Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

Animal trainer

2023-01-28T19:37:06Z

Daonitre: /* Taming children */ mentions of "domestication" are confusing new players. We need to be clear about the differences between civ-level domestication and permanently trained animals.

{{migrated article}}
{{Quality|Unrated}}
{{av}}
{{Skill
| color = 2:0
| skill = Animal Trainer
| profession = [[Ranger]]
| job name = [[Animal training]]
| tasks =
* Train [[dog|war animal]]
* Train [[dog|hunting animal]]
* Train large animal
* Train small animal
| workshop = [[Vermin catcher's shop]]
| attributes =
* Agility
* Toughness
* Endurance
* Intuition
* Patience
* Empathy
}}

'''Animal trainer''' is the skill associated with the '''animal training''' [[labor]]. An animal trainer works with [[animal]]s, either training wild ones or training certain species for war or hunting. They also train certain kinds of captured live [[vermin]].

The Pets/Livestock tab of the citizen information menu ({{k|u}}) has a list of all animals that belong to your civilization, and are tame, trained, or trainable. Each animal on the list can be assigned a trainer, who will then train (if needed) the animal, increase its training (if not already tame) or train it for war or hunting (if selected for hunting or training). Which animals are known and how well can be checked in the second sub-tab in "Animals" tab. There is no way to tame a specific type of vermin.

An [[Activity_zone#Animal_training|animal training zone]] or [[Activity_zone#Pen/Pasture|pasture]] is required for all training activities for animals. Taming vermin instead requires a [[vermin catcher's shop]].

== Domesticating wild animals ==
=== Capture ===
[[File:animal_train_comic.png|thumb|200px|right|The butchers have it worse, they gotta 'obtain' the dogs' leather. Art by p3ach_tea]]In order to train an animal, you must first have an animal to train, so before you can do any training, you must capture some wild animals. Which animals appear at your fortress (and thus which animals you can train, besides the [[Caverns|subterranean]] creatures that are randomly present) is dependent upon your [[surroundings]], which is in turn dependent upon the local [[biome]] or biomes, if your fortress overlaps multiple [[region]]s.

Wild [[creature]]s can only be captured by [[cage trap]]s; as above-ground traffic is, as a rule, unrestricted, and as creatures can enter and exit the map from any direction, the only reliable way to force wildlife into your cages is to build a lot of them. The same is true of the [[caverns]], although since they are usually not nearly so expansive, capturing passing creatures is a little easier; on the other hand, you have to be much more worried about exposing your dwarves to the various subterranean nasties. Note that [[animal trap]]s are ''not'' used in this role, but are instead used by [[trapper]]s to capture live [[vermin]], and thus, surprisingly enough, trappers are not involved in the trapping of actual creatures.

Just because you have a creature stowed away in your cages [[stockpile]], does not mean that it can be trained, as only creatures with the {{token|PET|c}} or {{token|PET_EXOTIC|c}} [[creature token]] can be trained. Most creatures have one of the two flags, but there are exceptions, notably some underground creatures. Sentient creatures (such as [[goblin]]s or [[animal people]]), [[forgotten beast]]s and [[titan]]s are among the creatures that can never be trained or tamed. Additionally, {{token|TRAPAVOID|c}} creatures ignore cage traps entirely. Captured [[siege|war]] [[mount]]s and any other [[name]]d enemies of your civilization can also be trained, but they will, regardless of training level, remain hostile to your civilization and will, if released from bondage, attack your units without mercy; even worse, these creatures [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=111357.0 may cause] a [[loyalty cascade]] if you order your [[military]] to deal with the situation.{{bug|6051}} To make use of captured creatures that you cannot or do not want to train, see [[live training]] and [[mass pitting]].

=== Training ===
{| style="text-align:center; float:right; margin:8px;" class=wikitable
! '''Designation'''
! '''Description'''
|-
| Wild || Not Tame
|-
| Semi-wild || Semi-wild
|-
| Trained || Trained
|-
| -Trained- || Well-trained
|-
| +Trained+ || Skillfully trained
|-
| *Trained* ||Expertly trained
|-
| ≡Trained≡ || Exceptionally trained
|-
| ☼Trained☼ || Masterfully trained
|-
| Domesticated || Tame
|}

Once you have a captured, trainable creature trapped in a cage, you can start training it. You will need an [[Activity zone#Animal training|animal training zone]] and some [[plants]] or [[meat]] depending on whether the animal is herbivorous or carnivorous. To have your animal trainer begin training a wild animal, use {{k|u}} to open the citizen information screen and select the animal menu. Scroll through the list until your captured wild animal is selected and use the whistle icon to set a trainer to train it. Note that if a caged animal is fed a plant, [[seed]]s will stay in the cage. This has no effect on training, but if you later release the animal, you will need to [[Activity zone#Garbage Dump|dump]] the seeds from the cage before it can be reused.

The trainer will bring food to the cage and perform the initial training, setting the animal to one of the trained levels (see table at right). A fully wild animal must be trained from its cage, but once an animal has been initially trained and it is no longer wild, it may be safely released from its cage (and preferably assigned to an enclosed [[pasture]] or [[restraint]], to keep it hemmed in case problems arise later).

A notable exception from "training levels" are animals which are a member of a species your civilization already has domesticated. Only a few of them can occur in the wild to be captured - e.g. [[water buffalo]] and [[turkey]]. Such creatures become fully tame upon the completion of training, and after that they will never require or receive training again, even if assigned to a trainer.

Only wild animals can be trained in a cage. If you want your animal trainer to provide further training you must release the trained animal. Alternatively, with a difficult-to-train animal or a poor trainer, you may want to leave the animal in its cage. A caged animal will eventually revert to its wild state, at which point your trainer will perform the initial training again, safely giving your trainer experience and your civilization more knowledge about the animal. Note that {{token|GRAZER|c}}animals need a pasture to survive, and will die if left to linger in a cage for too long.

The overall difficulty and time required to train an animal is roughly proportional to its [[List of creatures by pet value|pet value]]. As a general guideline, animals with pet values of less than 100 are easy to train, those with values of 100+ take some effort and a few years to train well, and creatures with pet values of 1000+ such as [[dragon]]s are very slow to train.

Adult trained animals will slowly revert to their wild origins over time, and must be permanently scheduled for training (through the animal [[status]] menu) to ensure they remain friendly, through regular re-training. Trained animals have a quality associated to their training that affects how long they will retain composure before reverting to the wild, but which may have other effects as well. The last state an animal reaches before it becomes fully wild is semi-wild, which prompts an [[announcement]].

Dwarves will instinctively know when their animal training partners need retraining, and will prioritize doing so, but will obviously not be able to if they are [[wound|injured]], experiencing a [[strange mood]], or are otherwise unable to reach their trainees. If you assign a single dwarf to an animal (Any available trainer is also an option) only that dwarf will ever attempt to train or retrain the creature, so care must be taken to keep your trainers healthy and available.

Trading animals brought by [[merchants]] will immediately make them belong to the receiving party. This means that if another civilization brought them as tame animals, and you buy them, they will retain their tame status and will never revert to a wild state. This is also true when you seize the animals, or kill all the merchants. Note that killing all the merchants will '''not''' make the pack animals a part of your civilization, and will become "friendly" and wander around the map. Also, animals that become yours in this way will be in cages at first, so you will have to release them in some way. Due to a bug, the only way to do this is pasturing them and then removing them from the pasture. This is very important if they are grazers as they will starve due to the lack of grass in the cage.

=== Animal knowledge ===

When training animals that your [[civilization]] has never domesticated before, successful training will result in some knowledge being transferred to your civilization every time the dwarven [[caravan]] returns to the mountainhomes. Although a number of farm animals are domesticated by your civilization from the beginning of the game, your fortress cannot individually "civilization-level" domesticate a species.[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=121150.0 1]

Every tame animal job increases overall fort training points for that animal by 10, and the fort training knowledge levels are attained at 30, 100, 250 and 500 (it zeroes points when it increases level). War and hunting jobs are also worth 10 points, but a maintenance job is only worth 3. If your fort level is higher than the civ level for a given animal, 10 points of knowledge are transferred with each caravan that gets off the map (so it'd take 88 years worth of caravans to bring the civ all the way up to "expert", but just 3 years to get every subsequent fort to start at "few facts").

The fort level of knowledge has a strong effect on in-fort training. When attempting to train an animal, a skill roll will be matched against a threshold that depends on animal knowledge.
For instance, if you know nothing about the animal, the animal training roll must be 30 to get past semi-wild and 100 to be masterfully trained (with 40/50/65/80 for the others). As you gain knowledge, the thresholds become lower and easier to attain:

*"Few facts": 20/30/40/60/70/90
*"Familiar": 15/20/30/50/60/80
*"Knowledgeable": 10/15/25/40/50/70
*"Expert": 5/10/20/30/40/60

The calculations for skill rolls are complicated, but by these numbers, your trainers are almost twice as good at expert-level fort knowledge, if they weren't already great trainers in their own right (in which case they'll probably crack 100 most times without help).

{|class="wikitable" style="width:80%; align:center"
! Announcement
! Training level in {{k|z}} screen
|-
| {{Gametext|The dwarves of (civ) now know a few facts about (animal) training.|cyan}}
| {{DFtext|A few facts|red}}
|-
| {{Gametext|The dwarves of (civ) have attained a general familiarity with (animal) training methods.|cyan}}
| {{DFtext|General familiarity|yellow}}
|-
| {{Gametext|The dwarves of (civ) are now quite knowledgeable (animal) trainers.|cyan}}
| {{DFtext|Knowledgeable|white}}
|-
| {{Gametext|The dwarves of (civ) are now expert (animal) trainers.|cyan}}
| {{DFtext|Expert|cyan}}
|-
| {{center|-}}
|{{DFtext|Domesticated|lime}}
|}

=== Taming children ===
Animals who can be trained and possess a child state (allowed by the {{token|CHILD}} token) can produce a fully tamed population. Note that animals cannot get pregnant in cages (in fact, this is one of the ''few'' times they can't), so you'll have to move past the initial training stage to have them.

