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[Button]

OK so. I've created silk farms with procedurally generated beasties before, but the elves brought me a giant brown recluse spider* on their first visit, so, woot.

I was checking the wiki to see what modifications I'd have to make. ISTR reading in the past that tame creatures required a path to their target? But that's not on the wiki. Well, I figured that must have been in an earlier version, and I constructed the farm as laid out on the wiki.

I constructed my farm accordingly, but my tame giant brown recluse isn't firing at my yeti. Will the above setup work if I can capture an invader to use as bait, or is the whole thing wrong and I'll need to make a spiderpath?

Thanks.

* my mods give giant vermin longer life, breeding ability, etc., so it shouldn't die on me for a few years yet.

[Thormgrim]

the only silk farm i have ever been able to make work with a tame spider is the design i'm using now.
I trap a few gobbos from every siege, disarm them and then throw them down a hole.  I think the hole is 5 or 6-z; deep enough to break something but rarely to kill them.  Down there, at the end of a long, 4-wide tunnel is a tame GCS in a pasture.  The exit is on the other side of the spider.  The GCS usually spams out a bunch of webbing before going over and killing the gobbo, who is no real threat because his legs or arms are broken and he's mostly passing out.

It requires some micro management and a nice supply of gobbos, but works and I love the mental image of some hapless thief, stripped naked and thrown down a hole, staggering along a dark corridor, past dozens of other goblin corpses, wondering what is going to happen next...

[BlackFlyme]

Quick question: did you mod the giant brown recluse so that it could fire webs like a GCS can?

That's the only reason I can think of for it not slinging webs around.

Here's the GCS web shooting interaction, in case you didn't give it to the GBR.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[CAN_DO_INTERACTION:MATERIAL_EMISSION]
 [CDI:ADV_NAME:Spray web]
 [CDI:USAGE_HINT:ATTACK]
 [CDI:BP_REQUIRED:BY_TOKEN:LB]
 [CDI:MATERIAL:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SILK:WEB_SPRAY]
 [CDI:TARGET:C:LINE_OF_SIGHT]
 [CDI:TARGET_RANGE:C:5]
 [CDI:MAX_TARGET_NUMBER:C:1]
 [CDI:WAIT_PERIOD:30]

[Button]

Quick question: did you mod the giant brown recluse so that it could fire webs like a GCS can?

That's the only reason I can think of for it not slinging webs around.

Here's the GCS web shooting interaction, in case you didn't give it to the GBR.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[CAN_DO_INTERACTION:MATERIAL_EMISSION]
 [CDI:ADV_NAME:Spray web]
 [CDI:USAGE_HINT:ATTACK]
 [CDI:BP_REQUIRED:BY_TOKEN:LB]
 [CDI:MATERIAL:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SILK:WEB_SPRAY]
 [CDI:TARGET:C:LINE_OF_SIGHT]
 [CDI:TARGET_RANGE:C:5]
 [CDI:MAX_TARGET_NUMBER:C:1]
 [CDI:WAIT_PERIOD:30]

...

Well don't I feel silly.

EDIT: So why does it have a web material in the first place, then, if it can't use it? Bizarre.

[Doktoro Reichard]

I constructed my farm accordingly, but my tame giant brown recluse isn't firing at my yeti. Will the above setup work if I can capture an invader to use as bait, or is the whole thing wrong and I'll need to make a spiderpath?

They only need LOS, hence the fortifications.

Well, if you looked at the Giant brown recluse spider wiki page there is noted the following:

Unlike giant cave spiders, giant brown recluse spiders only produce webs sporadically (like web-weaving vermin) and their silk is the same value as mundane spider webs, making them a very poor choice for silk farming.

My dear dwarf, I do believe you were ripped off by those snotty pointy-eared folk that call themselves elves. The solution is obvious. Wood, and lots of it. And magma, nothing wrong with magma.

[Button]

Unlike giant cave spiders, giant brown recluse spiders only produce webs sporadically (like web-weaving vermin) and their silk is the same value as mundane spider webs, making them a very poor choice for silk farming.

One of my mods to the GIANT creature template is an increase in material value. So once I have this guy spitting like a proper webber, I'll be in business.

[Larix]

Letting giant browns shot web strikes me as a bit cheesy. Their default design follows standard procedure for GIANT creatures - it's the same thing, only bigger. Just like with giant hyenas - they're just bigger (a lot bigger), they don't gain the ability to survive without air or a totally new attack type. The abnormity is the giant cave spider, which is aggressive, can destroy buildings and spits webs, all abilities uncommon to the cave spider and not part of the standard GIANT package. And last time i checked, they weren't imported by any caravan.

[Button]

Letting giant browns shot web strikes me as a bit cheesy. Their default design follows standard procedure for GIANT creatures - it's the same thing, only bigger. Just like with giant hyenas - they're just bigger (a lot bigger), they don't gain the ability to survive without air or a totally new attack type. The abnormity is the giant cave spider, which is aggressive, can destroy buildings and spits webs, all abilities uncommon to the cave spider and not part of the standard GIANT package. And last time i checked, they weren't imported by any caravan.

You think so? I don't know, every non-vermin creature with a silk material can shoot webs except for the brown recluse man and giant brown recluse - including spider-based procedurals for whom it isn't their listed special ability. (As I learned to my surprise when I tried to melee a giant spider "beware its poisonous sting"  ). And it wouldn't be the first time a giant or x-person creature - especially those based on vermin - was missing intended tags because vermin are so fundamentally different from other base animals - I mean, giant pond turtles can't even spawn in unmodded DF!

It's a good question though. I think for now I'll settle on giving them a much longer recharge time than GCS, and ask Toady about what his intent was for web-shooting.

[Larix]

It's more that with imported pre-tamed creatures, this modification gives you a more lucrative beast without the higher risks a player in a biome with web-spitting giant brown recluses would face. But i trust you'll apply the mod permanently, so you can get the improved version as wild critter in savage warm/tropical forests later? I guess it evens out in that case.

[Button]

It's more that with imported pre-tamed creatures, this modification gives you a more lucrative beast without the higher risks a player in a biome with web-spitting giant brown recluses would face. But i trust you'll apply the mod permanently, so you can get the improved version as wild critter in savage warm/tropical forests later? I guess it evens out in that case.

Yeah, I'm applying it permanently - as a 'bugfix,' until I get confirmation of whether it's a bug or not.

I also have the giant template adding MOUNT_EXOTIC/TRAINABLE_WAR, so if I piss off the elves... yeah.

It is zero surprise that elves have been dominating the crap out of worldgen these days.

[Sutremaine]

The abnormity is the giant cave spider, which is aggressive, can destroy buildings and spits webs, all abilities uncommon to the cave spider and not part of the standard GIANT package. And last time i checked, they weren't imported by any caravan.

GCS aren't an abnormality within the GIANT variation group because they're not part of that group. GCS are creatures in their own right, and don't pull anything from the raws of their standard-sized cousins. That said, the giant lions and tigers (no bears) that are also creatures in their own right don't have any special attacks, and never have done.

I think the only giant animal that predates 0.31 and is also a GIANT variation is the giant eagle.