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[ThatZommy]

I've yet to start a topic, so don't expect much.
I've found that running a fortress of egg-layers is very time-consuming and complicated, so I thought it would make a good topic for discussion. I'm wondering how others have managed egg-layers, what with making sure the eggs are fertilized, dumping unfertilized eggs, making sure they aren't taken from the nest boxes prematurely, and keeping the parents nearby. This is all perfectly possible, but I've yet to find a way to manage it while also working on other projects, such as a 3x3 room with the hatchlings and a dog, or a large tube of magma leading to the surface, or the necessary badger hunting squads. This is under the assumption others have attempted to breed egg-laying citizens, of course.

To shorten that useless paragraph, how do you manage egg-laying citizens, or if you have never attempted it, what do you believe the best system would be?

[Button]

I haven't done egg-laying citizens, but I've tamed egg-laying intelligent critters, so I have some experience.

There's a DFHack plugin that shows you whether or not eggs are fertilized. I highly recommend this.

I'm not sure whether your eggs will require fertilization by a spouse - the sapient egg-layers I had were all in 0.34.11, before the fertilization mechanic overhaul. They didn't need to be married, but they weren't the primary fortress race either.

You probably want to mod your race to have inedible eggs. The default AI has no qualms about cooking up eggs of intelligent species, and I suspect that they wouldn't have any problems eating the eggs of their own species, either. Also, if eggs aren't edible, they won't be gathered from nest boxes unless you explicitly dump them - win win.

The greatest causes of egg abandonment in my experience have been hunger and thirst; but this is with tamed animal people, which ignore beds and bedroom zones, so for an egg-laying fortress race you'd have to deal with sleep too. Remember that once the mother leaves the nest, it's over, even if the eggs are fertilized, so you really need to lock down movement.

I'd recommend 2x1 cells with doors that you can lock as soon as you notice the nest box has been claimed. Make the nest box square a water source zone, and make the other square a pool of (preferably clean) water. If you set up the pool for automatic refill from above, remember to use a grate so that your mother won't be able to climb out. That'll take care of thirst (pool of water is only source of drink available) and sleep (mother can't path to a designated area, so will sleep in place).

Food is going to be tricky. You can't just give her a food stockpile, as dwarves move to the food source to grab it, which will kill your eggs. And it's not safe to drop food onto the nestbox square periodically, because dropped objects can be quite deadly. I'd say your options are either to mod the female caste NO_EAT, or frequently check up on the mothers so you can let them out when they get near to starving.

[ThatZommy]

I haven't done egg-laying citizens, but I've tamed egg-laying intelligent critters, so I have some experience.

There's a DFHack plugin that shows you whether or not eggs are fertilized. I highly recommend this.

I'm not sure whether your eggs will require fertilization by a spouse - the sapient egg-layers I had were all in 0.34.11, before the fertilization mechanic overhaul. They didn't need to be married, but they weren't the primary fortress race either.

You probably want to mod your race to have inedible eggs. The default AI has no qualms about cooking up eggs of intelligent species, and I suspect that they wouldn't have any problems eating the eggs of their own species, either. Also, if eggs aren't edible, they won't be gathered from nest boxes unless you explicitly dump them - win win.

The greatest causes of egg abandonment in my experience have been hunger and thirst; but this is with tamed animal people, which ignore beds and bedroom zones, so for an egg-laying fortress race you'd have to deal with sleep too. Remember that once the mother leaves the nest, it's over, even if the eggs are fertilized, so you really need to lock down movement.

I'd recommend 2x1 cells with doors that you can lock as soon as you notice the nest box has been claimed. Make the nest box square a water source zone, and make the other square a pool of (preferably clean) water. If you set up the pool for automatic refill from above, remember to use a grate so that your mother won't be able to climb out. That'll take care of thirst (pool of water is only source of drink available) and sleep (mother can't path to a designated area, so will sleep in place).

Food is going to be tricky. You can't just give her a food stockpile, as dwarves move to the food source to grab it, which will kill your eggs. And it's not safe to drop food onto the nestbox square periodically, because dropped objects can be quite deadly. I'd say your options are either to mod the female caste NO_EAT, or frequently check up on the mothers so you can let them out when they get near to starving.

So, jail cells? Sounds Fun.

And they do have to be married, I've found, so DF Hack isn't necessary to check if they're fertilized (As far as I know). And luckily my fortresses all rely on routing a river into a mountain for drink, so I could easily route the water room into the cells so they're constantly refilled. Although, that might allow the mother to swim out. Not sure.
And from my experience, they won't eat their own eggs. It might be considered cannibalism or something, or maybe I just missed it, but they only seem to be moving them into a stockpile when I don't forbid them. I'm also not sure how to make an egg inedible. Is it just a matter of the materials?

[Button]

And they do have to be married, I've found, so DF Hack isn't necessary to check if they're fertilized (As far as I know).

