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[Walkaboutout]

So it's been a bit, but I'm back to playing. Can someone who remembers off the bat remind me which animal people adventurers (granted residency as lucky visitors, or retired there as former player controlled adventurers) work without issue? Or better yet, which ones should be avoided, since that's probably eaiser to tabulate.

Here's what I remember:

Grazer animal people (say an Elephant Man) won't eat, except on grazed grass in Fort mode. Meaning you'd have to burrow the guys over grass, or they'll starve. So, animal people adventurers (in fort mode) whose base animal type needs to graze, are out (too much hassle).

Curious animal people (say a Polar Bear Man), will pickup and hold misc. items at random, for long periods, before eventually dropping said items. While not the end of the world, it's annoying, and can cause issues when in combat. So, animal people adventurers (in fort mode) whose base animal type has the "Curious" tag are out (less trouble than grazers but possibly still problematic).

There was another tag that was an issue I think and I can't remember what that tag is. I think it's a sneaking tag such as, I THINK, tigers have. I know that, whatever the tag, it caused your fort mode animal person to move very slowly. They basically are always in sneak mode, and therefore move every where at a greatly reduced speed.

Are there any other things I should know? Animal people types to avoid in fort mode because of bad behavior? Thanks in advance all!

[UselessMcMiner]

[MEANDERER] causes animal people  to move very slowly no matter what. And [FLIER] causes their path finding to break. So don’t use those two as well

[Fleeting Frames]

Huh, I'm now wondering if polar bear people will attack enemies with whatever misc obj. they're holding. If they do, this would be a way to have named minecarts, giant axe blades, doors, etc. immune to wear.

Regarding fort-mode animal people, the largest vanilla aboveground non-meander is Giant Tortoise Man. They do lay eggs, though. This is bit of a YMMV but can give an impressive population boom if you use dfhack's fix-ster to handle adventurer asexuality, with the kids being born with skills (as they lack the baby stage). Additionally, in combat drawing themselves into a shell means they can be sitting ducks for enemies, who may have weapons capable of piercing it - I'm not sure military animal people will do this over killing, though. Non-shelled non-meanderer, python man would be biggest.

Water-based, there's of course the leopard seal man, even bigger than tortoise, without the scale, shell or egglaying. Aquatic/amphibious races won't take jobs in 4+/7 water, even if they won't drown in it, though, so there goes that defensive option.

There's also of course brown recluse spiderman; notable mainly for immunity to webs. Though being covered with chitin rather than scale they're easily breakable.

[Cathar]

Fix-ster does not function with adventurers, unfortunately :c

[Staalo]

[MEANDERER] causes animal people  to move very slowly no matter what. And [FLIER] causes their path finding to break. So don’t use those two as well

There once was a masked lovebird woman mercenary in my fort, and I don't remember her having any pathing issues... she had a wonderful tactic of taking flight and oneshotting goblins from above during sieges. And every once in a while, she'd go to a nest box and lay few eggs which dwarves would then gladly cook into roasts.

The best resident ever.

[Fleeting Frames]

I've read about people having to build stairs to get visiting civilized flying animalpeople to come down. But that sure sounds convenient.

Fix-ster does not function with adventurers, unfortunately :c

Thanks for correction, thought it would. Guess one has to edit the hfunit by hand then. It's just one dude, anyway.

[Staalo]

Now that I think about it, she did have quite a bit of trouble getting into my fort to make her petition in the first place. But once she got accepted and recruited, she never got lost again. Probably different pathfinding logic for residents and non-residents.

[Telgin]

I'm pretty sure residents do use different pathfinding, or at least sapients do.  Birds don't get stuck like flying residents do in my experience.

Anyway, what typically happens with flying residents is that they'll land on a building or tree and subsequently the pathfinding system doesn't think they have any path back down to the ground.  If there's no path, they won't even try to fly.

That said, I think Toady fixed something with the climbing code at some point so that they will actually climb down using the comparatively new climbing system, but it used to be a major source of residents starving and thirsting to death in older versions when using mods.  I haven't played recently so I can't confirm this though.