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[h45hc0d3]

So I've got tame butchering down, and I'm thinking about trying the "killing wild animals" kind of butchery soon, if only because I've got half a dozen giraffes, the same in rhinoceres, a dozen warthogs, and a giant cheetah thrown in the mix. I finally got the "wild dead animals can be butchered, tame ones can only be struck down" distinction. I'm still debating the "have the military kill them" vs "pit them off a large tower built for just this purpose" methods, but there's a problem with both of those: unless most of my haulers are unbusy, the meat goes bad before it can be used.

So how's this: I'm thinking of building "butchery pens" next to either military slaughter-arenas or the bottom of a tower-pit-drop. I'll have one or two butcher's workshops inside each "pen", behind lockable doors. As soon as all body parts inside are butchered, I'll deconstruct the buildings and designate the whole area a stockpile to keep it all from going bad so fast. Would that work?

[FuzzyZergling]

That should work, I think.

[Sutremaine]

You could also set up dump zones right outside the butcheries and designate those as stockpiles. Dumping seems to be a high-priority task.

So long as you have the haulers available, the giraffes and the rhinoceri would be better thrown from a tall tower so that they explode. If a chunk of animal is sufficiently large, you can get a unit of skin as you would a unit (or more) of bone or meat. Giraffes have a 5x value multiplier, so more leather from one animal is nice. If you're having hauler problems, use spears or hammers so that the animal ends up in as few pieces as possible.

[h45hc0d3]

You could also set up dump zones right outside the butcheries and designate those as stockpiles. Dumping seems to be a high-priority task.

So long as you have the haulers available, the giraffes and the rhinoceri would be better thrown from a tall tower so that they explode. If a chunk of animal is sufficiently large, you can get a unit of skin as you would a unit (or more) of bone or meat. Giraffes have a 5x value multiplier, so more leather from one animal is nice. If you're having hauler problems, use spears or hammers so that the animal ends up in as few pieces as possible.

That's a good tip. I'm lucky in this particular embark: I have giraffes, rhinoceros, and elephants coming through, and all have a multiplier of five. In fact, I'm hoping my ocean will eventually vomit up a sea dragon, giving me access to four of the five creatures with a 5x value multiplier. Also, my meat-breeding industry is going a bit TOO well, and I'm going to need to cut everything down to size soon.

I might also redesignate some of my legendary-but-seldom-used-skilled-dwarves from being all-around haulers to being just FOOD haulers.

[Starver]

My approach is generally to have meat-only stockpiles and fat/tallow-only stockpiles right next to (or surrounding, and even checkerboard-style) the butchers.  (I find that I prefer making larger stockpile areas with a no-barrel policy is visually easier to police than the correspondingly smaller ones possible with the increased capacity, but no easy way of checking fullness.)  Very close nearby is generally a kitchen (or more than one[1]) with a meals-only stockpile around it (I often do allow barrels here) that I give a 'make roasts' continuous job as gets given the fat-processing one automagically, and a tannery[2] with a combined skins and leather stockpile (bins often a fraction of the maximum possible) for the obvious reasons.  There are other possible arrangements (all the 'raw' meat/fat/skin stockpiles interleaved around the butchers, for example), but skins tend to be fewer so I don't usually give them the same special privilege.


Anyway, when an animal is butchered (knowing this from the struck-down notification, always useful to zoom in on, just in case it isn't a butchery death!), I immediately go into the t-display of the butchers and set to dump all the inorganics and other waste (bones[3], hooves, horns, nervous system) and check at the same time that my copious haulage forces (dedicated peasants and/or experts in work practices not currently being employed in that) have already set [TSK] against most of the meat-and-offal items in the list.  And the skin.  If not, there's something wrong, but if at least half are I don't worry too much.  The skin might be [TSK] to haul to the stockpile or to be used by the tanner.  I might double-check the combined tanning-force (whether a single guy or a small team) to see if any of them has picked up that job, or if they're all skiving on something else that I might not agree with.  Or not bother too much with the immediacy.  (I usually get a tonne of skins through trade, though it's always nicer to have 'skin's as well as '(skin)'s in the list. )

If I have a queue of animals, it's possible that they can get slaughtered quicker than things move out, in which case the total items goes up and the [TSK] count is proportionately less, and I do something to increase the labour.  But I usually get this tuned well.

