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[Sabreur]

Anyway, Dragon eggs are huge, larger than cave dragons, so it'll probably take some time.

Interesting.  In any case, I just slaughtered roughly 150 animals (My war animal training program got a little out of hand).  I'm going try saving and dropping the egg size down to half its value, then re-build the nest box and see what happens.

[Splint]

Also set the stockpiles to not accept dragon eggs. And forbid them for good measure.

[Sabreur]

Also set the stockpiles to not accept dragon eggs. And forbid them for good measure.

Done - the kitchen is set to NOT cook dragon eggs, the stockpiles do not accept dragon eggs, and the only door leading into the room with the nest box is forbidden.

Also, by happy coincidence I discovered that dragons already have the 'trainable' tag.  So I now have stray war dragons.

[Sabreur]

Success!

Lessons learned:

• Watch your animal limit!  If you're building up an army of various carnivores, it's really easy to get to the point where no new creatures will be born.  This is especially true if you are breeding alligators or other egg-laying creatures.
• Watch your kitchen list and stockpiles.  You want hatchlings, not omelets.
• Be ready to forbid all access to the nest box.  I didn't witness this first-hand, but apparently animal trainers will pull nesting creatures off the nest box to train them, killing the eggs.

I made the following changes to the dragon raws:

Added the line:
[CHILD:1][GENERAL_CHILD_NAME:dragon hatchling:dragon hatchlings]
This is necessary to get the eggs to actually hatch.  You could probably set the CHILD value to something more reasonable - 1 year is pretty low.  I might bump it up once I've confirmed everything works.

Changed [EGG_SIZE:6100] to [EGG_SIZE:100].  Egg size effects hatch time - size 6100 will have your dragoness sitting on the next box for years.  Since creatures cannot be re-tamed while nesting (see above), that's enough time for even a masterfully-trained dragon to go feral on you.  Setting the size to 100 is more than most creatures (such as alligators) but short enough that you only lose 1-2 levels of training.

Changed [CLUTCH_SIZE:1:3] to [CLUTCH_SIZE:1:6].  This was mostly to make up for the two game years I wasted trying to get this to work.  I'll change it back after I've got another clutch.

Changed [BODY_SIZE:1000:0:25000000] to [BODY_SIZE:100:0:25000000].  So they get bigger ten times as fast (full size in 100 years instead of 1000).  Probably cheating, but patience is not one of my virtues.

Of course, you could also set egg size to 5, full-body size to 2 years, and clutch size to 50:100 just for kicks.  I won't judge you. 

[Thecard]

I wouldn't call it cheating, they still won't get to full size, it'll just be more reasonable.  If I remember my sizes correctly, they wouldn't have gotten to the size of an elephant before your fort would likely die.

[Inarius]

Yes, but it's more realistic (as much as dragons can be) to last 5-10% of the total possible life of a dragon as a child (even if 100 years is not 10% as a dragon can live 1500 years easily)
After all, it takes 12 years for a dwarf to become adult, and they can live 150 years.

[Thecard]

Aren't they immortal?  I thought I remembered them not dying of old age.

[silverskull39]

-snipped-

Success!

Lessons learned:

• Watch your animal limit!  If you're building up an army of various carnivores, it's really easy to get to the point where no new creatures will be born.  This is especially true if you are breeding alligators or other egg-laying creatures.
• Watch your kitchen list and stockpiles.  You want hatchlings, not omelets.
• Be ready to forbid all access to the nest box.  I didn't witness this first-hand, but apparently animal trainers will pull nesting creatures off the nest box to train them, killing the eggs.

I made the following changes to the dragon raws:

Added the line:
[CHILD:1][GENERAL_CHILD_NAME:dragon hatchling:dragon hatchlings]
This is necessary to get the eggs to actually hatch.  You could probably set the CHILD value to something more reasonable - 1 year is pretty low.  I might bump it up once I've confirmed everything works.