Animals born from a partially-trained mother will not revert to a wild state while they are still children: for example, if a wild female [[wolf]] is captured and trained up to the +T+ level, and gives birth, the pups may forget this "inherited" training, but will never go lower than Semi-Wild while they're still pups. They can, and will, revert to a wild state when they become adult wolves, though going back to a fully wild state will still take some time after they've reached adulthood. The training level of the father does not count for anything when it comes to the child.

Animal children always become fully tame upon receiving training ''once''. This not only allows making children of trained mothers fully tame, it also allows instant taming of caught animal children or of children born in captivity to fully wild mothers. Only children can be permanently tamed, and once the young animal grows up the opportunity for this will no longer be available.[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=121150.0 1] Once an animal child becomes fully tame, it will never require training again, nor will it receive any even if assigned to a trainer - this means taming children gives you a fully tame population at the cost of removing a source of experience from your trainers.

Animals in ''Dwarf Fortress'' give birth in one of two ways, either with live birth, or by laying and incubating [[egg]]s. Child-rearing animals that give birth to their young is easy: with an adjacent male of the species, children may be conceived, inheriting their mother's pasture status in the process. Egg-layers are more complicated: The female must be adjacent to a male for fertilization, there must be an open constructed [[nest box]] for the female to occupy and lay a clutch of eggs in, and they and the mother must remain undisturbed during the process as the mother must incubate her eggs; even training is inadmissible. Thus the eggs must be [[forbid]]den and the mother should have her trainer de-assigned during the duration of her stay; they also will ''not'' inherit their mother's pasture status.[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=121150.0 1] The resultant children will have the taming status of their mother when they were ''laid'', not hatched.

Creatures missing the {{token|CHILD}} token are considered adults at birth. Because of it, they can never be rendered fully tame and will require re-training for the rest of their lives {{bug|7983}}. Examples of such creatures include [[crundle]]s, [[giant cave spider]]s, [[dragon]]s and [[hydra]]s.

==Animal AI==
If a trained animal is "stray", that is, it's not a pet, it will (usually) wander around your fortress randomly, spending most of its time in meeting areas, and attacking any hostiles that it comes across or wild animals that are attacking citizens. Animals with the {{token|LARGE_PREDATOR}} token are somewhat more aggressive than animals lacking this token, and are more likely to attack hostiles, while animals with a {{token|BENIGN}} token will simply run away from any hostiles, which makes them useless for [[Attack|dwarven]] defense, but they can be used as arrow fodder to keep the enemy entertained while you're bunkering in. Grazing animals should be assigned to a [[pasture]] because they will otherwise starve to death.

A pet or work animal, if not assigned to a pasture, will alternate between following its owner and visiting [[meeting area]]s. Should their owner die, the animal may instead be seen alternating between meeting areas and visiting the site of their death (even if their body is no longer there).

==Hunting/War training==
Some trained animals can receive additional training for hunting or for war, for which you need a [[Zone#Animal_Training|training zone]] and a dwarf with the animal training labor enabled. Then you can go to your Pets/Livestock list and find your trainable animal. Trainable animals are those where you see either war training or hunting training icons in the middle column. If you wish you can also select a particular trainer to perform this task with the first icon in the column.

Some domesticated animal juveniles, such as puppies, are unable to be trained until they reach adulthood, at which point they only need hunting/war training once in their training zone.

===Train a hunting animal===
This requires an [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_HUNTING|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. Note that an animal that is in a pasture can only be trained if the zone is also in the same [[pasture]]. Hunting animals can be assigned to follow a hunter and assist in the hunting process; once assigned they cannot be unassigned. They are intrinsically faster and more agile than a regular animal, and can [[ambusher|sneak]] alongside their partner, but are not as strong as a war animal.

=== Train a war animal ===
This requires an [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_WAR|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. [[Pasture|Pastured]] animals can only be trained if the zone is located within their pasture. War animals are significantly stronger than their untrained counterparts; war dogs make excellent companions when starting a fortress, when you can't spare many dwarves for fighting.

Like hunting animals, they can be assigned to individual dwarves the same way, and cannot be unassigned; combined with their strength, this makes them effective expendable bodyguards for any dwarf likely to see danger or who you feel is valuable enough to be worth protecting. Even if they fail to defeat an attacker, they can often buy their charge time to escape or for additional reinforcements to arrive.

== Bonding ==
As animal trainers work with an animal, they may become [[Relationships|bonded]] to it ("formed a bond with an animal training partner"), and this relationship is visible in the dwarf's relationships screen. This happens even if the dwarf is not specifically assigned to the animal and appears to disregard training quality. The death of a bonded animal results in a bad thought for the trainer ("has lost an animal training partner to tragedy"), whose exact severity is unknown but fairly significant. It is unknown whether working with a bonded animal gives a happy thought similar to the one gained from talking to a friend.

An animal trainer with a preference for the animal may adopt and name the animal at the time of training, even if the animal is not designated for adoption. This leaves the trainer highly susceptible to the bad "pet death" thought, renders the animal inedible, and eventually requires an extra coffin. It may be advisable to disable animal training on any trainer with such a preference, especially for war training.

== Trainable war/hunting animals ==
The following creatures can be trained into war or hunting animals once they are tamed. Bigger animals ''tend'' to be stronger in combat. For comparison, an average adult dwarf is size 60,000.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Animal
! Size (cm³)
! Pet value
! Notes
|-
|[[Bobcat]]
|8,000
|75
|Too small ≈
|-
|[[Mandrill]]
|20,000
|50
|^
|-
|[[Lynx]]
|25,000
|75
|^ ≈
|-
|[[Ocelot]]
|25,000
|100
|^ ≈
|-
|[[Dog]]
|30,000
|30
|^ ♪
|-
|[[Cheetah]]
|50,000
|200
|^ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Leopard]]
|50,000
|100
|^ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Jaguar]]
|75,000
|100
|† ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Gorilla]]
|150,000
|500
|† ≈
|-
|[[Giant bat]]
|200,000
|750
|♪ Hunting only
|-
|[[Giant cave swallow]]
|200,000
|700
|♪ Hunting only
|-
|[[Grizzly bear]]
|200,000
|500
|† ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Lion]]
|200,000
|200
|† ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Tiger]]
|225,000
|200
|† ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Giant bobcat]]
|256,320
|500
|☼ ≈
|-
|[[Giant mandrill]]
|341,800
|500
|☼
|-
|[[Giant lynx]]
|377,750
|500
|☼ ≈
|-
|[[Giant ocelot]]
|377,750
|500
|☼ ≈
|-
|[[Polar bear]]
|400,000
|500
|☼ ≈
|-
|[[Giant cheetah]]
|560,000
|200
|☼ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Giant leopard]]
|560,000
|100
|☼ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Giant jaguar]]
|750,000
|100
|☼ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Gigantic panda]]
|1,160,900
|1,000
|☼ ‼ ≈
|-
|[[Giant grizzly bear]]
|1,700,000
|500
|☼ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Giant lion]]
|1,700,000
|200
|☼ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Giant tiger]]
|1,900,000
|200
|☼ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Rhinoceros]]
|3,000,000
|500
|☼ ♪ ‼ ≈ War only
|-
|[[Giant polar bear]]
|3,268,000
|500
|☼ ≈
|-
|[[Jabberer]]
|4,500,000
|1,500
|☼
|-
|[[Elephant]]
|5,000,000
|500
|☼ ‼ ≈
|-
|[[Cave dragon]]
|15,000,000
|10,000
|☼ ○
|-
|[[Roc]]
|20,000,000
|10,000
|☼ ♪ [[Megabeast]]
|-
|[[Giant rhinoceros]]
|24,000,000
|500
|☼ ♪ ‼ ≈ War only
|-
|[[Dragon]]
|25,000,000
|10,000
|☼ ○ [[Megabeast]]
|-
|[[Giant elephant]]
|40,000,000
|500
|☼ ‼ ≈
|}

: ☼ — ''Recommended choice for armies due to their great size.''
: † — ''Recommended choice for bodyguards, stalls most creatures enough to give dwarves time to escape safely.''
: ^ — ''Recommended choice for fort patrols and supporting dwarves in small skirmishes. Effective in very large numbers.''
: ♪ — ''Recommended hunting companions for their speed and mobility. Smaller animals also sneak more successfully.''
: ‼ — ''Poor choice for training due to their voracious appetites for [[grass]].''
: ≈ — ''Possesses the {{token|MEANDERER}} token, which severely slows their movement speed. Will likely fall behind any moving squad and miss offensive combat situations due to it.''
: ○ — ''Offspring are born adults and cannot be fully tamed. They also grow extremely slowly.''
: [[Megabeast]]s — ''While extremely powerful, megabeasts are currently hostile to all military dwarves, regardless of training level.''{{bug|10731}}

Remember to keep a breeding pair out of harm's way if you want more of a particular animal, in case the ones in service die.

==Training water creatures==
With a great deal of effort and some clever engineering, it is possible to capture, train, and butcher water creatures.[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=75780.0 2] Water creatures can survive indefinitely in [[cage]]s, but will drown at water levels below 4/7 while dwarves will cancel tasks at water levels at or above 4/7, making training extremely tricky. This basic problem can be solved with one of the more interesting bugs in the game: [[ghost]] trainers.[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=127659 3] It is currently unknown what bug causes this, but some animal trainers that are killed and never [[burial|buried]] or [[memorial]]ized will continue to perform their job from the grave. This removes the fundamental problem of water depth incompatibility and makes the task much easier. An easier solution, however, would be [[vampire]] animal trainers: they are unbreathing and will path through such water normally, so long as there is no flow. Taming water creatures in vanilla is fairly useless, however, as without [[modding]] they never have children, nor can they receive war (or hunting, however that would work) training.

