I have a question about eggs.
Can you have a civilisation race lay eggs ? e.g. say you want something like, I don't know, tortoisemen.
will the mother wander off from the nest box for food/drink? or will they stay put?
Suppose you want a weird race, with multiple castes, is it possible for one caste to have live young, and the other caste lay eggs? would the eggs hatch into any creature caste ?
1. Yes you can and it works with provisions.
a. All females will claim nest boxes and lay eggs, but only the married females' eggs will be fertile. I work around that by only placing nest boxes in personal rooms of married couples, suspending the construction before it finishes, and then next time I see the female in the room I lock the door and order the box to be finished so that she is the only female able to claim the box.
b. It sometimes has the same issues that egg laying animals have, with females becoming infertile for no perceivable reason. Unlike the animals though my experience shows they will always get one or two fertilized clutches laid before it happens.
c. Eggs WILL be taken to any stockpiles that take them, even by their own mothers. They won't eat the eggs, but they will never hatch once removed from the box, so remember to disable eggs from your civ on every food stockpile before trying to breed your members.
d. You'll have to separate your livestock egg boxes from your general population. Any egg box that can be reached by a female civ member will be claimed. Livestock has the same chance as anyone else, but when you have 100 female fortress members and 3 female chickens, chances are no chickens will get a box.
And e, even though it isn't a problem, it's a thing to note. Mothers will still behave as normal fortress members, they will only go to sit on their eggs while idle. It doesn't seem to have any affect on the eggs, since I've seen eggs from soldiers that never became idle hatch after laying. So you don't have to worry about half your population becoming unproductive to sit on eggs.
And mixed egg laying races using castes work. Whether an egg is laid or a live birth happens is determined by the mother's caste, not the child's. Also eggs will have the mother's caste name as species, regardless of the child's caste.