Changed [EGG_SIZE:6100] to [EGG_SIZE:100].  Egg size effects hatch time - size 6100 will have your dragoness sitting on the next box for years.  Since creatures cannot be re-tamed while nesting (see above), that's enough time for even a masterfully-trained dragon to go feral on you.  Setting the size to 100 is more than most creatures (such as alligators) but short enough that you only lose 1-2 levels of training.

Changed [CLUTCH_SIZE:1:3] to [CLUTCH_SIZE:1:6].  This was mostly to make up for the two game years I wasted trying to get this to work.  I'll change it back after I've got another clutch.

Changed [BODY_SIZE:1000:0:25000000] to [BODY_SIZE:100:0:25000000].  So they get bigger ten times as fast (full size in 100 years instead of 1000).  Probably cheating, but patience is not one of my virtues.

Of course, you could also set egg size to 5, full-body size to 2 years, and clutch size to 50:100 just for kicks.  I won't judge you. 

In my cheaty game, I've set [CHILD:0], set dragons as [COMMON_DOMESTIC] and changed their petvalue, and changed it so they reach full size in a year, just for shits and giggles. very very cheaty, although mitigated since I had to trade my anvil to afford a breeding pair and I skipped out on a lot of useful skills for my dwarves. Also, !!FUN!!, as my herbalist/grower got between a dragon and a dingo. His corpse evaporated or turned to ash. I'm gonna build a large tower, fill the top floor with nestboxes, lock the dragons inside and wait for a siege. Or punch through the tower into circus 

[Eric Blank]

I know it's inaccurate, but the idea I get of people who say they can't be bothered to read something (assuming it's of reasonable length) is something like:
"What's that? Raedin? Naw, I don't bother with none of that city learnin'. I aint learnt my letters never in all my life, and sho' 'nuff I hain't needed it neither!"

I'm a redneck lowlife, and I find this highly offensive.

I didn't have to change the size of dragons' eggs to get a duplicate species of them to hatch, though, and they hatched at roughly the same time as other creatures that laid the eggs at that time. I recall being told numerous times that research into egg size vs. length of incubation has shown that egg size does not affect incubation time, much like animal size does not affect pregnancy length for animals that give birth to live young.

It's more likely that your dragon was being disturbed repeatedly or that the male didn't fertilize the eggs for whatever reason.

[Mageziya]

And it begins.

It doesn't matter what you call it, a era, an age, an Apocalypse,
The dragons are COMING.
In their masses, they will blot out the sun, yet through themselves, they will create a new sun.
All who oppose will become no more, not even a  mere memory.
Races will fall, wars will be waged, sieges will cease existence in mere seconds.
The Dwarves will arise above all else, before being being betrayed by their own power.
Then none will exist.
The Dragons are COMING!

Okay, why the F#$% do I feel so dark and pessimistic philosophical today!?

[Mono124]

Quick we need a Dwarfakiin!

On topic. This is freaking awesome, and I plan on doing this when I start a new fort.

[Friendstrange]

Well, you made it work!

I think dragon childs can dragonbreath so they are still deadly even if not fully matured.

Time to exterminate all those extra animals, you got dragons now.

[Torrasque666]

"What's that? Raedin? Naw, I don't bother with none of that city learnin'. I aint learnt my letters never in all my life, and sho' 'nuff I hain't needed it neither!"

"Just excuse me fo' scribblin', I can barely write my name..."

Posting to watch. I await the hilarity.

[Sabreur]

A Vile Force Of Darkness Has Arrived!

What shall we do!?



A: Open the door and let them in!

I'm going to try to get video of this.

Edit:  Video is up!  http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-2453-dragonportals

[Sabreur]

Whoops.

My initial dragon defense program melted the steel doors right off their hinges.  I took too long getting around to replacing them.  A louse man walked in the front door - right as my legendary miner expedition leader was walking outside.

Dragonportals Friendly Fire Incidents: 1