Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Supernerd]

Lately I have come up with a positively dwarfy idea. What I want to do is find a map with a waterfall and plenty of non vermin fish and build grates on the waterfall in such a way that all the fish that pass through it get stuck and drown, thus being ready for food preparation. While this seemed like a great idea at first I noticed that the only time I ever see any fish in the upper part of the stream is right after embarking then no more large fish pass though there. Only vermin fish arrive and I cannot think of a good way to separate them from the water since they can go right through my grates. In other words my attempts at making my Automatic Waterfall Food Generator is not going too well. Could any experts give me some advice on the matter?

[Sphalerite]

There is a limit to the number of groups of wild animals which can be on the map at any one time. Land-dwelling wild animals and water-dwelling wild animals compete for this limit, so while you have groups of land animals on the surface, water-dwelling groups can't spawn.  When a slot does open up for a group of wild animals, land-dwelling creatures seem to be a lot more likely to appear than water-dwelling creatures.  So long as your local biome population still has land-dwelling animals left, you won't see many water-dwelling creatures.

So in order to make more water-dwelling creatures you need to either kill all the land-dwelling animal population, or wall off the entire border of the map with raising bridges.

As far as harvesting them, in my experience water flowing into a grate is not a reliable way of catching fish.  Water only pushes creatures when at levels below 7/7 units.  Aquatic creatures will never voluntarily go from a 7/7 deep tile to a shallower one.  This means that water-dwelling creatures will avoid swimming into spots where they'll be pushed by the water onto the grate.  A better way to catch and air-drown fish is to have a room connected to the river which you can flood with water, wait for fish to swim into, and then seal off and drain/pump the water out of.  This may take some mechanics, especially if you automate the process.

[Saiko Kila]

While this seemed like a great idea at first I noticed that the only time I ever see any fish in the upper part of the stream is right after embarking then no more large fish pass though there. Only vermin fish arrive and I cannot think of a good way to separate them from the water since they can go right through my grates. In other words my attempts at making my Automatic Waterfall Food Generator is not going too well. Could any experts give me some advice on the matter?

What is your biome? I have similar experiences, even after limiting animals by overbreeding them (if you breed to many animals of the species which haunt your biome, they stop showing). After that I simply had no wild animals. Note that initial pool is different from standard, cyclic pool. That's why you have no fishes. For example tropical dry broadleaf forest has no fishes, as can be seen in the list by Sphalerite over there:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=85365.msg2300765#msg2300765

So when you see carps on arrival be quick about it, they won't last for long.

[Theifofdreams]

What is your biome? I have similar experiences, even after limiting animals by overbreeding them (if you breed to many animals of the species which haunt your biome, they stop showing). After that I simply had no wild animals.

Wouldn't this be due to the max population cap for wild animals, which was mentioned above?
As to fish, if you can manage to catch and chain a breeding pair (tricky at best) you could use a fairly simple design to create a basic hatchery IE: breeding pair in one room with a floodgate leading to another room that you can regularly drain the water from. It'll be tricky to get the other fish to swim into the next room but it's most likely manageable. After that, just collect and harvest. It won't have the waterfall, but you can probably implement that in the water-recycling process if you really want it. Just make sure that the first room always has enough water to keep your breeding pair from air-drowning.

[Sphalerite]

As to fish, if you can manage to catch and chain a breeding pair (tricky at best) you could use a fairly simple design to create a basic hatchery IE: breeding pair in one room with a floodgate leading to another room that you can regularly drain the water from. It'll be tricky to get the other fish to swim into the next room but it's most likely manageable. After that, just collect and harvest. It won't have the waterfall, but you can probably implement that in the water-recycling process if you really want it. Just make sure that the first room always has enough water to keep your breeding pair from air-drowning.

You don't need to have them in the same room to breed.  Impregnation takes place by teleporting spores, the male and female just need to be on the map at the same time.

Unfortunately, there are no aquatic creatures capable of breeding in vanilla DF.  At the moment only creatures with [PET] can breed, and there aren't any aquatic creatures with [PET].  Sea serpents have [PET_EXOTIC], so if you run the no-exotics patch they can theoretically breed, except they're egg-layers in the current version and underwater nest boxes don't work.

More information on the issues with breeding aquatic creatures here:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=75780.0

[Theifofdreams]

You say this like modding the creature tags is something noone would dream of.
Not that anyone would cheat the game by doing something like that, right?
And it would still be better to keep the breeding pair in one room to conserve space and FPS.

[Saiko Kila]

What is your biome? I have similar experiences, even after limiting animals by overbreeding them (if you breed to many animals of the species which haunt your biome, they stop showing). After that I simply had no wild animals.

Wouldn't this be due to the max population cap for wild animals, which was mentioned above?

Yes, after culling some of my animals new wild ones started to appear as previously. What I meant was that there are no underwater animals in that biome, because lack of one species of animal (which I could control) wasn't compensated by arrival of another, uncontrolled, species. I had hippos and carps, but they went and are gone. In another similar biome I had crocodiles, but they are gone too. No fishes arrived - because there are no fishes in that biome.