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[§k]

I'm curious about fire snake. Their body temperature is higher than most magma-safe materials and are supposed to set bins, beds and wooden cages on fire, evaporate booze, and probably melt metal. Meanwhile, they can be held and eaten by dwarves. And we know that, fire snake, as a type of vermin, cannot attack or counterstrike in anyway.

Can I conclude that, fire snake only sets fire when it is alive and interacts with items? If cats do hunt for them, they shouldn't get burned. And if a dwarf walks by one, he shouldn't get burned either.

If fire snake is, however, really very dangerous, I plan to immerge the magma forge level and several adjacent stockpiles entirely in 3/7 water!

(I can't find fire snake in object testing arena, and haven't noticed one so far. Hence it is difficult to conduct experiment.)

[Duuvian]

Try embarking near a volcano, I recall seeing them there I think.

You can set your world gen to have the max of 200 volcanoes and you might find one in a cool embark.

[§k]

That's a good idea! In fact, though, I'm curious about fire snake because I want to avoid their damage. If they do not show up at all, that's even better!

Duuvian, may I ask, how did you handle them? Do you think 20 z-levels above the magma sea is far enough to safely set stockpiles?

[puke]

I've only seen them on volcano embarks near the caldera or near to where I tap it.  They've definitely blown up my booze piles before.  The giant cascading cloud of evaporating booze was Fun.  It was also on a glacier, and even with all the ice and magma I wasn't able to melt enough water before my dwarfs started dieing of thirst.  So, yeah, Fun.

Their remains are also hot.  I've had fires in the refuse pile, i'm pretty sure it was from remains dumped from ones killed by cats.

I've not seen cats or dwarves injured, but I guess if they had to haul the remains far enough they might get burned?

There is probably a great way to trap (with nethercap traps) and weaponize them, but I'm not sure how that would go.  I dont think vermin necessarily follow all the same pathing rules as regular creatures.

Is liquid fire also hot?  I've never processed any.  I guess that if it was, it wouldnt exactly have any uses that magma does not already have.

[Melting Sky]

I didn't even know these exist until now and I am built on a volcano.

[puke]

My current volcano related nuisance is magma crabs spitting basalt lumps at anything that wanders by the caldera.  Dwarfs go pick it up for food storage (known bug, it seems), and end up wasting a bunch of time and endangering themselves.

Might have to build a lid, later...

As I remember, Fire Imps used to be fun.  They could (I imagine they still can) start fires in your butcher shop if you kill them too quickly before they cool down to their natural temperature.  On the other hand, products made from their body parts should be magma safe. 

I have a vision of killing sieges with magma mist traps, and cleaning up with hazmat haulers clad head to toe in fire imp leather.

[m-logik]

I've built around a lot of volcanos, and never seen evidence of fire snakes before. I wouldn't even know they existed if not for a mason who detested them and continually churned out statues of them. I didn't know they had any interesting properties until I read this thread. So I would say their threat level is low-to-nonexistent. If you discover otherwise, do share your findings.

[puke]

maybe they dont exist anymore?  every so often there are changes between versions that prevent certain creatures from being created in world-gen.  Or that prevent them from showing up at forts.

[BlackFlyme]

Fire snakes exist. I've only seen a couple of them though.

Vermin are a bit of a nuisance to actually find though, since they don't behave like normal creatures. Plus vermin cannot be created in the arena, so you can't make fire snakes there unless you remove the vermin tags.

[GavJ]

I believe what's happening is that they are still hot after they are dead, but the instant somebody eats one, it ceases to exist (food doesn't go into dwarven stomachs or anything like that. It just disappears).

So the cats and dwarves eating them might be heating up a little bit, but just aren't in contact long enough to actually get hurt, before the material is destroyed?

Just guessing though.

[BlackFlyme]

Anything hauled or eaten is not taken into account unless the thing eaten carries a syndrome. Hauled items just exist in a "hammerspace" of sorts.

If dwarves actually used their hands while hauling they would very quickly melt regardless as to whether the fire snake was alive or dead.

Fire snakes are made completely of the flame template, which is a strange material template, as it is much hotter than what is considered fire-safe or even magma-safe, and is set to a fixed temperature, so it will be unlikely for it to cool down.

[puke]

oh, they shouldnt even leave remains if they are made from the flame template.  what lit my refuse piles on fire then?  maybe imp remains.

[BlackFlyme]

No, they will still leave remains. I forcibly spawned a couple and let some cats go at them.

It may be a quirk with how vermin behave. Though I've seen full-sized creatures made of unstable materials leave behind stable limbs and such occasionally.

[Duuvian]

Duuvian, may I ask, how did you handle them? Do you think 20 z-levels above the magma sea is far enough to safely set stockpiles?

I ignored them and never had any issues. Fire Imps though die to a hail of crossbow bolts from a dwarf stationed on the edge of the volcano as soon as I notice them meandering within range. I secretly hope the dwarf dodges into the volcano when I watch them get into a firefight with the imp but it hasn't happened yet.

I think the tomcat I brought on embark was killing them, mostly I noticed their corpses more than anything. I may have caught one in an animal trap but I might be mistaken, it was a long time ago.

[wierd]

Fire snakes can cause problems if they are frightened. This can happen if you have a perfect storm scenario-- Say, your fortress has been carved into bituminous coal, or some other flammable material-- There is a non-filtered magma pipe fueled workstation nearby, and there are TONS of cats in the fortress.

Firesnakes are vermin, so they spawn and wander about. Cats are drawn to vermin creatures. Firesnakes can cause fires when they get attacked. If the cat attacks the snake, while it is on the bituminous coal floor, the floor MAY catch fire-- or some other fancy thing may happen, like the cat catching on fire, and then wandering into the stockpiles to hunt other vermin (while on fire), and catching other things on fire.

For the most part though, the most harm a fire snake tends to do is give somebody a "hated vermin" type bad thought when they see it. Same as seeing a giant roach or something.


Now... Magma crabs, and fire imps?  TOTALLY different kettle of fish!  Those guys are THE REASON why magma plumbing NEEDS, (and I stress that very much, it is a *NEED*!) to be filtered using some fortification slits, at the very least. (For workshops that dont actively draw up magma, active isolation is the best!) Fire imps shoot fireballs-- literal fireballs-- at dwarves on sight-- and Magma crabs shoot an inexhaustible supply of bassalt boulders at dwarves on sight.  Both are pernicious and deadly. They can end your picnic REAL quick.  (On the plus side though, if you can CATCH them, and then train them-- *hah!*-- Fire imps on chains make GREAT anti ambush defense systems!  Just make sure that your fortress's above ground walkways and perimeters are fully able to be locked down quickly, because fire imps WILL set the world on fire.  This can be a GOOD thing, if you want to burn up all the ambushers. Just be sure you can lock the fortress down before the fire gets inside and kills everything/everyone.)