==Training hostile creatures==

Training hostile creatures like enemy [[mount]]s does not cancel their hostility. While the job is completed and the animal trainer gains experience, the trained creature remains hostile to your civilization and will attack your dwarves. A creature will also be hostile if it becomes an enemy of your civilization, for instance if it killed one of your dwarves before. The rule of thumb is: if it has a [[name]], it's hostile, don't release it from its cage.

However, it does seem that the offspring of hostile creatures belong to your civilization, because trained mounts <s>amusingly</s> disturbingly attack and subsequently kill their offspring at birth. If you are careful and [[stupid dwarf trick|ingenious]] enough, you can separate the parents and children at birth.

Note that hostile egg-layers, such as [[cave crocodile]]s, might not use [[nest box]]es and therefore generate no offspring.

==Handling dangerous creatures==

Only dwarves with the animal trainer labor active will move non-trained (wild or hostile) captive creatures to a chain or to another cage. This restriction only applies to non-trained creatures and only to the "chain large creature" and "cage large creature" jobs. Throwing such a creature into a pit or pond can be done by anybody, and the chaining and caging of trained creatures is similarly unrestricted.

==Taming vermin==

First, a [[trapper]] needs to catch vermin in an animal trap. A few types of vermin can escape from wooden traps, such as the [[hamster]], so it might be a good idea to use only metal traps. An animal trainer will train a vermin at a vermin catcher's shop. Unlike animals, vermin do not have training levels - they are either tame or not tame. Taming vermin does not pass civilization-wide experience with that vermin to the parent civilization, like taming animals does. Taming requires a food item. Vermin cannot be trained for war or hunting.

There isn't much purpose to taming vermin. It allows vermin to be adopted as pets, but few dwarves have a preference for vermin, so they will rarely be adopted. Vermin don't breed like animals do, so there is no need to have a tame pair to produce offspring. [[Animal dissector]]s can't make [[extract]]s from tame vermin, though there isn't much reason to make extracts either. Tame cave spiders don't spin webs. Tame vermin have little value so they aren't of much use for export either. Taming vermin does give experience to animal trainers, so they can improve their skill in a fort with few animals, especially since vermin are inexhaustible.

==Taming intelligent creatures==

If you mod the game to have trainable intelligent creatures (or if you find a [[gremlin]]) they may be captured in cage traps and trained. However, several things differ from when training other creatures, as training sapients display a number of strange behaviors.

First off, the game will consider any trained (or semi-wild) sentient an inhabitant of your fortress (or at least partially so). This will increase your population count, which likely has the same effects as when the count is increased by [[immigration|immigrants]] arriving or [[children|babies]] being born. The trained creature will be considered a peasant in the z-screen. Despite this, the trained creature cannot work, as it is impossible to set any labor preferences. Neither can they be enlisted to the militia or have any pets. Once trained, they will be subject to hunger, thirst and drowsiness, and as such will require food, drink and sleep to survive. The creature will pick up and wear [[clothes]], but only if they are the right [[size]].

It is impossible to view their general stats screen, trying to do so will only bring you to a simple description of the creature as with any other non-inhabitant of your fort. It might not be possible to view the creature's thoughts, but they still exist, proven by the fact that the trained creature can become [[insane]]. Having the creatures socialize with your dwarves, and each other, as well as [[Keeping_your_dwarves_unstressed|all the other countermeasures to prevent insanity]] seems to prevent this though. As caged creatures cannot do any of these actions, keeping trained creatures in [[cage]]s for elongated periods of time is advised against.

It is normally impossible to give the trained creature a nickname, causing individuals of the same species to be difficult to tell apart, but if you train them for hunting or war, and then assign them to one of your dwarves, they will obtain a name. The further implications of doing so are not known as of yet. Trained sapients may be assigned for butchering (which is otherwise impossible), but their returns are completely unusable and will just be taken to the nearest [[refuse]] [[stockpile]] to rot away.

Because they tend to go wherever they please, a trained intelligent creature will rarely be at a training zone out of their own volition, making re-training them difficult. Depending on how well they're trained, it brings the risk of them going wild again, potentially leading to their escape or for them to attack your dwarves due to becoming hostile. The animal trainer assigned to train these creatures may also be stuck at the training zone waiting for the creature's arrival, potentially leading to hunger and thirst. Making use of [[burrow]]s to force the creature into the training zone is an option, as the training itself will be done as long as the creature and the trainer are within the zone for a few moments.

A trained intelligent creature will only become fully controllable if it applies for [[citizenship]] in your fortress, in which case they'll be able to perform labors and their stats screen will give you full descriptions of their person and personalities. Whether trained sapients apply for citizenship in the same manner as [[visitor]]s do (2 years after becoming part of the fortress) and if they still require training after applying for citizenship requires verification.

==Bugs==

* Capturing and training [[siege|war]] [[mount]]s [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=111357.0 may cause] a [[loyalty cascade]] if your [[military]] has to put them down.{{bug|6051}}
* Trained [[flying|fliers]] may swap positions with dwarves, leaving the dwarves stranded in an inaccessible area.{{bug|3371}}
* Training herbivores leaves [[seed]]s in [[cage]]s, which must be manually removed.{{bug|201}}
* Creatures lacking the {{token|CHILD}} tag are impossible to tame. {{bug|7983}} You can work around this by adding {{token|CHILD|c|X}} to the raws for that animal. Replace X with years creature is a child.
* [[Megabeast]]s and active [[squad]]s attack each other on sight, regardless of the former's training level, making [[dragon]]s, [[hydra]]s and [[roc]]s unusable without excessive micromanaging.{{bug|10731}}

{{skills}}

DF2014:Animal trainer

2023-01-28T19:33:51Z

Daonitre: /* Taming children */ mentions of "domestication" are confusing new players. We need to be clear about the differences between civ-level domestication and permanently trained animals.

{{Quality|Masterwork|13:10, 20 December 2020 (UTC)}}
{{av}}
{{Skill
| color = 2:0
| skill = Animal Trainer
| profession = [[Ranger]]
| job name = [[Animal training]]
| tasks =
* Train [[dog|war animal]]
* Train [[dog|hunting animal]]
* Train large animal
* Train small animal
| workshop = [[Kennel]]
| attributes =
* Agility
* Toughness
* Endurance
* Intuition
* Patience
* Empathy
}}

'''Animal trainer''' is the skill associated with the '''animal training''' [[labor]]. An animal trainer works with [[animal]]s, either training wild ones or training certain species for war or hunting. They also train certain kinds of captured live [[vermin]].

The Animal [[status]] tab ({{k|z}} - {{k|Enter}}) has a list of all animals that belong to your civilization, and are tame, trained, or trainable. Each animal on the list can be assigned a trainer, who will then train (if needed) the animal, increase its training (if not already tame) or train it for war or hunting (if selected for hunting or training). Which animals are known and how well can be checked in the second sub-tab in "Animals" tab. There is no way to tame a specific type of vermin.

An [[Activity_zone#Animal_training|animal training zone]] or [[Activity_zone#Pen/Pasture|pasture]] is required for all training activities for animals. It's a bit counterintuitive, but only taming vermin requires a [[kennel]].

== Domesticating wild animals ==
=== Capture ===
[[File:animal_train_comic.png|thumb|200px|right|The butchers have it worse, they gotta 'obtain' the dogs' leather. Art by p3ach_tea]]In order to train an animal, you must first have an animal to train, so before you can do any training, you must capture some wild animals. Which animals appear at your fortress (and thus which animals you can train, besides the [[Caverns|subterranean]] creatures that are randomly present) is dependent upon your [[surroundings]], which is in turn dependent upon the local [[biome]] or biomes, if your fortress overlaps multiple [[region]]s.

Wild [[creature]]s can only be captured by [[cage trap]]s; as above-ground traffic is, as a rule, unrestricted, and as creatures can enter and exit the map from any direction, the only reliable way to force wildlife into your cages is to build a lot of them. The same is true of the [[caverns]], although since they are usually not nearly so expansive, capturing passing creatures is a little easier; on the other hand, you have to be much more worried about exposing your dwarves to the various subterranean nasties. Note that [[animal trap]]s are ''not'' used in this role, but are instead used by [[trapper]]s to capture live [[vermin]], and thus, surprisingly enough, trappers are not involved in the trapping of actual creatures.

Just because you have a creature stowed away in your cages [[stockpile]], does not mean that it can be trained, as only creatures with the {{token|PET|c}} or {{token|PET_EXOTIC|c}} [[creature token]] can be trained. Most creatures have one of the two flags, but there are exceptions, notably some underground creatures. Sentient creatures (such as [[goblin]]s or [[animal people]]), [[forgotten beast]]s and [[titan]]s are among the creatures that can never be trained or tamed. Additionally, {{token|TRAPAVOID|c}} creatures ignore cage traps entirely. Captured [[siege|war]] [[mount]]s and any other [[name]]d enemies of your civilization can also be trained, but they will, regardless of training level, remain hostile to your civilization and will, if released from bondage, attack your units without mercy; even worse, these creatures [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=111357.0 may cause] a [[loyalty cascade]] if you order your [[military]] to deal with the situation.{{bug|6051}} To make use of captured creatures that you cannot or do not want to train, see [[live training]] and [[mass pitting]].