Ironically, having the to-be-slaughtered animals not next door to the butchers is probably the best factor for getting the throughput working well, the bringing of the new animal delaying until the *CLT* goes down significantly.  But with a circa-200 dwarf fort and a pair of butchers for one butchery (with food-hauling alternates enabled on each if I've not got something else to keep them busy) I find no difficulties dealing with the throughput of a surplus cat-n-kitten pasture almost on top of the shop (albeit that I almost only get skulls from that).  Obviously that's a more mature fort (6yo, in the case of my current one which I haven't played for the last couple of weeks), but even when it had two or three score dwarves it was also Ok under my particular playing style.


But what I always do, with the butchery (and some other workshops, like farmer's workshops where I make cheese) is to put them outdoors.  Maybe not actually, outdoors, as in on the original ground level, but often at the bottom of a sky-exposed shaft (with optional retracted bridge at the ground level, or above some 'chimney-like' walls built to prevent 'archer-overlook', in case of the possibility of aerial attack or scavenger-type birds[4]).  Even if there is a problem with rotting, you never get miasma under an open sky.  Wasted meat/etc, of course, but in my particular style of fastidious micromanagement I don't need to spot purple mist to know that something has started to rot.  I aim, of course, to ensure that it never gets to that stage.



[1] Gets awkward with auto-generated fat-processing jobs
[2] Ditto for more than one tannery, albeit that you get a better opportunity for throughput.
[3] I tend to de-forbid the bones that have been dumped in the Z-Stocks menu, indicating that they're now in the dump.  Another open-to-sky location where rottable stuff like vermin remains, nervous system and random bits and pieces of beings that used to be my enemies find themselves, in amongst the megatonnes of raw stones cleared out from rooms and corridors and soon-to-be-flooded/magmaed areas that I like to make neat-looking before I set the liquid flowing in...
[4] Vultures particularly like cheese, IIRC.  Go figure.

[h45hc0d3]

An admirable philosophy. My outdoor real estate is currently taken up by pasture, and there's no convenient place to the rest of my growing-food prep-cloth production area (which spans four z-levels). If I'm cleaning the animals out anyways.. hmm. Interleaved stockpiles is a good idea. I think I'm going to attempt to build a... contraption, and we'll see how well it works out in practice. Testing what I've learned about mass pitting, butchery, and efficient stockpiling ought to be rather fun.

Three-dimensional layers stacked atop each other ought to minimize travel times, especially as they approach, say, the elegance of stacked flower petals. Of course, this will be a bit more like a pitcher plant with mouths inside of mouths.

The reason I don't have many haulers available is because of my current ~140z magma pump stack initiative.

[Starver]

Meant to expand (or clarify... one or the other, probably mutually exclusive) that with limited haulers the "are at least half of these things already being shifted?" test could be used to fine-tune the number of food-haulers so that the whatever-other-jobs-you-have list isn't deprived more than needed.

[Sutremaine]

The skin might be [TSK] to haul to the stockpile or to be used by the tanner.

I don't have a stockpile for fresh skins, I get them taken away to the tannery immediately. To stop them from backing up the butchery I have a lot of tanners. Skins don't rot when being worked on, so half a dozen moderately skilled tanners will lose fewer skins than a couple of highly-skilled ones.

Ironically, having the to-be-slaughtered animals not next door to the butchers is probably the best factor for getting the throughput working well, the bringing of the new animal delaying until the *CLT* goes down significantly.

Slaughtering is always instant regardless of clutter. In the early above-ground days of a fort I often have no stockpile for bones and other workable items, since if they stay 'built' in the butchery they rot away much more slowly. What slower slaughtering does do is to give the haulers and tanners and cooks a chance to clear away all the generated parts.

Even if there is a problem with rotting, you never get miasma under an open sky.  Wasted meat/etc, of course, but in my particular style of fastidious micromanagement I don't need to spot purple mist to know that something has started to rot.

I keep meaning to take anti-miasma measures by putting the butchery behind some diagonals, which at least stops the corridors from turning into a roiling cloud of purple haze, but I just end up keeping an eye on the stockpiles and halting butchery if the cooks aren't keeping up.

