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[ibanix]

My current fortress has some sizable farms - I'm using the seasonal farming mod so I have to farm huge amounts and then stockpile. This is leading to quite a few vermin. I have my crack Trapping team on it, and together with a mass pitting system (over magma!) I regularly sent groups of rats, hamsters and two-legged lizards to a fiery doom.

The problem is that I have to select the vermin to pit manually (stockpile-p-select vermin). If I keep up on it, I have to do this often, like once every few minutes or more. Any dorfy way to automate my vermin removal?

[Anathe]

I'm thinking something involving a minecart leading from a stockpile where the vermin are sent to after trapping, to a channel down to the magma. Use a track stop to automate the dumping process. Just need dwarves to load/move the carts.

I don't have much experience with trapping vermin, but I'd assume that using stockpiles links would work decently well.

[Arcvasti]

Cats work pretty well too. Plus you get free skulls and meat from butchering them. Plus they're cute and fuzzy.

[Urist Da Vinci]

I'm thinking something involving a minecart leading from a stockpile where the vermin are sent to after trapping, to a channel down to the magma. Use a track stop to automate the dumping process. Just need dwarves to load/move the carts.

I don't have much experience with trapping vermin, but I'd assume that using stockpiles links would work decently well.

The cart doesn't even have to move, for safety and speed. Just use a similar arrangement to the minecart quantum stockpile exploit: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Exploit#The_Minecart_Stop , but replacing the receiving stockpile with a drop chute to magma.

[Button]

Please note that the above proposal(s) will destroy your animal traps, too. If you want to reuse the traps, here are a couple ideas.

If you make your traps out of a magma-safe metal (non-metal items aren't checked for magma safety, it's a known bug), you should be able to periodically obsidianify your magma and mine out the animal traps. The only risk is that the vermin inside might not be killed if the trap itself isn't destroyed. I'm not sure.

One other idea presents itself. I'll let Urist Da Vinci sum it up for me:

LIVE AMMO SHOTGUN:
Method has been verified with fort mode testing.

1. Make a minecart shotgun (where the cart rams a wall at high speed and the contents are ejected over the wall), but add a second stage (the cart's contents also hit a wall and eject their contents over it).

2. Load a cage containing a creature (animal, goblin, dwarf prisoner, etc.) into the minecart. A single cage holding many animals is best.

3. Fire.

4. Watch as the carts shotgun the cages, and the cages then shotgun the creatures (yes, in a conical pattern) in a parabolic path. The creatures suffer no injury until they land, unlike minecart riders, probably because of cage stasis.

To wit, a vermin stockpile linked to a minecart which, when reasonably full, is pushed into an accelerator and then stopped at a 1-z high wall. This ejects the animal traps. The animal traps then hit a 1-z high wall on the next level up, ejecting the vermin. The vermin hit the next wall and either splat, or drop into magma: your decision.

The animal traps are then available for re-use. WARNING: This method will require some tweaking to keep the trapper dwarf population from dipping below sustainable levels on account of them standing in the path of flying vermin traps.

[ibanix]

That is god-damn brilliant. I suppose I could also use a fortification instead of a solid wall and use the vermin again invaders, no?

[Rapozk]

Please note that the above proposal(s) will destroy your animal traps, too. If you want to reuse the traps, here are a couple ideas.

If you make your traps out of a magma-safe metal (non-metal items aren't checked for magma safety, it's a known bug), you should be able to periodically obsidianify your magma and mine out the animal traps. The only risk is that the vermin inside might not be killed if the trap itself isn't destroyed. I'm not sure.

One other idea presents itself. I'll let Urist Da Vinci sum it up for me:

LIVE AMMO SHOTGUN:
Method has been verified with fort mode testing.

1. Make a minecart shotgun (where the cart rams a wall at high speed and the contents are ejected over the wall), but add a second stage (the cart's contents also hit a wall and eject their contents over it).