=== Training ===
{| style="text-align:center; float:right; margin:8px;" class=wikitable
! '''Designation'''
! '''Description'''
|-
| Wild || Not Tame
|-
| Semi-wild || Semi-wild
|-
| Trained || Trained
|-
| -Trained- || Well-trained
|-
| +Trained+ || Skillfully trained
|-
| *Trained* ||Expertly trained
|-
| ≡Trained≡ || Exceptionally trained
|-
| ☼Trained☼ || Masterfully trained
|-
| Domesticated || Tame
|}

Once you have a captured, trainable creature trapped in a cage, you can start training it. You will need an [[Activity zone#Animal training|animal training zone]] and some [[plants]] or [[meat]] depending on whether the animal is herbivorous or carnivorous. To have your animal trainer begin training a wild animal, use {{k|z}} to open the status screen and select the animal menu. Scroll through the list until your captured wild animal is selected and use {{k|t}} to set a trainer to train it. Note that if a caged animal is fed a plant, [[seed]]s will stay in the cage. This has no effect on training, but if you later release the animal, you will need to [[Activity zone#Garbage Dump|dump]] the seeds from the cage before it can be reused.

The trainer will bring food to the cage and perform the initial training, setting the animal to one of the trained levels (see table at right). A fully wild animal must be trained from its cage, but once an animal has been initially trained and it is no longer wild, it may be safely released from its cage (and preferably assigned to an enclosed [[pasture]] or [[restraint]], to keep it hemmed in case problems arise later).

A notable exception from "training levels" are animals which are a member of a species your civilization already has domesticated. Only a few of them can occur in the wild to be captured - e.g. [[water buffalo]] and [[turkey]]. Such creatures become fully tame upon the completion of training, and after that they will never require or receive training again, even if assigned to a trainer.

Only wild animals can be trained in a cage. If you want your animal trainer to provide further training you must release the trained animal. Alternatively, with a difficult-to-train animal or a poor trainer, you may want to leave the animal in its cage. A caged animal will eventually revert to its wild state, at which point your trainer will perform the initial training again, safely giving your trainer experience and your civilization more knowledge about the animal. Note that {{token|GRAZER|c}}animals need a pasture to survive, and will die if left to linger in a cage for too long.

The overall difficulty and time required to train an animal is roughly proportional to its [[List of creatures by pet value|pet value]]. As a general guideline, animals with pet values of less than 100 are easy to train, those with values of 100+ take some effort and a few years to train well, and creatures with pet values of 1000+ such as [[dragon]]s are very slow to train.

Adult trained animals will slowly revert to their wild origins over time, and must be permanently scheduled for training (through the animal [[status]] menu) to ensure they remain friendly, through regular re-training. Trained animals have a quality associated to their training that affects how long they will retain composure before reverting to the wild, but which may have other effects as well. The last state an animal reaches before it becomes fully wild is semi-wild, which prompts an [[announcement]].

Dwarves will instinctively know when their animal training partners need retraining, and will prioritize doing so, but will obviously not be able to if they are [[wound|injured]], experiencing a [[strange mood]], or are otherwise unable to reach their trainees. If you assign a single dwarf to an animal (Any available trainer is also an option) only that dwarf will ever attempt to train or retrain the creature, so care must be taken to keep your trainers healthy and available.

Trading animals brought by [[merchants]] will immediately make them belong to the receiving party. This means that if another civilization brought them as tame animals, and you buy them, they will retain their tame status and will never revert to a wild state. This is also true when you seize the animals, or kill all the merchants. Note that killing all the merchants will '''not''' make the pack animals a part of your civilization, and will become "friendly" and wander around the map. Also, animals that become yours in this way will be in cages at first, so you will have to release them in some way. Due to a bug, the only way to do this is pasturing them and then removing them from the pasture. This is very important if they are grazers as they will starve due to the lack of grass in the cage.

=== Animal knowledge ===

When training animals that your [[civilization]] has never domesticated before, successful training will result in some knowledge being transferred to your civilization every time the dwarven [[caravan]] returns to the mountainhomes. Although a number of farm animals are domesticated by your civilization from the beginning of the game, your fortress cannot individually "civilization-level" domesticate a species.[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=121150.0 1]

Every tame animal job increases overall fort training points for that animal by 10, and the fort training knowledge levels are attained at 30, 100, 250 and 500 (it zeroes points when it increases level). War and hunting jobs are also worth 10 points, but a maintenance job is only worth 3. If your fort level is higher than the civ level for a given animal, 10 points of knowledge are transferred with each caravan that gets off the map (so it'd take 88 years worth of caravans to bring the civ all the way up to "expert", but just 3 years to get every subsequent fort to start at "few facts").

The fort level of knowledge has a strong effect on in-fort training. When attempting to train an animal, a skill roll will be matched against a threshold that depends on animal knowledge.
For instance, if you know nothing about the animal, the animal training roll must be 30 to get past semi-wild and 100 to be masterfully trained (with 40/50/65/80 for the others). As you gain knowledge, the thresholds become lower and easier to attain:

*"Few facts": 20/30/40/60/70/90
*"Familiar": 15/20/30/50/60/80
*"Knowledgeable": 10/15/25/40/50/70
*"Expert": 5/10/20/30/40/60

The calculations for skill rolls are complicated, but by these numbers, your trainers are almost twice as good at expert-level fort knowledge, if they weren't already great trainers in their own right (in which case they'll probably crack 100 most times without help).

{|class="wikitable" style="width:80%; align:center"
! Announcement
! Training level in {{k|z}} screen
|-
| {{Gametext|The dwarves of (civ) now know a few facts about (animal) training.|cyan}}
| {{DFtext|A few facts|red}}
|-
| {{Gametext|The dwarves of (civ) have attained a general familiarity with (animal) training methods.|cyan}}
| {{DFtext|General familiarity|yellow}}
|-
| {{Gametext|The dwarves of (civ) are now quite knowledgeable (animal) trainers.|cyan}}
| {{DFtext|Knowledgeable|white}}
|-
| {{Gametext|The dwarves of (civ) are now expert (animal) trainers.|cyan}}
| {{DFtext|Expert|cyan}}
|-
| {{center|-}}
|{{DFtext|Domesticated|lime}}
|}

=== Taming children ===
Animals who can be trained and possess a child state (allowed by the {{token|CHILD}} token) can produce a fully tamed population. Note that animals cannot get pregnant in cages (in fact, this is one of the ''few'' times they can't), so you'll have to move past the initial training stage to have them.

Animals born from a partially-trained mother will not revert to a wild state while they are still children: for example, if a wild female [[wolf]] is captured and trained up to the +T+ level, and gives birth, the pups may forget this "inherited" training, but will never go lower than Semi-Wild while they're still pups. They can, and will, revert to a wild state when they become adult wolves, though going back to a fully wild state will still take some time after they've reached adulthood. The training level of the father does not count for anything when it comes to the child.

Animal children always become fully tame upon receiving training ''once''. This not only allows making children of trained mothers fully tame, it also allows instant taming of caught animal children or of children born in captivity to fully wild mothers. Only children can be permanently tamed, and once the young animal grows up the opportunity for this will no longer be available.[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=121150.0 1] Once an animal child becomes fully tame, it will never require training again, nor will it receive any even if assigned to a trainer - this means taming children gives you a fully tame population at the cost of removing a source of experience from your trainers.

Animals in ''Dwarf Fortress'' give birth in one of two ways, either with live birth, or by laying and incubating [[egg]]s. Child-rearing animals that give birth to their young is easy: with an adjacent male of the species, children may be conceived, inheriting their mother's pasture status in the process. Egg-layers are more complicated: The female must be adjacent to a male for fertilization, there must be an open constructed [[nest box]] for the female to occupy and lay a clutch of eggs in, and they and the mother must remain undisturbed during the process as the mother must incubate her eggs; even training is inadmissible. Thus the eggs must be [[forbid]]den and the mother should have her trainer de-assigned during the duration of her stay; they also will ''not'' inherit their mother's pasture status.[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=121150.0 1] The resultant children will have the taming status of their mother when they were ''laid'', not hatched.

Creatures missing the {{token|CHILD}} token are considered adults at birth. Because of it, they can never be rendered fully tame and will require re-training for the rest of their lives {{bug|7983}}. Examples of such creatures include [[crundle]]s, [[giant cave spider]]s, [[dragon]]s and [[hydra]]s.

==Animal AI==
If a trained animal is "stray", that is, it's not a pet, it will (usually) wander around your fortress randomly, spending most of its time in meeting areas, and attacking any hostiles that it comes across or wild animals that are attacking citizens. Animals with the {{token|LARGE_PREDATOR}} token are somewhat more aggressive than animals lacking this token, and are more likely to attack hostiles, while animals with a {{token|BENIGN}} token will simply run away from any hostiles, which makes them useless for [[Attack|dwarven]] defense, but they can be used as arrow fodder to keep the enemy entertained while you're bunkering in. Grazing animals should be assigned to a [[pasture]] because they will otherwise starve to death.

A pet or work animal, if not assigned to a pasture, will alternate between following its owner and visiting [[meeting area]]s. Should their owner die, the animal may instead be seen alternating between meeting areas and visiting the site of their death (even if their body is no longer there).

==Hunting/War training==
Some trained animals can receive additional training for hunting or for war, for which you need a [[Zone#Animal_Training|training zone]] ({{k|i}}-{{k|t}}) and a dwarf with the animal training labor enabled. Then you can go to your animal status screen ({{k|z}}-{{k|Enter}}) and find your trainable animal. Trainable animals are those where you see you can press either {{k|w}} for war training or {{k|h}} for hunting training. If you wish you can also select a particular trainer {{k|t}} to perform this task.

Some domesticated animal juveniles, such as puppies, are unable to be trained until they reach adulthood, at which point they only need hunting/war training once in their training zone.

===Train a hunting animal===
This requires an [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_HUNTING|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. Note that an animal that is in a pasture can only be trained if the zone is also in the same [[pasture]]. Hunting animals can be assigned ({{K|v}}-select dwarf-{{K|p}}-{{K|a}}) to follow a hunter and assist in the hunting process; once assigned they cannot be unassigned. They are intrinsically faster and more agile than a regular animal, and can [[ambusher|sneak]] alongside their partner, but are not as strong as a war animal.

