This suggestion thread is to to appeal to Toady to change the way that messengers currently pick up citizens off site, mainly because its a mammoth task to actually find them especially when all the included named people (and non-people like pets) are listed on the same page with little way to make distinctions between them and all leave at once when moved involuntarily.
It is the main reason why i don't use war animals in raids/conquering actions and not transfer people to places if they have any pets currently, because of the naming system making them indistinguishable and also very inefficient to summon them all at once. That's the core of the complaint anyway, the other half being that there's not a lot of reason to send dwarves other than to offload population or set up a defense to kill or delay armies before they hit your fortress instead.
My solution is mainly consists of giving the messengers some tighter and more concise controls and make the functions of dwarves offsite less than a meat shield.
Solutions- Messenger has details for the recalling mission to (recall targets pets) and (recall family) which they oblige to unless the fortress is full
- Pets and children are listed as secondary (related to the above point) and aren't required to be called upon by name as they require guardians, elsewise when they do not have a guardian due to a sudden death they will migrate to the fortress again themselves.
- Pets left without any masters to go to will become stray, and might follow a dwarf migration back to your fortress (see above) or achieve re-adoption offsite. This doesn't happen currently and stranded pets become 'pets of nobody' which seems like a placeholder
Additions- Pre-calculated positive emotions to being sent to a place where friends, pets or family resides, "being 'eager' to see his family again" for example, which fills up the dwarf's needs to see family when they are recalled, so we could arrange a once a year/two year as needed trip, and profit from very high fufilled needs from that dwarf for the most minor amount of micro management.
- Its not too lewd i would imagine to request that with probability on a number of factors, on these spouse (or lover conversely) visiting trips have a small chance to make their significant other pregnant either upon their fortress re-arrival (for the wife or mistress) or a new child pop up in the father's thoughts and relationship screen in a few seasons time. Besides from happy memories of their reunion.
- Ability to 'ask' for relatives of fortress 'citizens' listed of interest on the 'people' screen to move in to your fortress from non fortress related sites, including the spouses and children of long-term residents who have successfully applied for citizenship (always naturally declining if they are over the population limit or the situation at your fortress is unsuitable such as in a siege)
This would make hill dwarves seem more alive, and give some purpose to "populating" the areas around your fortress with a viable population rather than just a crude military garrison to keep your investment into forming nobility titles safe when the enemy attacks them. You'll want to keep the towns with your dwarves families amongst some of the safest.
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Topic: Bug-Fix? Suggestion - Pets and Family off site recall (Read 644 times)