinCookie

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Re: Special hives
« Reply #10 on: October 24, 2019, 10:09:40 am »

Maybe Toady One should add stuff in to facilitate modders modding the game?
Yes, that would be nice. Irrelevant to this thread though.
[/quote]

Not quite, given this a function that is mostly of modding value.

... Because social spiders aren't in DF? You know they exist irl right?

Also you're wrong about spider silk farms. Although rare they do exist, cause even though silkworms are significantly quicker and easier to farm, spider silk is much stronger, is more useful as a surgical material because it doesn't trigger an immune response, and the farms get less animal rights complaints cause silk worms are killed when farmed while spiders are not.

That said, if silk worms were added they would require less effort for Toady to add hives for, because they'd pretty much work just like beehives except they would contain silkworms and produce minimum value silk, no need to code in any spider feeding behaviours or hives that don't kill everything inside when you harvest.

Silkworms only produce silk when they metamorphose into moths.  It is a one-time harvest. 
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Ninjabread

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Re: Special hives
« Reply #11 on: October 24, 2019, 01:15:00 pm »

Silkworms only produce silk when they metamorphose into moths.  It is a one-time harvest.

While they're metamorphosing. They eat the cocoon on the way out, that's why they're killed in the cocoon when they're farmed. But yes it's a one-time harvest, just like DF bees, which is why I mentioned it.
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