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[TBot Alpha]

Just had a weird mental image of a dwarf trying to cram an entire whale into a woodchipper-like device marked "Butcher's Shop".

[Sphalerite]

In terms of farms, can you have a breeding pit next to a room with spikes? Any animal wanders into the room get locked in and spiked.

Yes, although in my experience it's better to use a retracting bridge over a pit to drop them to their death.  Animals that break into pieces give more bones and meat.  At least, they did in 40d16.  I don't know if the same is true for DF2010.

In 40d16 a tame animal could only be butchered if it was slaughtered at the butcher's shop.  A wild animal could be butchered no matter how it died, and so wild animals were preferred for automated breeding and butchering schemes.  Does anyone know if this is still true in DF2010?

[Rolan7]

Posting mainly to follow this, because I want to try it for my dwarfy self.

I wonder if pressure plates can be used to somehow separate baby whales from their parents?  I seem to remember the Mermaid thread answering this question in the affirmative. 

If something's worth doing, it's worth automating!

[Rijjka]

And if it's worth automating, its worth automating in style.

I purpose a whale farm made out of a glass tower, with a automated harvest method on the bottom floor that sucks out a whale and drops it into a drainage chamber to air drowned and subsequently butchered.

Obviously the tower has to be made of glass, otherwise how could the dwarves see how many whales are in their food stocks?

Course, bonus points would be applied to a 'whale trap' in the ocean that forces them down a canal to the tower. But I can't see that being automated. I mean, I don't think a swimming creature could trigger a pressure plate.

[Boingboingsplat]

Man, now I want to start a fortress next to an ocean.

You know what, I'll do that now even.

[sizeak]

Yeah damn right, how the hell do you start a whale breeding program anyway? I want to try

[pubby]

Do whales beach themself in captivity?

I imagine you could work out an area proportional to beaching.

[Sphalerite]

I know that a swimming creature will trigger a submerged cage trap if it swims over it in the same tile.  (Captured a bunch of mermaids that way in a 40d16 fort).  I suspect that they'll trigger a pressure plate the same way, although I haven't tried it yet.

[Beanchubbs]

Do they drown if the cage is taken out of water?

[sizeak]

Someone should write a whale breeding tutorial and put it on the wiki or here.

[Urist McDepravity]

I suspect that they'll trigger a pressure plate the same way, although I haven't tried it yet.

Would not PP be triggered by the water in the first place?

[Sphalerite]

Do they drown if the cage is taken out of water?

No.  Cages act as suspended animation devices.  Water-breathing creatures still survive if the cages are in air, just as air-breathing creatures don't down if their cages are submerged.  It doesn't seem to matter what material the cage is made from either - you don't need green glass terrariums for this.

Would not PP be triggered by the water in the first place?

Not if you didn't set it to be triggered by water.  When you make a pressure plate you select what triggers it (water, magma, or friendly or hostile creatures) and the depth of water/magma or size of the creature.  If you set the pressure plate to trigger only for creatures, it won't trigger from water.  I don't know yet if swimming creatures trigger pressure plates, but I suspect they do.

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

I read they do.

[Lord Dakoth]

A thought: Whales are air-breathers IRL. They wouldn't air-drown.

EDIT: There is a tag in the Whale raw that says [BEACH_FREQUENCY:10]

...So, aquatic animals beaching is probably hard-coded, and that's where the whale corpse that the OP's dwarf was carrying came from in the first place.

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

That makes sense.

Now, that said, magma-steam-powered harpoon boats sounds like fun for a possible whaling profession...