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[Lozzymandias]

Since time immemorial i've had a giant bat farm. They're the size of grizzly bears, moderately lethal and they wander into my cavern cage traps on a tediously frequent basis. I sort the babies from the adults and i assign them any trainer so that the next generation is domesticated. The problem is this: the trainers (i have about 6) take forever to get round to taming them, sometimes longer than the childhood of the bat. Often the trainers will idle instead of taming the babies, and taming them seems a very low priority job. Is there any way i can expedite training?

[FantasticDorf]

The baby bats should have the training level of the mother bats, so if you train the mother bats high before breeding, you can domesticate the baby bats sucessfully, and ensure a domesticated bat population in the second generation once those baby bats grow up.

(keep a bat in a cage constantly to gather training experience with it and let your trainers if they are low skill get more experience)

[Lozzymandias]

I'm confused, are you saying that if the mother bats are trained high enough the baby bats will be born domesticated, or that they will be born with a high training level and will be subsequently easier to domesticate? The issue isn't that the mothers have a low training level, or that the baby bats aren't being trained to domestication, indeed some of them are. The issue is that trainers take too long to be assigned the job and i can't see how to prompt it.

[EuphoriaToRegret]

I'm confused, are you saying that if the mother bats are trained high enough the baby bats will be born domesticated, or that they will be born with a high training level and will be subsequently easier to domesticate? The issue isn't that the mothers have a low training level, or that the baby bats aren't being trained to domestication, indeed some of them are. The issue is that trainers take too long to be assigned the job and i can't see how to prompt it.

Trained animals give birth to domesticated animals.

If you want an animal to be trained faster, just make one dwarf only do animal training and assign him to be the one to do it.

[Bouchart]

Where do you keep those bats?  They might not get trained because they are flying somewhere and trainers can't path to them.

[PatrikLundell]

Note that animals kept in cages will not be trained until they regress completely. While caged creatures regress faster (and thus provides more trainer training and fortress training familiarity), highly trained parents whose offspring is caged might very well result in the training of the offspring to happen only after they've matured.

Offspring of live birthing creatures start out with the training level of the mother at the time of birth, so offspring will never be born domesticated unless the mother is domesticated, contradicting what I interpret EuphoriaToRegret to say. I doubt a higher training level makes offspring easier to domesticate: it likely just gives you more time to get to it.

If not caged, I assume you keep the offspring in pens that are also designated as training areas, or they shouldn't be trained at all (although that sometimes seems to happen anyway, at least in 0.40.24).

[FantasticDorf]

I'm confused, are you saying that if the mother bats are trained high enough the baby bats will be born domesticated, or that they will be born with a high training level and will be subsequently easier to domesticate? The issue isn't that the mothers have a low training level, or that the baby bats aren't being trained to domestication, indeed some of them are. The issue is that trainers take too long to be assigned the job and i can't see how to prompt it.

Animals that are born adults cannot be domesticated (meaning that creatures like GCS will require constant attention and trainer feeding to remain 'loyal') contrary to the training levels being passed over from the mother to animals that bear children. Unless im totally wrong, the mother training also extends to egg laying animals (wild cave crocodiles on a restraint with access to a nest box may end up rearing up to 70 stray babies)

[PatrikLundell]

Actually, the mother's training level is transferred to adult at birth offspring as well, but since they're adult, they just can't be domesticated while young.

Egg laying offspring inherit their mother's training level at the time of the laying of the eggs, not the time of hatching, but otherwise they behave the same as live birthing animals.

Since e.g. cave dragons are egg laying and adult at birth you can breed them, but they all need constant retraining, and the same goes for GCS. An interesting thing with adult at birthers is that the female offspring usually gets impregnated immediately, so when you haul your GCS offspring to a cage (for faster training decay/retraining to increase fortress proficiency), you typically get the females giving birth while caged.

[Daris]

My experience is that animal training is a fairly high-priority job, but retraining/domestication jobs are only generated once per season, when the animals are about to lose a training level, and there is a limited window for your trainers to get to every animal.  This window includes adult animals in need to refresher courses as well as the babies you want domesticated, and dwarves attend to the jobs the same way they do every other job: semi-randomly, with the nearest and/or last one assigned one being the one they are likely to pick up.