=== Train a war animal ===
This requires an [[Cage|uncaged]] trainable animal with {{token|TRAINABLE|c}} or {{token|TRAINABLE_WAR|c}}, an animal training activity zone, and an animal trainer. [[Pasture|Pastured]] animals can only be trained if the zone is located within their pasture. War animals are significantly stronger than their untrained counterparts; war dogs make excellent companions when starting a fortress, when you can't spare many dwarves for fighting.

Like hunting animals, they can be assigned to individual dwarves the same way ({{k|v}}-select dwarf-{{k|p}}-{{k|a}}), and cannot be unassigned; combined with their strength, this makes them effective expendable bodyguards for any dwarf likely to see danger or who you feel is valuable enough to be worth protecting. Even if they fail to defeat an attacker, they can often buy their charge time to escape or for additional reinforcements to arrive.

== Bonding ==
As animal trainers work with an animal, they may become [[Relationships|bonded]] to it ("formed a bond with an animal training partner"), and this relationship is visible in the dwarf's relationships screen. This happens even if the dwarf is not specifically assigned to the animal and appears to disregard training quality. The death of a bonded animal results in a bad thought for the trainer ("has lost an animal training partner to tragedy"), whose exact severity is unknown but fairly significant. It is unknown whether working with a bonded animal gives a happy thought similar to the one gained from talking to a friend.

An animal trainer with a preference for the animal may adopt and name the animal at the time of training, even if the animal is not designated for adoption. This leaves the trainer highly susceptible to the bad "pet death" thought, renders the animal inedible, and eventually requires an extra coffin. It may be advisable to disable animal training on any trainer with such a preference, especially for war training.

== Trainable war/hunting animals ==
The following creatures can be trained into war or hunting animals once they are tamed. Bigger animals ''tend'' to be stronger in combat. For comparison, an average adult dwarf is size 60,000.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Animal
! Size (cm³)
! Pet value
! Notes
|-
|[[Bobcat]]
|8,000
|75
|Too small ≈
|-
|[[Mandrill]]
|20,000
|50
|^
|-
|[[Lynx]]
|25,000
|75
|^ ≈
|-
|[[Ocelot]]
|25,000
|100
|^ ≈
|-
|[[Dog]]
|30,000
|30
|^ ♪
|-
|[[Cheetah]]
|50,000
|200
|^ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Leopard]]
|50,000
|100
|^ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Jaguar]]
|75,000
|100
|† ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Gorilla]]
|150,000
|500
|† ≈
|-
|[[Giant bat]]
|200,000
|750
|♪ Hunting only
|-
|[[Giant cave swallow]]
|200,000
|700
|♪ Hunting only
|-
|[[Grizzly bear]]
|200,000
|500
|† ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Lion]]
|200,000
|200
|† ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Tiger]]
|225,000
|200
|† ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Giant bobcat]]
|256,320
|500
|☼ ≈
|-
|[[Giant mandrill]]
|341,800
|500
|☼
|-
|[[Giant lynx]]
|377,750
|500
|☼ ≈
|-
|[[Giant ocelot]]
|377,750
|500
|☼ ≈
|-
|[[Polar bear]]
|400,000
|500
|☼ ≈
|-
|[[Giant cheetah]]
|560,000
|200
|☼ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Giant leopard]]
|560,000
|100
|☼ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Giant jaguar]]
|750,000
|100
|☼ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Gigantic panda]]
|1,160,900
|1,000
|☼ ‼ ≈
|-
|[[Giant grizzly bear]]
|1,700,000
|500
|☼ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Giant lion]]
|1,700,000
|200
|☼ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Giant tiger]]
|1,900,000
|200
|☼ ♪ ≈
|-
|[[Rhinoceros]]
|3,000,000
|500
|☼ ♪ ‼ ≈ War only
|-
|[[Giant polar bear]]
|3,268,000
|500
|☼ ≈
|-
|[[Jabberer]]
|4,500,000
|1,500
|☼
|-
|[[Elephant]]
|5,000,000
|500
|☼ ‼ ≈
|-
|[[Cave dragon]]
|15,000,000
|10,000
|☼ ○
|-
|[[Roc]]
|20,000,000
|10,000
|☼ ♪ [[Megabeast]]
|-
|[[Giant rhinoceros]]
|24,000,000
|500
|☼ ♪ ‼ ≈ War only
|-
|[[Dragon]]
|25,000,000
|10,000
|☼ ○ [[Megabeast]]
|-
|[[Giant elephant]]
|40,000,000
|500
|☼ ‼ ≈
|}

: ☼ — ''Recommended choice for armies due to their great size.''
: † — ''Recommended choice for bodyguards, stalls most creatures enough to give dwarves time to escape safely.''
: ^ — ''Recommended choice for fort patrols and supporting dwarves in small skirmishes. Effective in very large numbers.''
: ♪ — ''Recommended hunting companions for their speed and mobility. Smaller animals also sneak more successfully.''
: ‼ — ''Poor choice for training due to their voracious appetites for [[grass]].''
: ≈ — ''Possesses the {{token|MEANDERER}} token, which severely slows their movement speed. Will likely fall behind any moving squad and miss offensive combat situations due to it.''
: ○ — ''Offspring are born adults and cannot be fully tamed. They also grow extremely slowly.''
: [[Megabeast]]s — ''While extremely powerful, megabeasts are currently hostile to all military dwarves, regardless of training level.''{{bug|10731}}

Remember to keep a breeding pair out of harm's way if you want more of a particular animal, in case the ones in service die.

==Training water creatures==
With a great deal of effort and some clever engineering, it is possible to capture, train, and butcher water creatures.[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=75780.0 2] Water creatures can survive indefinitely in [[cage]]s, but will drown at water levels below 4/7 while dwarves will cancel tasks at water levels at or above 4/7, making training extremely tricky. This basic problem can be solved with one of the more interesting bugs in the game: [[ghost]] trainers.[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=127659 3] It is currently unknown what bug causes this, but some animal trainers that are killed and never [[burial|buried]] or [[memorial]]ized will continue to perform their job from the grave. This removes the fundamental problem of water depth incompatibility and makes the task much easier. An easier solution, however, would be [[vampire]] animal trainers: they are unbreathing and will path through such water normally, so long as there is no flow. Taming water creatures in vanilla is fairly useless, however, as without [[modding]] they never have children, nor can they receive war (or hunting, however that would work) training.

==Training hostile creatures==

Training hostile creatures like enemy [[mount]]s does not cancel their hostility. While the job is completed and the animal trainer gains experience, the trained creature remains hostile to your civilization and will attack your dwarves. A creature will also be hostile if it becomes an enemy of your civilization, for instance if it killed one of your dwarves before. The rule of thumb is: if it has a [[name]], it's hostile, don't release it from its cage.

However, it does seem that the offspring of hostile creatures belong to your civilization, because trained mounts <s>amusingly</s> disturbingly attack and subsequently kill their offspring at birth. If you are careful and [[stupid dwarf trick|ingenious]] enough, you can separate the parents and children at birth.

Note that hostile egg-layers, such as [[cave crocodile]]s, might not use [[nest box]]es and therefore generate no offspring.

==Handling dangerous creatures==

Only dwarves with the animal trainer labor active will move non-trained (wild or hostile) captive creatures to a chain or to another cage. This restriction only applies to non-trained creatures and only to the "chain large creature" and "cage large creature" jobs. Throwing such a creature into a pit or pond can be done by anybody, and the chaining and caging of trained creatures is similarly unrestricted.

==Taming vermin==

First, a [[trapper]] needs to catch vermin in an animal trap. A few types of vermin can escape from wooden traps, such as the [[hamster]], so it might be a good idea to use only metal traps. An animal trainer will train a vermin at a kennel. Unlike animals, vermin do not have training levels - they are either tame or not tame. Taming vermin does not pass civilization-wide experience with that vermin to the parent civilization, like taming animals does. Taming requires a food item. Vermin cannot be trained for war or hunting.

There isn't much purpose to taming vermin. It allows vermin to be adopted as pets, but few dwarves have a preference for vermin, so they will rarely be adopted. Vermin don't breed like animals do, so there is no need to have a tame pair to produce offspring. [[Animal dissector]]s can't make [[extract]]s from tame vermin, though there isn't much reason to make extracts either. Tame cave spiders don't spin webs. Tame vermin have little value so they aren't of much use for export either. Taming vermin does give experience to animal trainers, so they can improve their skill in a fort with few animals, especially since vermin are inexhaustible.

==Taming intelligent creatures==

If you mod the game to have trainable intelligent creatures (or if you find a [[gremlin]]) they may be captured in cage traps and trained. However, several things differ from when training other creatures, as training sapients display a number of strange behaviors.

First off, the game will consider any trained (or semi-wild) sentient an inhabitant of your fortress (or at least partially so). This will increase your population count, which likely has the same effects as when the count is increased by [[immigration|immigrants]] arriving or [[children|babies]] being born. The trained creature will be considered a peasant in the z-screen. Despite this, the trained creature cannot work, as it is impossible to set any labor preferences. Neither can they be enlisted to the militia or have any pets. Once trained, they will be subject to hunger, thirst and drowsiness, and as such will require food, drink and sleep to survive. The creature will pick up and wear [[clothes]], but only if they are the right [[size]].

It is impossible to view their general stats screen, trying to do so will only bring you to a simple description of the creature as with any other non-inhabitant of your fort. It might not be possible to view the creature's thoughts, but they still exist, proven by the fact that the trained creature can become [[insane]]. Having the creatures socialize with your dwarves, and each other, as well as [[Keeping_your_dwarves_unstressed|all the other countermeasures to prevent insanity]] seems to prevent this though. As caged creatures cannot do any of these actions, keeping trained creatures in [[cage]]s for elongated periods of time is advised against.

