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[Hagadorn]

Okay, This has happened twice now.

My fortresses go along fine n dandy, I got a bit of food, a bit of booze and everyone is happy.

Then suddenly, my dorfs stop eating plump helmets. They start hunting vermin cause tehy so hungry.

I still have plump helmets.

Has anyone else noticed this?
(I'm using the latest Mayday download version. 40d16)

Edit: And I have now abandoned. Cause they're stupid hunting vermin for food resulted in half my dorfs getting murdered by a GCS. Glee.

[Lemunde]

I have no idea about your experience level but are you sure you're stocked up on plump helmets or just plump helmet spawns?  Plump helmet spawns are basically seeds and aren't edible.  They are left over every time a dwarf eats a plump helmet.

The only other explanation I can think of is that somehow they just couldn't stand eating plump helmets any more.  This doesn't normally happen but it wouldn't be unheard of.  It's a good idea to keep at least some variety in your food stores to keep unhappy thoughts from occurring.  Gathering plants is a good idea if you're in a bind and they'll produce seeds so you can grow them in above ground plots.  You can always trade for food.  Human and dwarven caravans bring in a variety of meat every visit and it's fairly cheap.

[Hagadorn]

yeh, they are the plants, not spawn.

Now, I'm not sure how they go about the process.

but while a dorf is hunting small vermin for food, will they cancel that to eat, say, a lavishly prepared meal?

Cause they didn't.

[Lord Dullard]

Dwarves won't eat vermin unless there's nothing else around, which means this is something player-caused.

Check to see if your dwarves have access to your food stockpile (you DO have a food stockpile, right?).

Check to see if you are brewing all of your plump helmets into wine without saving any to eat.

[Derakon]

The dwarf should periodically stop the hunting task and check for normal food sources, I think.

I strongly suspect that your problem is that your dwarves don't have access to the food supply. Draft one of your dwarves and station him on the food. Then station him where the starving dwarves are. Somewhere along the way he'll probably get stuck. If he makes it to the starving dwarf, then station him on the food again -- ramps can sometimes make one-way passageways that can take dwarves down but not up.

When in doubt, use staircases.

[Hagadorn]

I doubt they can't reach the food stockpile.
Especially since other dorfs WEREN'T Starving.

If it happens again I'ma post the save. I know people are just trying to help and without any knowledge of another persons experience with the game you can't assume they aren't being just plain ol stupid. But I kinda resent the assumption that I'm a pillock.

I mean, I'm a wanker and a bit of an ass. But not a pillock.

[Lord Dullard]

Most of us have been in your position at one time or another, so just because we assume something is player-caused doesn't mean we assume you're stupid. DF has a notoriously steep learning curve and the difference between a relatively new player and a DF vet is just that the vet has already figured out all of the weird little nuances in the DF interface and the specific reactions needed to remedy the problems they cause.

Which dwarves, specifically, are starving? Are they just average peasants, your entire population, the military, hunters...?

[Hagadorn]

A carpenter/mason and crossbowdorf.

Its was utterly infuriating. They were miserably grovelling for grubs as other dorfs were devouring plump helmet roasts.

In my new fort i've avvoided it by providing a constant source of different food...

Maybe a new update has made that they eventually refuse to subsist solely on one type of food?

[dragon0421]

In my early years of a fort I like to request all of the food/booze items. That way I don't have to deal with the hassles of farming different stuff and my dwarves get some variety, which leads to happier dwarves.

[Overspeculated]

Once I found that something strange was going on in my game (I can no longer remember what), something wasn't working properly. I re-downloaded Dwarf Fortress and re-added my couple of mods and everything was working fine again, turns out one of my files must have gotten corrupted. Maybe the same is happening to you? Re-download DF and then recruit the dwarves hunting for food into the military and then un-recruit. I don't think there is any other way to interrupt the "Hunting for Vermin" task.
Another possible problem is if you sometimes let your food supplies slip to zero. A dwarf who goes to sleep can, during his sleep, get the "hungry" tag, it is possible that when he saw there was no food, he went to work and when food was freed up another dwarf who was closer took it instead until he eventually reached "starving" and decided to hunt for vermin. At what level are your food stocks normally? How many dwarves do you have in the fortress?

As I said before, I think the only way to interrupt a hunting for vermin task is to recruit them. If you have plenty of food, try that and then unrecruit them.

[Hagadorn]

(facePalm)

[Overspeculated]

What happened?

[Hagadorn]

Forgot I made teh dorfs carnivorous.

[Playbahnosh]

Gah. Don't mind me, Am stupid.

Agreed.

[Overspeculated]

Oh man