If the cage/pit animal User Interface automatically zoomed to the selected animal in a manner similar to how the link level UI does, then you would be able to see what you're doing a lot better.<P>Today if I want to put a specific animal out a collection into a cage I need to know what order I'll find the animal on the creature list before I open the cage-assign. Something like "Okay I want the 3rd through 5th grizzly cubs after the four horses".<P>I only noticed this because I have a number of pets that are innacessible at the moment and any cage order for them causes FPS to plumet.
Ah, yes, now, if I may ressurect this topic: I've taken to setting out particular identifible (by colour) tethers and assigning 'unknown animals'[1] to them. Then when they've been attached to them I can inspect them (usually to check their gender) go to the cages/tethers they're supposed to go to and assign the animal that is marked as being identifiably held by the 'test tether'. A slow process. Which I can speed up by having multiple test-tethers but ensuring that I keep cycling in different different species (and/or ages; and/or gender where it's obvious my type-name, i.e. the bulls) to each of them so that I can at least know that it's the "test tethered elephant calf" that I just identified as a superfluous male that I want to put in the red "will eventually allow to be butchered" tether section, and not the potentially female gazelle on the similarly coloured test-tether that I want to make sure I keep. (Being unable to delve into the 'object' within a cage if it's a captured creature (whether fauna or intelligent hostile) like you can (say) the seeds resulting from animal training[2].)
Adding (at least) gender symbols to the assignment screen (like on the Z-Animals screen) might be useful, but a (returnable-from) "zoom to creature" option or an arrangement around the above mechanical link interface style might satisfy my requirements, also. I accept, though, that my current position (180+ creatures tamed from traps, not including the still untamed ones and the goblin POWs which I'm handling differently) is a result of my putting a few more traps down than usual, seeking to capture rather than hunt animals (also useful to avoid wildlife and invader interference in the megaproject, and incidentally act as early-warning of attack, all without realising how many parades, droves, mobs and troops of elephants, warthogs, deer/gazelle and chimpanzees/bonobo would decide to wander across a particular pinch-point in my territory.
I could, of course, remove the butchering task from my designated butcher, assign butcherability to animals on the Z-Animals screen (where I can ensure I keep at least a breeding pair of anything I'm bothered about) and momentarily activate the ability when I want to rid myself of the next available animal. That would let me go back to communal cages for the non-breeders.
And I know it's probably going to change a bit, anyway, in the next version.
Don't mind me, just mumbling.
[1] Those either residing in the "unknown animal" built cage (recognisable by colour) or having no apparent assignment.
[2] I'd find it a bit more intuitive if the way to mark these items to dump was more like the "k" tile-contents inspector, the "i"nventory of a dwarf or an item in the Z-Stocks screen, i.e. highlight the line and mark accordingly. "v"iewing each cage items under the Z-Stocks, then needing to view each and every seed that's found and marking it as Dumped from within its own properties is always a little more awkward. Obviously the object inspector involved needs to allow the D/M/F assignments to happen to the item itself, but if it is a container object I can scroll onto the sub-items (for potential viewing in their own right) and it is at that point where I get the urge to just "d" the highlit contents, but get stung by having marked the container for D instead.
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Topic: Minor UI suggestion: Make the cage animal action work li (Read 832 times)