It is normally impossible to give the trained creature a nickname, causing individuals of the same species to be difficult to tell apart, but if you train them for hunting or war, and then assign them to one of your dwarves, they will obtain a name. The further implications of doing so are not known as of yet. Trained sapients may be assigned for butchering (which is otherwise impossible), but their returns are completely unusable and will just be taken to the nearest [[refuse]] [[stockpile]] to rot away.

Because they tend to go wherever they please, a trained intelligent creature will rarely be at a training zone out of their own volition, making re-training them difficult. Depending on how well they're trained, it brings the risk of them going wild again, potentially leading to their escape or for them to attack your dwarves due to becoming hostile. The animal trainer assigned to train these creatures may also be stuck at the training zone waiting for the creature's arrival, potentially leading to hunger and thirst. Making use of [[burrow]]s to force the creature into the training zone is an option, as the training itself will be done as long as the creature and the trainer are within the zone for a few moments.

A trained intelligent creature will only become fully controllable if it applies for [[citizenship]] in your fortress, in which case they'll be able to perform labors and their stats screen will give you full descriptions of their person and personalities. Whether trained sapients apply for citizenship in the same manner as [[visitor]]s do (2 years after becoming part of the fortress) and if they still require training after applying for citizenship requires verification.

==Bugs==

* Capturing and training [[siege|war]] [[mount]]s [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=111357.0 may cause] a [[loyalty cascade]] if your [[military]] has to put them down.{{bug|6051}}
* Trained [[flying|fliers]] may swap positions with dwarves, leaving the dwarves stranded in an inaccessible area.{{bug|3371}}
* Training herbivores leaves [[seed]]s in [[cage]]s, which must be manually removed.{{bug|201}}
* Creatures lacking the {{token|CHILD}} tag are impossible to tame. {{bug|7983}} You can work around this by adding {{token|CHILD|c|X}} to the raws for that animal. Replace X with years creature is a child.
* [[Megabeast]]s and active [[squad]]s attack each other on sight, regardless of the former's training level, making [[dragon]]s, [[hydra]]s and [[roc]]s unusable without excessive micromanaging.{{bug|10731}}

{{skills}}

Utilities

2014-07-31T06:06:33Z

Daonitre: /* Perfect World DF */ --updated links and version numbers to match DF2014 // text formatting for grammatical errors and clarity

{{Migrated_article}}
{{Quality|Masterwork|13:28, 28 September 2013 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

'''Utilities''' are third party applications useful for Dwarf Fortress players and modders, and this page serves as a list of them. Dwarf Fortress is a difficult game to play, and any help that can be had in the task is welcome help. This page lists utilities useful for modders and player alike. If you would like to add an article on a ''specific'' game utility to the wiki, please do so under the [http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php?title=Special%3AAllPages&from=&to=&namespace=102 Utility] namespace. Not included on this page: [[Main:Tileset repository|tileset repositories]] and [[DF2012:Graphics set repository|graphics set repositories]] have been given their own, separate page. [[Modding|Mods]] have also been listed under their own [http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php?title=Special%3AAllPages&from=&to=&namespace=104 Modification] namespace. To avoid namespace clutter websites ''are'' considered utilities, though they really aren't, and have been included.

A [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?board=29.0 subsection of the Bay12 forums] is devoted to such third party programs, and contains development threads for most of them.

The [[Utilities#Lazy Newb Pack|Lazy Newb Pack]] is an effort to make Dwarf Fortress more accessible for new players by bundling and configuring utilities, graphics and tilesets, and extras such as reference material or more intuitive controls.

==Launchers==

===[http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=5663 Manila Launcher] ===
A Java interface that allows easy option toggling, update and devlog checking, and tileset, mod and color scheme switching.

=== [[Utility:Lazy_Newb_Pack|Lazy Newb Pack]] ===
A commonly-used software bundle with a nice launcher. Allows to start playing DF really quickly on a new machine - no need to download and integrate [[Graphics set repository|tilesets]] and tools like Dwarf Therapist, SoundSense, etc. - or even know what you need to get. The newer packs also include many third-party fixes for common bugs, which work automatically, and a large number of significant user interface improvements. The launcher makes changing settings or graphics options much easier (press button, instead of editing files) and can even remember to launch selected utilities whenever you open a game of Dwarf Fortress. See the [[Utility:Lazy_Newb_Pack|Lazy Newb Pack]] page for more information, or the forum thread for your platform.

*[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=126076 PeridexisErrant Lazy Newb Pack] (windows)
*[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128960 MacNewbie Pack ReBorn] (OS X)
*[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=130792 Lazy Newb Pack Installer for Linux], abandoned

===[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=140808.0 PyLNP] ===
A cross-platform LNP port, written in Python.

== 3D Visualizers ==

=== [[Utility:Stonesense|Stonesense]] ===
Stonesense is a third party visualizer, implemented as a [[Utility:DFHack|DFHack]] plugin, that lets you view your fortress in a classic isometric perspective. It runs alongside Dwarf Fortress, and can follow the main game's view, updating in real time. It is included in DFHack, and can be opened by typing <code>stonesense</code> or <code>ssense</code> into the console window.

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=63484 Fortress Overseer] ===
Fortress Overseer is the only 3D visualizer supporting v0.31. It has been completely rewritten and is currently updated to support v0.34.11 and v0.31.25. Overseer works indirectly, by using [[Utility:DFHack|DFHack]]'s <code>mapexport</code> to export a file which can then be rendered in 3D. DirectX 9 must be installed, though this requirement is not documented.

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=70700.0 Isoworld] ===
Isoworld is an isometric world map viewer, which can display each of the detailed maps exported from Legends Mode. It also has a pictographic view which makes finding waterfalls easy.

Isoworld can link with [[Utility:DFHack|DFHack]] to display a game view at full spatial resolution in wider context, including tracking the game view. This is particularly useful for adventure mode.

== Music and Sounds ==

=== [[Utility:SoundSense|SoundSense]] ===

SoundSense is a tool that parses game logs and reacts to game events with sound effects, incidental music and dwarfy comments. You can look it up on the [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=60287 forum thread], or directly download it at [http://df.zweistein.cz/soundsense/ the SoundSense homepage]. Due to it being written in Java, Soundsense is portable to all platforms.

Due to development having slowed down, a [https://github.com/calmhorizons/soundsense fork] was released that most notably disables the broken auto-updater and adds the option to minimize Soundsense to the system tray.

Note that older Soundsense users may have different default seasonal soundtracks, which were removed and replaced in early 2011. These are available [http://www.krauselabs.net/dump/music.zip here].

== Game manipulation tools ==

===[[Utility:DFHack|DFHack]]===

[[Utility:DFHack|DFHack]] is an advanced Dwarf Fortress memory access library and a set of tools and scripts using this library, providing direct object-oriented access to Dwarf Fortress's internals as if it were compiled into the game itself. Releases support versions up through 0.34.11 (as of June 22nd, 2012). Runs on Windows, Linux, and MacOS X.

DFHack has an [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=139553.0 official forum thread]. Code and binary releases are available from the [https://github.com/DFHack/dfhack/downloads Github site].

As of June 2014, the current version is r5; however there still may exist some compatiblity issues with plugins and scripts who have not been yet updated to r5 (because of development that has been halted for instance).

Falconne's UI plugins work through DFHack, as do automation tools such as Autolabor, Workflow, Autobutcher, and many others.

==== DFHack User Interface Plugins ====

===== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=119575.0 Falconne's Plugins] =====
A collection of DFHack plugins that improve the in-game interface with features such as:
* Search function in screens with big lists.
* Ability to place furniture before it's built and have it automatically allocated when available.
* Ability to place constructions with box select (like laying designations), including easier material selection and open space placement (without having to wait till adjacent constructions are built).
* Easier pasturing, live happiness monitor, mouse support, stocks dashboard.

===== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=124708 Autobutcher GUI] =====

==== Binary patches ====
Binary patches are utilities made by users to fix known bugs that haven't been addressed by the development team yet.

*[http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7207 This executable] contains many bugfixes, including the long-standing armory bug that prevent racks and armor stands from ever being used.

==== Feature plugins ====
These plugins add features to the game.
* [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=127116.0 Digging invaders], a plugin that allows hostiles to dig and deconstruct walls to path to one's fortress.
* [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128487.0 Rendermax], a plugin that implements a lighting system at the graphics level.
* [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=136155.0 Dwarven Emigration], a plugin that allows unhappy dwarves to emigrate with their families.

==== Interaction plugins ====
[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=135597.0 DFHack scripts designed for use in interactions as "spells"]

==== Miscellaneous plugins ====
[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=135506.0 DFHack script collection]

==Dwarf Therapist==

===[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=122968 Dwarf Therapist]===

Dwarf Therapist gives you an advanced GUI to manage and check dwarf job allocations, military assignments, statistics (such as attributes, personality traits and happiness), sort dwarves by various criteria (e.g. profession, migration wave, happiness, number of assigned jobs etc.) and generally manage the Dwarven Resources of your fortress in a very convenient way. This version contains the "labor optimizer" semi-automatic labor management system.

Splinterz' fork of Dwarf Therapist is the currently updated version, and available for Windows, Mac and GNU + Linux. Besides the Bay12 forum thread, there's more information on the [https://github.com/splintermind/Dwarf-Therapist GitHub project page].

====[[Dwarf Therapist Addons Repository]]====

A collection of customizations for Dwarf Therapist submitted by the community.

Addons include:

* custom professions
* custom roles
* optimization plans
* filter scripts
* new grid views

== Fortress layout tools ==
=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=87731 DF Designator] ===
DF Designator helps you build fortresses from either image files or Quickfort .CSV files. It also has a user interface that allows you to assign hotkeys to blueprints and to combine blueprints in multi z-level designs. Windows, Mac and Linux versions are available. DF Designator uses 'typewriter style' playback, and is thus very slow for large projects.

