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[Xinael]

Are they dangerous or not? I'm about to breach my magma, but I forgot to bring cats to this fortress and so won't be able to get rid of the fire snakes easily. Are they really that dangerous? I've seen threads around claiming that they'll burn wooden items and make your booze explode, which is less than ideal. Should I really be concerned about them?

If I should be, then I think I'd want to stop them getting out of my magma pool by sticking a bauxite grate over the place where the magma is coming in. Trouble is that despite Bauxite being green in the z-stones menu, the bauxite being right next to my mason's and closer than any other stone, and not forbidden, the little buggers just won't make the grate out of the bauxite - they'll only use the limestone. I tried using the manager and making a bauxite grate, but I couldn't - bauxite grate wasn't an option, I could only say "rock grate". Can bauxite not be used for grates or something?

Finally, perhaps I'm going about this fire snake problem the wrong way. Could I just use a bunch of pet-impassible doors around my magma forge room to keep them inside, where they can't cause much harm? Are cats simply the most elegant solution to the fire snake problem?

Thanks in advance

[zchris13]

Fortifications will do all the work of a bauxite vertical grate or vertical bars, without any of the need for using valuable bauxite.  Fire snakes are also vermin, and therefore teleport.  Just keep everything that is flammable well away from the pipe, and you'll be dandy.

[Xinael]

Okay, thanks

[LegoLord]

Fire snakes don't actually set things on fire; non-fireproof items other than creatures are just spontaneously destroyed.

[nil]

Fire snakes aren't that dangerous, but it might be worthwhile to avoid having single, large stockpiles for flammable goods.  If you have lots of little ones (even just little ones separated by a single floor tile), the odd fire will be much less dangerous.

Fire snakes don't actually set things on fire; non-fireproof items other than creatures are just spontaneously destroyed.

Are you sure about this?  I've had fat stockpiles explode and burn for no apparent reason far away from a magma pool when fire snakes are around...  and that was with cats.  Wiki says they light fires.

[LegoLord]

I had a single, large booze stockpile right next to the magma pipe once.  The fort ran several years with firesnakes crawling through it.  The most that ever happened would be a barrel of booze disappearing, leaving a stack of booze on the ground.  Then I stopped playing the fort.

[AncientEnemy]

yeah fire snakes are largely harmless

[InsanityPrelude]

One of my dorfs has three pet fire snakes and nothing's caught on fire or spontaneously disappeared that I've noticed. I don't play with temp off.

[Sinergistic]

How many of you play with temp off in the init file to save on FPS?

[yggiz]

I play with temp on, and I haven't had fires. I have had wood item destruction (booze barrels). Then I moved my stockpile.

You can also set a random dwarf on repeat capture live land animal (that's the order, I think), availiable from the kennel. As long as you keep a large surplus of animal traps, and an animal stockpile for organization, your trapper will be much more awesome than any catsplosion waiting to happen. You dwarves will also make impromptu meals of any untamed vermin, you can trade away others, or tame them so some kook dwarf will adopt firesnakes and let them crawl all over him as he works.

I love having a reliable foodsource waiting on the stockpile, no rot or waste. You can save space by assigning captured vermin to built cages.

[Guy Montag]

Yeah, firesnakes are frustrating. I kept having my bins of iron bars and stuff disinterating randomly underneath my forges and having to waste a lot of wood replacing the bins.

Cats don't seem to like killing the firesnakes either and setting up vermin traps is such a pain in ass.

Best bet is to just keep most of your important stockpiles away from where the firesnakes spawn. Don't keep a lot of food or booze around the forges.

[InsanityPrelude]

Cats don't seem to like killing the firesnakes either

Well, would you want to bite something with liquid fire blood? 

[Guy Montag]

Cats don't seem to like killing the firesnakes either

Well, would you want to bite something with liquid fire blood? 

Yeah, good point. I don't know much about cats or animal behavior, but I guess cats don't really try to bite things that are actually on fire.

I don't see why Dwarves don't kill vermin. Espeically if they hate them. They should be like "Ugh, I hate firesnakes, I must squish you now" instead they look at them, make a mental note, and then go back to their quarters and write "Dear Diary, oh, I was accosted by a HORRIBLE VERMIN while working at the magma forges today and I just HAD to tell you!" while the firesnake is happily ransacking my bar stockpile and creating tons of work for everyone...

[Rutilant]

...and creating tons of work for everyone...

You've done it! You've solved the economic crisis!

Release fire snakes across the US and you'll create so many jobs cleaning up the aftermath, nobody will be unemployed any more!

[Wild Goose]

Hey, how does vials liquid fire stack up as a trade good?
I figure, I'm going to build a bunch of traps, give my trappers and dissectors something to do, and give my glassmakers some practice.  Though, it seems that the vials will be more valuable than the contents.