The answer is to have more trainers and to not restrict animals to specific trainers.  Set every animal to be trained by any trainer.  Have 5 to 8 trainers to ensure ample coverage of all animals, especially when your trainers are inexperienced and take forever with each animal.

[Lozzymandias]

I'm confused, are you saying that if the mother bats are trained high enough the baby bats will be born domesticated, or that they will be born with a high training level and will be subsequently easier to domesticate? The issue isn't that the mothers have a low training level, or that the baby bats aren't being trained to domestication, indeed some of them are. The issue is that trainers take too long to be assigned the job and i can't see how to prompt it.

Trained animals give birth to domesticated animals.

If you want an animal to be trained faster, just make one dwarf only do animal training and assign him to be the one to do it.

I'm fairly certain trained animals do not give birth to domesticated animals. Trained animals give birth to trained animals, domesticated to domesticated. The mother gives her training level to the child and any training level is below the maximum training level: tame. Adult animals can't be tamed so that isn't a way to get domesticated animals.

Where do you keep those bats?  They might not get trained because they are flying somewhere and trainers can't path to them.

No friendly animals can fly (at least in version 40.24), the batlings were being kept on a pasture that is also a training area within the aboveground walls of my fortress, with easy access.

Patrik and Fantastic, the points are moot because i kept the beasts in a pasture that is a training area, and giant bats do have a child period: Giant bat pups (its only a year long, which is part of the reason i chose to breed them)

Thank you Daris, it does seem that retrain jobs only get issued once a season. It would have helped if i actually assigned the bat pups for retraining... Whoops. I've done so with the latest batch but i suspect they'll reach adulthood before the next season. I guess they'll make nice bat-sausages.

[greycat]

I'm fairly certain trained animals do not give birth to domesticated animals. Trained animals give birth to trained animals, domesticated to domesticated. The mother gives her training level to the child and any training level is below the maximum training level: tame. Adult animals can't be tamed so that isn't a way to get domesticated animals.

It has been a while since I played with this, but my understanding is:

• When you catch a wild animal (typical species), you can train it, but not fully domesticate it.
• If that animal reproduces, the child inherits the mother's training level, and this becomes the child's new base level, below which it will not fall.
  
• Training children that have a higher-than-Wild base can get them all the way up to Domesticated.

[cochramd]

I'm fairly certain trained animals do not give birth to domesticated animals. Trained animals give birth to trained animals, domesticated to domesticated. The mother gives her training level to the child and any training level is below the maximum training level: tame. Adult animals can't be tamed so that isn't a way to get domesticated animals.

It has been a while since I played with this, but my understanding is:

• When you catch a wild animal (typical species), you can train it, but not fully domesticate it.
• If that animal reproduces, the child inherits the mother's training level, and this becomes the child's new base level, below which it will not fall.
  
• Training children that have a higher-than-Wild base can get them all the way up to Domesticated.

Oh, it can fall below that. However, ANY infant animal will become completely domesticated once you train it.

[deknegt]

Also suggestion, a quick way to train animal babies in a 'safe' way is by setting up a bunch of chains in your training area, and you hook up the babies to those chains so they can be fully domesticated by your animal trainers.

If they're in cages, your trainers will NOT train them unless they regress back to their wild states, so that means you'll have to get those babes out and about... And to make sure they won't wander off before they're domesticated, you restrain them.

So yeah, like others have said.
- First generation can't be domesticated, only be 'tamed'
- Second Generation will inherit the tamed-ness from their moms.
- Animals born adults can never be domesticated unless you mess around with the raws, either by making them domesticated outright, or adding a 'baby' stage to the animal race.
- Third generation animals from domesticated mothers will be domesticated...

I personally don't have a lot of experience, but i've taught myself how to do it after I caught a herd of Dingo's the other day, (I edited them to be war-trainable, because War Dingo's sound amazing) and now I have a small army of War Dingoes next to my war dogs to tear the shit out of gobbos.

[greycat]

Also suggestion, a quick way to train animal babies in a 'safe' way is by setting up a bunch of chains in your training area, and you hook up the babies to those chains so they can be fully domesticated by your animal trainers.

Pasturing works too, if you aren't afraid to let the animal roam a bit more widely (and possibly get into minor scuffles with neighboring animals).

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Nah, they ignore pastures when they turn wild.