=== [http://www.joelpt.net/quickfort/ Quickfort] ===

Quickfort is a utility for Dwarf Fortress that helps you build fortresses from "blueprint" .CSV files (comma separated values). These files are easily created and edited in an app like Excel. Most building-oriented DF commands are supported through the use of multiple .CSV files to describe the different phases of DF construction (designation, building, stockpiles, and making adjustments. Recent versions of Quickfort work by converting the blueprint into a native macro for Dwarf Fortress, then executing the macro. This allows for enormously faster playback compared to early versions or DF Designator.

====[https://www.mediafire.com/folder/u38qsqr1bq6wu/Community_Quickfort_Blueprints_v2 Quickfort Community Blueprints]====

A large collection of blueprints, published to remove the last hint of hassle in creating a fortress. You can download the lot without a paid account [http://www.mediafire.com/download/n6im1ok6z02n8nc/Community_Quickfort_Blueprints_v2.zip here].

===[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=55025 ChromaFort]===
Chromafort is a tool designed to complement [[Utilities#Quickfort|Quickfort]], by converting images into quickfort-compatible .csv files. It works with 24-bit bitmap (.bmp) files. There are a number of known issues that can affect any image that is not square, and the size must be an exponent of two (8, 16, 32, 64...); other images may show nonexistent colours and/or come out highly distorted.

===[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=138590 Picturefort]===
Picturefort is an attempt to make "Chromafort, but ''better''" - it performs the same function of converting an image to a [[Utilities#Quickfort|Quickfort]]-compatible .csv file. Unlike Chromafort, Picturefort can handle a large number of image formats (though .bmp or .png are recommended); images can be of any shape and within reason size; and while as of May 2014 it is only available on Windows there are plans for a Linux version.

== Modding tools ==

===[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=140853.0 Rubble]===

A useful plugin-based modding tool that generates raws and supports easy installation of reactions, tilesets, macros, modding fixes and DFHack scripts. It is a fork of the now abandoned [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=125997.0 Blast]. Binaries are available for Linux 32-bits, OS X 32-bits and Windows 64-bits, as well as the source (written in Go with building instructions). As of 4.0, a GUI is available for Windows.

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=103360 Raw Explorer] ===
A tree-based raw files browser, editor and manager.

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=140645.0 Dwarf Fortress real-life material helper] ===
A python script that generates raws based on custom real-life material values.

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=140688.0 Roses' Random Creature Script] ===
A python script that generates random creature raws.

== World Map / World Gen Tools ==
=== [http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=2354 Perfect World DF] ===
Requires an additional (tiny) download to be functional for current versions (40.#): [http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=8756 WorldGen.xml] . Easy access to world settings for quick modification to allow highly customized world generation far easier and faster than DF's ingame advanced map maker. [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=57428.0 forum thread]

=== [http://pastebin.com/jdVKPzpt Fortress World Generator] ===
A bash script for automating world generation of large numbers of worlds on GNU/Linux.

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=73095 Dwarf Map Maker] ===
A photoshop action script which turns legends mode exported maps into a much prettier fantasy map. There is also a version available [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=73095.msg2261106#msg2261106 for GIMP].

==Legends tools==

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=72702 Legends Viewer] ===
Legends Viewer loads up the legends you can export in a much more usable format than the legends mode of DF itself. Legends viewer can open pages in new tabs, filter information on a wide range of criteria, and displays information on the map as well. Binaries are only available for Windows, as well as the source (written in C#).

It takes four files as input: the legends xml file, the sites and pops text, world history text, and a map image. It can load these separately, but it is recommended to load them as a single compressed archive (folder) - the xml can be multiple GB uncompressed for long histories, and reduce to less than 5% of its size.

If you have played a fortress and then exported legends, you may get an error about unreadable HEX characters. This is caused by Workflow, which saves it's settings as unreadable historical figures. There are several ways to fix this:
* Clear the workflow settings in fortress mode before exporting legends
* Edit the xml by hand, [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=72702.msg4629392#msg4629392 as described here] (any platform)
* Use the [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=131307 Legends Processing script] (windows only), which fixes the xml and also creates a compressed folder as described above

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128932.0 World Viewer] ===
An alternative to Legends Viewer that most specifically features a timeline of historical events. Binaries are only available for Windows, as well as the source (written in C#).

== Remote playing tools ==

=== [[Utility:Dfterm3|dfterm]]===

[[Utility:Dfterm3|Dfterm3]] is a remote Dwarf Fortress playing software for multiple users through a web interface. DFterm3 enables play through a web interface, and games can also be viewed on modern - or even played if a bluetooth keyboard is attached. The web interface should work with Chrome or Firefox browsers, and there are known problems using Internet Explorer. DFTerm3 functions via a DFHack plugin, and is thus dependent on each version of DFHack.

It is a successor to [[Utility:dfterm2|dfterm2]], which functions similarly using telnet instead of a web browser.

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=139167.0 Webfort] ===

A newer alternative to dfterm3 that functions similarly, but players must wait in a queue before assuming control for a given period of time. It also functions via a DFHack plugin. Binaries are available for Windows, as well as the source (written in C++).

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=140892.0 DorfServer] ===
A remote SSH-based Dwarf Fortress host software.

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=139975.0 DFEverywhere] ===

The latest remote playing software. Currently unreleased.

==Language tools==

===[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=47332.0 DFLang]===
A language creating tool.

===[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=136098.0 Toadese Language Utility]===
A language editing and translating tool.

===[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=140432.0 DFlangOpt]===
A little tool meant to prevent redundancy when importing or updating language files.

===[http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=8288 Python language extraction and injection script]===
This simple script will extract words from language files and put them a word per line, for easy automatic translation or treatment. It can also read that list and put the translated words back in their place.

==Announcement tools==

===[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=130590 DFMon] ===

An announcement monitoring/filtering program, useful to hide some types of job cancellation spam or other more advanced filtering. Note that you can set the game to announce no job cancellations ''without'' any utilities or mods from the {{k|o}}rders menu, with {{k|x}}.

===[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=130030 DF Announcement Filter]===

An alternative to DFMon written in Java (and thus portable to Linux and OS X).

==Filesharing websites==

=== [http://dffd.wimbli.com/ Dwarf Fortress File Depot] ===
The Dwarf Fortress File Upload Service - an excellent place to store mods, community games, tilesets and other files. Courtesy of [[User:Janus|Janus]]; for files related to Dwarf Fortress only.

=== [http://mkv25.net/dfma/ Dwarf Fortress Map Archive] ===
{{main|Utility:Dwarf Fortress Map Archive}}

The Dwarf Fortress Map Archive is a large collection of user-submitted maps and videos and a nice flash viewer for perusing them. Maps are uploaded, stored, and downloaded in a special compressed format created by the DF Map Compressor; videos are stored in a compressed version of Toady One's own video-recording format.

Read more about the [[User:Markavian/DF_Map_Archive|DF Map Archive]] on Markavian's User page.

== Other/miscellaneous ==

=== [http://shadowlord13.googlepages.com/dfmap-index.html DF Map Compressor] ===

The DF Map Compressor encodes multiple bitmaps exported from Dwarf Fortress into a single, very compressed, .fdf-map file. The fdf-map file can then be shared with your friends by uploading to the DF Map Archive that features an online viewer (written in Flash).

=== [http://www.mindwerks.net/projects/exita/ Exita] ===
Exita is a python program that takes your DF world map exports and dump them into several different text outputs.

===[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=132153.0 DwarfFamily]===
A tool that lets you import your legends XML file and converts all dwarf entries to a .GED file, which you can use in Family Tree programs like MyHeritage to display a family tree for the dwarfs.

===[https://www.dropbox.com/s/dea50wrs557w283/kobold.py Kobold name generator]===
A python script that generates random names in the way of kobold utterances

=== [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=717.0 CMVPlayer] ===

First released by Jifodus in April 2007. This application enables playback of the DF movies (.cmv) without starting DF. It also provides some more functionalities, such as :
* Rewind
* Pause
* Play frame per frame

To use, simply unzip the file, and drop and drag the movie on CMVPlayer.exe.

DF2014 Talk:Metal

2014-07-28T20:38:11Z

Daonitre:

{{newpage|type=cp|66.177.96.41}}

== Dark Metals, Glowing Metals, etc ==

Dark,Glowing,Blazing,Frosty,etc. metals are procedurally generated metals generated during worldgen and are used in weapons and armor of so named "Vault guardians" which you can meet in Vaults themselves. All of these metals have tag [DIVINE] in their RAWs so I'd suggest calling them divine metals. All of these metals are technically the same with the exception of name and sphere relation, here are the raws of one of them:
Ruspstrasp( / � inorganic_generated� [OBJECT:INORGANIC]� [INORGANIC:DIVINE_1]� [GENERATED]� [DIVINE]� [DISPLAY_COLOR:0:0:1]�
[BUILD_COLOR:0:0:1]� [STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:BLACK]& [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:METAL_TEMPLATE]( [STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:searing metal]�
[MATERIAL_VALUE:300]� [SPEC_HEAT:7500]� [MELTING_POINT:NONE]� [BOILING_POINT:NONE]� [ITEMS_WEAPON]� [ITEMS_WEAPON_RANGED]�
[ITEMS_AMMO]� [ITEMS_DIGGER]
[ITEMS_ARMOR]
[ITEMS_ANVIL]� [ITEMS_HARD]
[ITEMS_METAL]�
[ITEMS_BARRED]� [ITEMS_SCALED]� [SOLID_DENSITY:1000]� [LIQUID_DENSITY:1000]� [MOLAR_MASS:20000]� [IMPACT_YIELD:1000000]�
[IMPACT_FRACTURE:2000000]� [IMPACT_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]� [COMPRESSIVE_YIELD:1000000]� [COMPRESSIVE_FRACTURE:2000000]�
[COMPRESSIVE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]� [TENSILE_YIELD:1000000]� [TENSILE_FRACTURE:2000000]� [TENSILE_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]�
[TORSION_YIELD:1000000]� [TORSION_FRACTURE:2000000]� [TORSION_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]� [SHEAR_YIELD:1000000]� [SHEAR_FRACTURE:2000000]�
[SHEAR_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]� [BENDING_YIELD:1000000]� [BENDING_FRACTURE:2000000]� [BENDING_STRAIN_AT_YIELD:0]� [MAX_EDGE:12000]�
[SPHERE:TORTURE]�

