As some of you already know, I'm a major advocate for the inclusion of various forms of bees in the game. I feel that in order to adequately capture the essence of beekeeping - and ant farming, in the case of these honey ants - you've got to do more than grow them, though. You have to nurture them and care for them, and make absolutely certain you never piss them off on pain of the agonizing death of your fortress.
Before I go into the care of domesticated insects, however, I'd like to describe how I see them being implemented. Again, special steps must be taken to do this right, and it would also open up interesting possibilities for other in-game elements and creatures.
First, there has to be a nest object.
These theoretical nest objects are a lot like creatures in a few important ways. They have senses, stats for health, damage resistance, and health recovery; they leave behind things when they're destroyed, and they would have appropriate artificial intelligence for what they'll do. Unlike creatures, they would instead store, produce, and direct subordinate units. As far as the game is concerned, outside of producing subordinate units, they don't do anything on their own. There should also be an absolute limit on the number of subordinate units a nest can contain, so as to avoid a global catastrophe just because Inod the village special person sat on a beehive.
The subordinate units these nest objects would produce and store would likely behave much like docile vermin unless instructed by the nest object to behave differently. They would be tied to their respective nests, take orders from them, and return to the nests to recuperate when tired or injured. (They should also refrain from moving too far from these nests, if possible.) What these subordinate units would do depends on what they are, but it's safe to assume that in most cases they would mill about idly most of the time and defend the nest if the nest becomes aggressive toward something for whatever reason. (For example, if it's attacked or disturbed.) Another important thing these subordinate units might do is wander into a baited trap, allowing you to take them home, tame them, and put them in a cage or a box of some kind so you can have a friendly nest of your own.
To recap, you would have a beast-bin, and beasts that come from and live within this bin. If you capture the beasts, you can make a bin, and this bin can be sat down anywhere you like. (Preferably in an enclosed space where the vermin they produce won't upset anyone.) This could be done through a Construct Nest order, where the caged and tamed subordinate unit would be taken to the construction site. The cage and the tamed unit would effectively cease to exist, and transform into a friendly nest that will produce units of honey occasionally once there are a few subordinates living there. When ready for harvest, a dwarf with an appropriate labor active - probably Animal Care, since that might also include procedures for calming potentially dangerous insects - would wander in with a bucket or barrel in hand and begin harvesting, yielding units of honey, wax, or both.
Of course, these nests have to be cared for. A steady supply of sugary foods such as raw sweet pods, syrup, and sugar should be completely necessary to maintain a nest. If this supply is interrupted, the nest should have a chance of either becoming unruly or simply dying off. (At which point it would revert to an empty cage, maybe with a stack of wax sitting on it.) If the nest becomes unfriendly due to starvation, this of course presents you with a special hazard, seeing as large numbers of stinging insects can incapacitate and eventually kill someone. They would also understandably be very hard to subdue through force, with the whole swarm ideally having a very high rate of evasion or something. Your best solution would be to either flood an enraged apiary or seal it off until the nest dies and all the subordinates subsequently die of exhaustion. The nest could also attack aggressive units such as tantrum-throwing dwarfs and invaders, but without necessarily endangering anyone besides the aggressor.
Finally, once you have nests built, it should be entirely possible to trap subordinates of a friendly nest and make more nests with them. A large insect farm may be daunting to support, but the resulting honey, wax, and other products could make it well worth it. The honey could also, as many others have suggested, be turned into mead or used as a preservative.
Analysis of the benefits and disadvantages of both insect types:
HONEY ANTS -
- Can live above or below ground just fine.
- Subordinate units - swarms - are slower and less dangerous. (And perhaps less evasive as well, making an unruly swarm easier to contain.)
- While they have no trouble producing honey, that's all they make. It might have different properties than bee honey as well, namely value and quantity produced.
HONEY BEES -
- Can only live above ground, since they require sunlight.
- Unruly subordinates are fast, aggressive, and potentially lethal if many begin to attack at once and manage to paralyze or stun an unlucky victim. (Also, more evasive by far.)
- The chief advantage to these creatures over their less dangerous wingless counterparts is the wax they make. They'd produce honey, of course, but the wax should be unique to them since ants just don't make wax. This wax could be turned into valuable crafts such as candles after being rendered for use in either an Alchemist's Laboratory, Kitchen, or Farmer's Workshop.
The concept may be applicable to other creatures as well, including other economically valuable animals.
- Generic vermin. For example, rodent nest would house and gradually breed rodents, such as mice, rats, and bats. Special mechanics could be employed here. Could lone animals produce their own nests if they don't have one? Could nest-orphaned animals join other nests? This would create a very strong incentive to control vermin, as if they're allowed to run wild, they'll eventually nest in your fortress and infest it throughout, leading to unhappy thoughts.
- Economic birds. Chickens, in particular. What if you could construct a hen-house and eventually begin breeding chickens? What if you could harvest eggs from this hen-house as a source of food? (As well as the chickens themselves.) Feed the nest flour, get eggs, trap or manually remove nest-subordinate chickens for slaughter. Worth considering, if you asked me.
- Other bugs. Hornets, fire ants, zombie wasps, termites cockroaches, you name it.
Now that I think of it, nest objects and nest-subordinates could make quite a few interesting things possible in the game. New creatures, new buildings, new friends, foes, and curiosities; new products, and new uses for existing professions. In particular I think domesticated insects and wild colonies are a great idea, and if the concept could be applied to chickens, clucking opalescent salamanders, and other potentially useful (or harmful) creatures too, I don't see why it shouldn't at least be considered.
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Topic: Dwarven honey (Read 1197 times)