I commit the sin of thread necromancy under well meaning intention.
In another topic i was discussing the practicalities of a certain animal centric reaction interaction, and this tid-bit courtesy of Meph cropped up.
There are a couple of dfhack tricks to target creatures ON workshops, I did that a lot for creature-armory, training and feeding. That was in 34.11, I dont know if said dfhack scripts still exist or can work in that way.
It'd sat in my mind for a while but since the sizes of workshop can be modified (as represented between the kennels and the screw press), why not have a pasture workshop or for lack of a better term building that works like a meeting hall table or a piece of furniture exerting a room zone.
Here is a basic diagram.
L R
SSS PPP SSS
SSS D PBP D SSS
SSS PPP SSS
The food stockpile of what is going to be loaded into the building is on the (S) stockpile on the left, which could include anything relevant from low grade biscuit trash which is more or less universal on eating terms as long as its broadly appropriate for the animal in the (P) pasture zone around the (B) building or more generic plump helmets and seeded fruits and vegtables.
On the right hand side stockpile could be the output (detritus/seeds etc) linked up to the building to take it away if its not broadly going back to a open seed stockpile. Just for clarity i have attached (D) doors to my diagram to show that they are separate rooms and wouldn't necessarily have to overlap stockpiles directly. In the sense you could even burrow workshop restrict materials, and feed in specific stockpiles to pull feeder demands into.
The primary idea around this is that dwarves can input feed into the building in which when animals (as to say pets) have nagging feeding requirements from grass deprivation and poor pathing they will (with dwarves with hauling on ready to drag them there in emergencies) trot over and eat the food deposited in the building (which could probably be altered to manage how much is loaded in at any one time)
Animals pastured to the building pasture will only feed out of the building they are assigned to meaning as long as you kept larger animals broadly thin so they dont step over each other and cause serious harm from pecking incidents, you could have all your livestock feeding in a large chamber of cave moss (elk birds sitting on nestboxes in one corner occasionally waddling off or being hurriedly dragged by a dwarf to the feeder before quickly waddling back to care for their eggs) from different feeders in order to keep them in one place without overlapping nonsensically any more than the boundaries of the pasture allow.
Additionally, linking up barrelled liquids (booze i hope unless you happen to have a troupe of captive pet vampires or giant mosquito's craving blood) and typical food will satiate the guzzler animals (mandrills, rats, bears etc) in a more manageable fashion so they don't drain your supplies and provide a better basis in the future for activities such as feeding poultry bird feed if such a thing is ever implemented.
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Topic: Better Pens/Pastures and Grazers (Read 4762 times)