2. Load a cage containing a creature (animal, goblin, dwarf prisoner, etc.) into the minecart. A single cage holding many animals is best.

3. Fire.

4. Watch as the carts shotgun the cages, and the cages then shotgun the creatures (yes, in a conical pattern) in a parabolic path. The creatures suffer no injury until they land, unlike minecart riders, probably because of cage stasis.

To wit, a vermin stockpile linked to a minecart which, when reasonably full, is pushed into an accelerator and then stopped at a 1-z high wall. This ejects the animal traps. The animal traps then hit a 1-z high wall on the next level up, ejecting the vermin. The vermin hit the next wall and either splat, or drop into magma: your decision.

The animal traps are then available for re-use. WARNING: This method will require some tweaking to keep the trapper dwarf population from dipping below sustainable levels on account of them standing in the path of flying vermin traps.

How does it work? What direction will the cage get ejected? How do I make sure it hits a wall?

This is a perfect way to release all my caged elf to freedom, in a non-violent fashion.

If you consider free falling into magma as freedom and non-violent..

[Button]

How does it work? What direction will the cage get ejected? How do I make sure it hits a wall?

This is a perfect way to release all my caged elf to freedom, in a non-violent fashion.

If you consider free falling into magma as freedom and non-violent..

I've never actually done this, I just remember seeing the threads and thinking it hilarious, so if anyone with experience contradicts me believe them over me.

As I understand it, the cage is ejected in the same general direction as the minecart was moving when it came to a sudden stop, but one z level higher. So a side view of this setup would look something like this:

Code: [Select]

█ < animal impact; corpse or animal drops into magma
█ █ < cage impact; cages drop into trough
█~█ █______ <<<<<<<<minecart comes speeding along
█████^ minecart impact


[GavJ]

Although I would never discourage dwarfy ideas above, if you want simplicity of just dealing with an annoying situation without a new big project, cats are the way to go.

(note that catsplosions are pretty easy to avoid by simply having a pen/pasture on a retracting bridge over a cliff or lava -- allows you to kill pets when desired, i.e. all but one female cat, because pets can be successfully localized to the trap by assigning them to a "pasture." Magma is usually easiest, but a huge drop has the benefit of making their bodies explode into a larger number of bones for crossbow bolts, etc.)

[Anathe]

The cart doesn't even have to move, for safety and speed. Just use a similar arrangement to the minecart quantum stockpile exploit: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Exploit#The_Minecart_Stop , but replacing the receiving stockpile with a drop chute to magma.

Fair enough. I'm not the greatest with that kind of stuff. I also love moving parts, for all of the fun they can cause.

[FrankMcFuzz]

Just bring 3 male cats on embark and you're pretty much good to go for a 140+ dwarf fortress.

But if a migrant arrives with a female cat... May Armok save us.

[Rapozk]

Catch and tame a Peregrine Falcon..

Better than cats.

[Nikow]

3 Male Cats are not always good choice. In game, cats live 10-20 years. If you're running long-living-fort it can be a problem.

[TruePikachu]

I use cats for my vermin.

If you have DFHack, you are able to check and/or completly eradicate the populations of vermin and other species. I forget the exact command and parameters (region-pops?), but it is possible. I've revived cave spiders to an infinite population, and eradicated GCS before.

If the vermin aren't in infinite number, then they will eventually die out (either through cats or dwarves). If they are infinite, however, it is probably best to invest in cats or kill them with DFHack.

As a final note regarding it, creatures (vermin included) have a population per region, practically being analogous to biomes (I would assume there is a difference since they are called biomes in-game, but regions in DFHack). IIRC, the population decreases when creatures enter the map, and vice versa. I don't recall exactly how vermin play into it (since they aren't always visible), but I presume it is similar

[malimbar04]

Catch and tame a Peregrine Falcon..

Better than cats.

If you can get a breading pair, this is vastly superior to cats. No cat explosions to deal with as they have a low breeding rate, they fly (always useful), and they hunt vermine like bandits.