Remember that fertilization now happens only if the fertilizer and the fertilizee are physically next to each other an unknown amount of time before birth/egg-laying. It would be quite possible for a married woman to lay unfertilized eggs.

And luckily my fortresses all rely on routing a river into a mountain for drink, so I could easily route the water room into the cells so they're constantly refilled. Although, that might allow the mother to swim out. Not sure.

Non-amphibious/aquatic critters won't path through water that's more than 3 units high. Just be careful of the pressure.

If you want your egg-laying fortress species to be amphibious, you'll probably want to use a trickle-from-above refill system linked to a pressure plate, with a grate preventing climbing or flying escape.

And from my experience, they won't eat their own eggs. It might be considered cannibalism or something, or maybe I just missed it, but they only seem to be moving them into a stockpile when I don't forbid them. I'm also not sure how to make an egg inedible. Is it just a matter of the materials?

Do keep in mind that eggs are only edible cooked.

Yeah, it's a matter of materials. The reason eggs are available for stockpile is that their materials are set to be treated as egg-type food. If you change them to use a dummy material, they'll become inedible/uncookable and also not be automatically collected for food anymore.

[ThatZommy]

And they do have to be married, I've found, so DF Hack isn't necessary to check if they're fertilized (As far as I know).

Remember that fertilization now happens only if the fertilizer and the fertilizee are physically next to each other an unknown amount of time before birth/egg-laying. It would be quite possible for a married woman to lay unfertilized eggs.

And luckily my fortresses all rely on routing a river into a mountain for drink, so I could easily route the water room into the cells so they're constantly refilled. Although, that might allow the mother to swim out. Not sure.

Non-amphibious/aquatic critters won't path through water that's more than 3 units high. Just be careful of the pressure.

If you want your egg-laying fortress species to be amphibious, you'll probably want to use a trickle-from-above refill system linked to a pressure plate, with a grate preventing climbing or flying escape.

And from my experience, they won't eat their own eggs. It might be considered cannibalism or something, or maybe I just missed it, but they only seem to be moving them into a stockpile when I don't forbid them. I'm also not sure how to make an egg inedible. Is it just a matter of the materials?

Do keep in mind that eggs are only edible cooked.

Yeah, it's a matter of materials. The reason eggs are available for stockpile is that their materials are set to be treated as egg-type food. If you change them to use a dummy material, they'll become inedible/uncookable and also not be automatically collected for food anymore.

Remember that fertilization now happens only if the fertilizer and the fertilizee are physically next to each other an unknown amount of time before birth/egg-laying. It would be quite possible for a married woman to lay unfertilized eggs.

I did not know that. Guess that makes sense, though.

Non-amphibious/aquatic critters won't path through water that's more than 3 units high. Just be careful of the pressure.

If you want your egg-laying fortress species to be amphibious, you'll probably want to use a trickle-from-above refill system linked to a pressure plate, with a grate preventing climbing or flying escape.

None of the species I use are amphibious, and now I'm rather happy that's the case. Sounds rather complicated, and I've never really done anything like that. As for pressure, so long as the room is on the same (Or 1 z-level above, I suppose) level as the river, It should be possible to just create a corridor underneath the prison cells hatcheries and dig a hole in their floors, I think. Also, run-on sentences.

Do keep in mind that eggs are only edible cooked.

Yeah, it's a matter of materials. The reason eggs are available for stockpile is that their materials are set to be treated as egg-type food. If you change them to use a dummy material, they'll become inedible/uncookable and also not be automatically collected for food anymore.

I didn't realize they had to be cooked. I suppose it should be common sense, but I've never had much of that.
That information is actually very useful, as well. Didn't know they stockpiled eggs based on the materials. I'll go edit my egg-laying races.



There are still some major issues, however. For one, constantly jumping to the hatcheries to lock/check the rooms (Can't remember if there's an announcement), as well as jumping back to make sure the prisoners mothers aren't about to starve to death. And DF Hack is necessary to do it well. Any ideas?

[Button]

There are still some major issues, however. For one, constantly jumping to the hatcheries to lock/check the rooms (Can't remember if there's an announcement), as well as jumping back to make sure the prisoners mothers aren't about to starve to death. And DF Hack is necessary to do it well. Any ideas?

I wouldn't hesitate to use DFHack. It includes some really nice bugfixes, and if you download the Lazy Newb Pack it's already set up for you.

I just had an idea of how you could deliver food to your mothers without hurting them! You'd need a third tile of the room, next to the nest box, with a track stop set to dump its contents onto the nest box. You'd need to construct enter & exit minecart locks, to prevent the mother from attempting to path out. Then you throw a couple food items into a minecart - edible-raw plants, preferably, as when they go bad they don't produce miasma - push it into the starting airlock, it triggers the appropriate machinery, dumps its contents onto the nest box, and now the mother can eat without leaving her nest!

