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[kawaiidesunekochan]

I NEED shell. I can't stand it when for 5 years I get no artifacts because the dwarves want shell and I have none. So,how would I mod it so that I always have a way of getting shell?

I tried putting shells on cats,for some reason that didn't seem to work...Is there a specific place you need to put the [HASSHELL] tag?

Or could I bring turtles with me on embark,by making them domestic pets? Can you make vermin domestic pets...?

Or,I could always make it so that turtles reproduce at lightspeed and are as frequent as flies...how would I do that,exactly?

[Neruz]

I just put Cave Lobsters and Turtles at full request from the Dorves and save the shells.

I usually carry 100+ Lobsters or Turtles on embark, so long as i don't waste shells they usually last the fort longer than the fort lasts.

[Kagus]

Large creatures can't have shells, only vermin.  Cats count as "large creatures", because they're larger than vermin.

Furthermore, turtles are already available everywhere.   If you have water, you have turtles.  If you dig a hole in an aquifer, you can fish turtles from it...


And it is possible, to an extent, to bring along vermin...  But it's not all that well implemented.  You'll bring along the tame, living animal, plus a free cage of some random metal for each individual vermin.  This isn't what you want (you actually won't get shells from this).

Turtles, being vermin, are handled differently from other creatures...  They don't reproduce in the standard sense.  Every map has a certain "turtle population" that you pull from every time you fish up one of the buggers, and that number is refreshed from time to time so that you always have a stock of turtles.  And, like I said, you can fish them out of anything.


You can bring along plenty of (dead) turtles at the beginning though.  They're pretty cheap.  The shell stockpile should last you through plenty of moods, way more than you need before you can set up your own turtle gathering economy (just remember to keep bone and shell stockpiles inside, otherwise they'll get "cleaned" each season).

[Truean]

[REACTION:FREE_TURTLE]
[NAME:make turtle]
[SMELTER]
[PRODUCT:100:1:FISH:NONE:TURTLE:NONE]

[Lancensis]

I just put Cave Lobsters and Turtles at full request from the Dorves and save the shells.

I usually carry 100+ Lobsters or Turtles on embark, so long as i don't waste shells they usually last the fort longer than the fort lasts.

I usually forbid half a dozen, and use the rest. Remember to unforbid them if someone requests them during a mood, though.
Oh, and don't cook your turtles. Just prepare them at a fishery, or else you won't get your shells.

[Ubiq]

You'll have to generate a new world, but one option for the future is to copy the lizard entry under reptiles in your raw folder, put it under the turtle entry, and change the word lizard over to terrapin and adding [HASSHELL] to the description. That way you have a pretty good chance of finding either a terrapin, a turtle, or both in every non-freezing biome.

The best way is to just plan for it at the embark though by bringing 50+ turtles and little else in the way of food.

[Noble Digger]

When you bring "Turtle" at embark it will generate a shell if the item "Turtle" is eaten by a dwarf. Naturally you will need to prevent them from being cooked by turning off Turtle in the kitchen menu. Cooked turtles don't give a shell.

You can get more "Turtle" from the Dwarves or Humans, just request turtles and nothing else for one trade cycle and you'll get 30+ stacks of them. Same goes for Cave Lobster which is the other good source of shell.

[wilsonns]

I created the turtle fortress mod, the turtles are everywhere, as they are the main race...

[Kagus]

You can get more "Turtle" from the Dwarves or Humans, just request turtles and nothing else for one trade cycle and you'll get 30+ stacks of them. Same goes for Cave Lobster which is the other good source of shell.

Cave Lobster:  The other shell meat.

[darkflagrance]

Consider giving the [SHELL] tag to rats, bats, and swarms of gnats.

Then you could use your trappers to obtain shells as well. Although I don't know if a shell will be generated if a dwarf eats a live vermin.

[Kagus]

Nope, it won't.  Only a "cleaned fish"-type vermin object will generate a shell and bones after it has been eaten.  Live vermin will just disappear into their stomachs.  I know this because I've had dwarves eat live turtles, shell and all.

I suppose you could apply the fish tag to other vermin, but I really don't know what kind of an effect that would have...   It may be that only creatures obtained through the act of fishing can be cleaned, and you might end up with cats that bring in a supply of raw gnats, ready to be cleaned.  I honestly don't know.


But the fact of the matter is, turtles really aren't that hard to get your hands on.  You just need to make sure that you set up a shell production circuit early on, and you'll have a good-enough supply of shells for the rest of your fort's life.  Turtles can be fished from any water source, so even if you dug into an underground aquifer in the middle of a desert you could fish turtles out of it.

[Euld]

So the process is:
Get access to a body of water,
fish turtles out of it,
process the turtles at a fishery,
set up a Refuse pile inside, not outside, that accepts shells.  This is because shells that are left outside vanish at the end of each season.  At some point, someone will eat a turtle and the shell will go where it should and ready for moods.

[Randominality]

I LIKE TURTLES!

Sorry, had to be done.