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[Garath]

I forbid the vermin, end of cancelation spams

[SharkForce]

You can, but they never seem to be claimed

hmmm... i suppose i should have clarified... my question could better have been put:

can you assign the vermin as pets

but if you're having problems with them never actually being taken as pets, the answer is presumably no.

[AdeleneDawner]

I think vermin being adoptable as pets was recently fixed - I've always set the vermin I've gotten from the elves as available to be pets, but never saw any of them adopted until my last few forts, in which I've had two dwarves with pet blue jays and one dwarf with three pet bats (from playing with animal cages in my fort, not from elves). Most of the critters still don't get adopted, though; I assume they can only be adopted by dwarves that like that specific species.

If you do set them as adoptable, you'll need to keep an eye on them and un-assign them from their cages when they're adopted, or else other dwarves will keep putting them back in and the adopter will keep taking them back out.

(Also, I think you can pit them, if you just want to clear out the cage, and simply unassigning them from the cage may cause a dwarf to come let them loose, but it's been a while since I checked either of those.)

[SharkForce]

sadly, that still leaves them as unassignable, presumably. the advantage to assigning them as pets is that you could, say, assign them to a dwarf with the weaving labor available, and have that dwarf constantly gathering webs, weaving them, and basically living in a very small burrow which includes a bed, food, and a loom (thus keeping all the spiders in one place, near the loom, since they would presumably follow him).

spiders being randomly chosen as pets might be slightly better in the sense that you're less likely to have all of the webs way out in the forest or down in the forgotten beast infested caverns (unless the spider is assigned to a dwarf who goes there often), but still doesn't have quite the desired effect of keeping all your spiders in one place for convenient web-gathering.

still, i'd say we're getting closer to a solution i guess we need for toady to come up with a "work vermin" designation somewhat like war animals and hunting animals so that we can designate certain creatures to certain areas (being able to make a fishing pond full of turtles/lobsters would probably also make a lot of people happy, i suspect. being able to store and breed them in aquariums would probably make some people *really* happy).

[astianax]

if you want a silk room akin to sharkforce's suggestion, you'll want to use a few tags together. i don't do these on the existing spiders, but have added them all to my own silkworms and webspinners and they work gloriously. first, make them [VERMIN_SOIL_COLONY] and ensure that at least one caste is [COLONY_EXTERNAL]] so that they'll be seen flying/crawling around near the colony. also, make sure to give them the [PET] tag, that way you'll be able to start with them at embark or ask the dwarf caravan to bring you some. they'll arrive in big cages as pets and, with the colony external bit, they'll produce some wanderers around the cage just like it's their soil colony. that way you'll have a safe room full of web-producing vermin

[AdeleneDawner]

If I'm right about vermin only being adopted by dwarves who like that vermin type, and you're lucky enough to get a dwarf who likes spiders, you could have that dwarf be your weaver and it should work like you want.

[simonthedwarf]

That does explain a lot if they only claim them if they have a preference for the type. Much appreciated, esse.

I wonder how Im supposed to get rid of them permanently without causing a labor if its a type that nobody likes.

[Drawde]

Do cats still eat tame vermin, or only specific types?

I got a tame worm on accident from elves a while ago, and dumped it.  Which used to result in an eaten vermin, but never did this time.  I don't know if it's because it was tame, or because it was a worm.

[SharkForce]

That does explain a lot if they only claim them if they have a preference for the type. Much appreciated, esse.

I wonder how Im supposed to get rid of them permanently without causing a labor if its a type that nobody likes.

is there some reason mass pitting into lava won't work for that? i've not experimented with teleporting vermin, but is it instant or will they at least plummet to a horrible firey death before teleporting?

[simonthedwarf]

Non tame vermin dissapared afer being pitted. The tame one seems to be randomly teleporting around the fort.

[slothen]

vermin pets are kind of pointless, but then I just realized you can take a dwarf with vermin pets, wall him off somewhere with some water, and you can watch him get the "forced to eat a treasured pet to survive" thought.  Just for kicks of course.



Also, I just realized there's another incentive for vermin, and that is purring maggots.  Has anyone seen or used them in the last few years?

[Saiko Kila]

My only use for vermin in unmodded game is extracting juice from moghoppers. This is treated as food. I also tried catching fire snakes, but had some problems with them, they aren't attracted to my traps, and I won't risk actively pursuing them with my rat-catchers. Never seen purring maggots. Some dwarves adopt pets, or they migrate with vermin pets already adopted. I put these pets to a single cage, where I also keep other potentially usable animals. I put unusable vermin to another, wooden cage, and - once or twice a year - atom smash it.

[Mushroo]

Purring maggots can be milked, if you want a cavern dairy industry without grazing animals.

[simonthedwarf]

Big Q:

In animal traps you can put different stuff. What is the dealio with the choice between gem jewel and fish?

[Loud Whispers]

Different baits