[ThatZommy]

There are still some major issues, however. For one, constantly jumping to the hatcheries to lock/check the rooms (Can't remember if there's an announcement), as well as jumping back to make sure the prisoners mothers aren't about to starve to death. And DF Hack is necessary to do it well. Any ideas?

I wouldn't hesitate to use DFHack. It includes some really nice bugfixes, and if you download the Lazy Newb Pack it's already set up for you.

I just had an idea of how you could deliver food to your mothers without hurting them! You'd need a third tile of the room, next to the nest box, with a track stop set to dump its contents onto the nest box. You'd need to construct enter & exit minecart locks, to prevent the mother from attempting to path out. Then you throw a couple food items into a minecart - edible-raw plants, preferably, as when they go bad they don't produce miasma - push it into the starting airlock, it triggers the appropriate machinery, dumps its contents onto the nest box, and now the mother can eat without leaving her nest!

Good idea. I've started a fortress, but I got caught up in a set of journals I was writing about the characters for fun, so it might be a while before I manage to test it. I half expect the food to hit the mother, injuring her, or hit the eggs. Also, we've just remade the "Put a stick in a jar to reproduce it's natural habitat". But with more minecarts.

And as for DFhack, I have it installed, but I prefer to play without it. I also don't use graphics packs. I'd be pure vanilla if not for the Facebooks and suicidal laser flesh balls.

[AceSV]

It has been suggested to me in the past to give eggs a contact syndrome that makes the mother paralyzed and not need to eat, drink or sleep. 

[Isngrim]

It has been suggested to me in the past to give eggs a contact syndrome that makes the mother paralyzed and not need to eat, drink or sleep. 

COUNTER_TRIGGER:EGG_SPENT:min_value:max_value:REQUIRED on the mother might work better,so that she is paralyzed as soon as they give birth and anyone who happens to touch the eggs are safe

[Button]

It has been suggested to me in the past to give eggs a contact syndrome that makes the mother paralyzed and not need to eat, drink or sleep.

That's an interesting idea. Do mothers actually touch their eggs when they lay them, though?

[ThatZommy]

It has been suggested to me in the past to give eggs a contact syndrome that makes the mother paralyzed and not need to eat, drink or sleep.

But wouldn't that cause suffocation after a bit?
And you'd have to figure out how long it takes before the eggs hatch in DF time so you could set the end point for the syndrome.

[AceSV]

It has been suggested to me in the past to give eggs a contact syndrome that makes the mother paralyzed and not need to eat, drink or sleep.

But wouldn't that cause suffocation after a bit?
And you'd have to figure out how long it takes before the eggs hatch in DF time so you could set the end point for the syndrome.

If it does cause suffocation, maybe you can add the no breathing tag.  I don't know what tags you can add with syndromes. 

[Eric Blank]

It has been suggested to me in the past to give eggs a contact syndrome that makes the mother paralyzed and not need to eat, drink or sleep. 

COUNTER_TRIGGER:EGG_SPENT:min_value:max_value:REQUIRED on the mother might work better,so that she is paralyzed as soon as they give birth and anyone who happens to touch the eggs are safe

This seems the safer option to me, honestly. Not that I mind casualties for the sake of modding science.

[Button]

You can indeed add NOBREATHE to syndromes.

The main problem with granting egg-laying a paralysis syndrome is that egg-layers will lay regardless of whether the eggs are fertilized or not - and in the case of a fortress race, which requires marriage, the grand majority are going to be unfertilized. At least with confinement strategies, you can make a sweep now and then for unfertilized eggs and dump them, freeing up the woman and the nest box.

From an implementation standpoint, you'd also need to make sure you had a "cooldown period" syndrome to prevent permanent paralysis. Egg-layers will nearly? always lay a second clutch (which is nearly? always unfertilized) after the previous one hatches.

[Greiger]

May be a bit late to this but I've been using an egg laying civ pretty much since it became possible.  In my own experience the eggs hatch regardless of whether the mother is always there or not. 

Seems to be the case with non intelligent but I have had multiple cases where the egg has even hatched when the mother was away.  The mother drops what she's doing and immediately travels across the fort to pick up their baby the moment it happens.  The only way I can imagine this to no longer be the case would be if something changed in the last version, since I haven't played the latest much.

As for managing them I only give married citizens personal rooms. When I want to build nest boxes I make sure I have no stockpiles that take them and then have one built in each room. I wait til some citizen delivers it to the room and suspend it when inside.  Then next time the female sleeps in the room (that I notice) I lock the door and unsuspend the nest box. That ensures that only the married females have access to the nest (at least til they hatch) so that they will always claim it first.  Open the door after they lay the egg and they will go about their business in the fort as normal, just opting to sit on the nest in their downtime.  The egg eventually hatches and I order it to be deconstructed and repeat the process.