[1] Gets awkward with auto-generated fat-processing jobs

Those can be turned off. Either you can create a rendering job at each kitchen and then suspend it, which stops any more being added by the game, or you can use the Workshop Orders to turn off Auto-Kitchen. It does do what it should, it just doesn't display properly.

[4] Vultures particularly like cheese, IIRC.  Go figure.

Cheese is one of the most expensive raw items you can buy. Of the five animals in the game whose meat is traded in a 50db bundle, three are tropical savanna / grassland / shrubland and two are aquatic, with one of those being savage-only and the other being evil-only.

Dwarven cheese is worth twice that but is never traded because purring maggots don't appear in the first cavern layer.

[h45hc0d3]

I don't have a stockpile for fresh skins, I get them taken away to the tannery immediately. To stop them from backing up the butchery I have a lot of tanners. Skins don't rot when being worked on, so half a dozen moderately skilled tanners will lose fewer skins than a couple of highly-skilled ones.

A good plan. Actually, that'd work with the other point: if I made, say, my potash-maker, my wood burner, and my lye maker all also tanners and food haulers, and the same with some of the other food-industry-related but not constantly needed jobs, I'd probably get better throughput. I need to start fertilizing regularly now that I've got plenty of cavern-access wood.

Cheese is one of the most expensive raw items you can buy. Of the five animals in the game whose meat is traded in a 50db bundle, three are tropical savanna / grassland / shrubland and two are aquatic, with one of those being savage-only and the other being evil-only.

Dwarven cheese is worth twice that but is never traded because purring maggots don't appear in the first cavern layer.

My custom world, after genning 40 or so, has elephants, giraffes, rhinos, and a savage good ocean. Still looking for those merfolk and sea serpents, though.

Probably not the best to ask it in this thread, but is there anything fun to do with plump helmet men?

[Starver]

Ironically, having the to-be-slaughtered animals not next door to the butchers is probably the best factor for getting the throughput working well, the bringing of the new animal delaying until the *CLT* goes down significantly.

Slaughtering is always instant regardless of clutter. In the early above-ground days of a fort I often have no stockpile for bones and other workable items, since if they stay 'built' in the butchery they rot away much more slowly. What slower slaughtering does do is to give the haulers and tanners and cooks a chance to clear away all the generated parts.

This is more or less what I meant.  But thanks for clarifying, as I can see the possibility of confusion when I re-read my own text.

[1] Gets awkward with auto-generated fat-processing jobs

Those can be turned off. Either you can create a rendering job at each kitchen and then suspend it, which stops any more being added by the game, or you can use the Workshop Orders to turn off Auto-Kitchen. It does do what it should, it just doesn't display properly.

I know I can turn it off, but I quite like it being on, albeit 'suffering' as so mentioned.

Anyway, another good clarification there.  And with the rest.  (e.g.: I used to doorway/diagonalise my rottable-stuffs areas, but then someone has to go in there and dump the stuff, or go in there to deal with the next job and its unrotten stuff, and get exposed to the miasma, so I just mitigate it from the off.  Arguably, it should not just be a non-factor, but still create perhaps a ground-hugging cloud, but as the game allows me to ignore it (however much I also do my best to avoid it in the first place) I milk this exploit mercilessly. )

[Sutremaine]

This is more or less what I meant.  But thanks for clarifying, as I can see the possibility of confusion when I re-read my own text.

I did wonder, but then you mentioned clutter, and that doesn't slow down haulers...

Tallow is a pain in the butt once you have enough food to get by without it. It generates a huge number of hauling jobs or clutters the kitchen, and cooking it off results in teeny-tiny low-value meals that either can't be sold off without the container going as well or take up an inordinate amount of space in your food stockpiles. I just chuck out all the fat and leave a couple of large globs for the next soaping spree.

[Sphalerite]

Probably not the best to ask it in this thread, but is there anything fun to do with plump helmet men?

Set them on fire.  Due to some bugs with how DF treats tissue damage from fire, plump helmet men can burn forever without dieing.  You can then use these ever-burning plump helmet men to clean up blood, vomit, and other stains, provided you can figure out a way to safely release a burning plump helmet man through the area you want to clean.