:Thanks for the info, I've been wondering about the various other metal types that seemed to appear randomly for a bit now... I'm seeing singing metal, searing metal, ruddy metal, twisting metal, crashing metal, shining metal, multicolored metal, bright metal, booming metal, and flowing metal in my current fortress game - they appear to be randomly generated from the descriptive word list. It would be helpful if we could get someone who knows more about the wiki structure to properly place this info into the metal page to avoid people wasting time searching for this info. (i looked through reddit, the bay12 forums, and the wiki before finding this after about 45 minutes) --[[User:Daonitre|Daonitre]] ([[User talk:Daonitre|talk]]) 20:38, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

DF2014 Talk:Garden vegetable

2014-07-18T00:08:16Z

Daonitre: created page, request for clarification of this section in relation to Crops

Searching garden or related brings up the main page - but no real information is available... looking at [[DF2014:Crop]] it appears that some dwarves ARE actually collecting information on this. Should we redirect this page to Crops, or move the gardening section of crops here... perhaps including links to and from each for clarification that they are related though not the same? --[[User:Daonitre|Daonitre]] ([[User talk:Daonitre|talk]]) 00:08, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

v0.34:Pixie

2012-07-20T15:58:12Z

Daonitre:

{{Quality|Exceptional|01:44, 10 June 2010 (UTC)}}
{{verminlookup/0}}
{{av}}
{{creaturedesc}}

'''Pixies''' are a very common type of [[vermin]] that live in [[good]] areas. They drift in the air in faintly glowing, colorful groups, dancing intricately. Repetitive music and recreational pixie dust use are likely involved.

{{gamedata}}
{{vermin}}

v0.34:Fairy

2012-07-20T15:57:25Z

Daonitre: removed unmarked "D" material

{{Quality|Exceptional|17:09, 7 January 2011 (UTC)}}
{{verminlookup/0}}
{{av}}
{{creaturedesc}}

'''Fairies''' are a type of [[vermin]] that live in [[good]] areas. They glow in the dark and constantly pester your dwarves with their insufferable giggling.

{{gamedata}}
{{vermin}}

v0.34:Captured creatures

2012-07-13T05:59:36Z

Daonitre: Undo revision 170746, copy from previous version - fixed a few things which have been removed since previous version

{{Quality|Tattered|[[User:Reilwin|Reilwin]] 01:59, 3 April 2012 (UTC)}}
{{av}}

You can capture creatures in a variety of ways, including [[animal trap]]s for [[vermin]], [[cage trap]]s for wild [[animal]]s and hostiles (like goblins), forcibly caging tame animals (see below), and you can also buy caged animals from traders. Starting from version .31.19, several animals (cows etc.) have been classified as grazing and need to have access to moss or grass in order not to starve. This is best achieved through definition of a [[pasture]]. Other caged animals (such as dogs) do not require food or nourishment. Caged animals have lifetimes, though, so these will also die eventually. Caged dwarves (except those in [[jail]]) will quickly starve, for they are never fed. The only case when a caged creature is fed is during its taming.

Below is a collection of some things you can do with creatures in [[cage]]s or other holding devices.

===Training and taming===
A dwarf with the [[animal trainer|animal training]] labor enabled can tame wild animals (including [[vermin]]) at a [[kennel]]. A tame animal has the tag '''(Tame)''' after its name and is safe to be released into the fortress. They will not attack your dwarves, and do not set off your traps.

Beware, creatures that have killed dwarves (or other friendly creatures {{verify}}) before being tamed even off the map are "un-tamable". Despite appearing tame, such a creature will go dwarf-killing as soon as it is released.

Elven merchants often sell caged animals, even some that can't normally be trained. Often cages that appear empty on the trading screen (ie, -oaken cage-) will have tame rats, squirrels or other small animals in them. Tamed animals can act as a guard, attacking hostile creatures.

Tamed vermin and animals may be adopted as [[pet]]s by the dwarves, and animals may also be [[Butchery|slaughter]]ed for food. [[Cage]]s and [[restraint]]s are also useful in [[meat_industry|animal husbandry]].

===Holding===
You can restrain creatures by assigning them to [[restraint]]s, putting them in cages, or throwing them in [[Activity zone#Pit/Pond|pits or ponds]]. This can reduce [[Frames per second|lag]], and may prevent adoption as pets (so they remain slaughterable without tantruming owners). This will ''not'' work with [[cat]]s, who adopt their masters, not the other way around, and despite any physical barriers

* '''Cages''': An indefinite number of animals may be locked into one single cage. If you wish to fit your own tame animals into cages, you can do this by building a cage, and assigning some animals to it via the Building properties window (accessible by {{k|q}}). "Large animal caging" jobs will then be created, and dwarves will lock the hapless animals into the cage. Any offspring they give birth to is also born in the cage (But is not ''assigned'' to the cage, so your dwarves will free it if you don't stop them.). Animals do not breed in cages, but an already pregnant animal will give birth while in a cage.

:Caveat — Do not reassign any animal that is not tame (for example, one captured via a [[cage trap]]). If you do, the dwarf moving the animal may open the cage and then flee due to the proximity of the wild animal.

::By stationing military dwarves nearby, this can be used as an easy way to release and kill caged creature. This works especially well if the military dwarves already have an order to kill the creature before you attempt to transfer it. (Some creatures may actually get transferred successfully, however.)

* '''Chains/ropes''': Installed chains ({{k|b}}-{{k|v}}) and assign animals to them {{k|q}}. They'll be able to move one tile in any direction (including up/down/diagonal).

* '''Pits/ponds''': You can designate an area as pit or pond by creating an [[Activity zone#Pit/Pond|activity zone]], designating it as pit/pond and assigning animals to it by setting its properties by pressing {{k|P}}. Beware that land animals generally do not like to remain in a dark pit instead of your magnificent fortress, so they'll break free at the earliest opportunity. See [[Mass pitting]] for information on dumping many caged creatures into a pit/pond at once.

===Other uses===

* '''[[Zoo]]''' areas may be defined from a built cage via the {{k|q}} menu for the enjoyment of your dwarves. Be aware that dwarves will receive happy or unhappy thoughts from seeing an animal in a zoo based on their preferences. Owning the cage containing a loved animal is even better.

* '''Confiscating prisoner items''': You can strip a captured critter of its equipment. First, use {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|c}} and {{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|d}}to mark the entire stockpile of cages (and ''every item in the cages'') for reclaiming and then for dumping, then use {{k|k}} (for unbuilt cages) or {{k|t}} (for built cages) to view and undump the cage itself. After you ordered the items dumped, dwarves will come and strip the items from your captives. If they do not, double-check that you have a dumping activity zone and that you've reclaimed ({{k|d}}-{{k|b}}-{{k|c}}) - all the equipment a hostile carries is {{k|f}}orbidden by default. You can also dump caged prisoner items through the [[stocks]] menu.

* '''Usage as an execution device''': Instead of executing the trapped creature, one could execute a noble by placing a caged megabeast in its quarters and then releasing the beast. Remember to also install a cage trap to recapture the beast afterward.

* '''Silk farming''': If you are the lucky owner of a tamed [[giant cave spider]], you can release disarmed enemies in a room with it, causing it to shoot significant quantities of [[silk]] which can then be woven into expensive cloth. Creative arrangements of doors, chains, and fortifications can allow a setup which generates a near-constant stream of silk using a single creature as bait.

{{Category|Creatures}}

v0.34:Well guide

2012-07-05T11:06:59Z

Daonitre: /* Multitasking Wells */

{{Quality|Exceptional|20:40, 24 April 2012 (UTC)}}{{av}}
{{Expand Topic}}
''This guide assumes you've read the main article on '''[[well]]s''' and are familiar with the basic information found in that article, of what a well does and what is required to build one.''

A well can be vital to any fortress, but deciding that you need one and building one are two different things. Draining water from the surface can flood your fortress if you aren't careful, and building a well only to see the water source dry up or freeze is beyond frustrating. This guide will walk you through a number of different situations, and explain solutions that have been found for these problems.
If you are looking for the step by step guide: [[#Step by Step|see below]].

== Why Build a Well? ==

Honestly, not every fortress NEEDS a well. But they all need some form of safe ''water source'' to bring water to patients and prisoners. If they do not have this and you find yourself in a siege with six injured dwarves, you're in for a little bit of [[Fun]]... But a hole full of water can be just as good for that as a well.

=== Why You Might Not ===

1. Wells are currently a little wonky, like everything else, but in a not-so-friendly way. There are plenty of opportunities to flood a fortress through a well, and even if you don't, dwarves and animals might still occasionally fall in.

2. They take a lot of time and effort to construct, especially when compared to alternatives.

3. Because of the way wells are, a single hole in a flat ceiling, it makes it more difficult for creatures to get out, should they find themselves in your water source.

4. Technically, a trench full of water can be designated as a water source just as easily as a well, and dwarves will sanely path around such a thing, as well as bathe in it more easily.

5. If you do make a shallow pool as a water source, and have a meeting hall designated therein, unoccupied dwarves will hang out in the water, gaining swimming skill.

=== Why You Might ===

1. While a trench full of water can be used as a water source, a well can draw water from a source that is 30+ levels below. Also, a trench water source can only be one level deep, dwarves will not draw water from any level deeper than that. A well will.

2. Wells can be made to have extraordinarily high value, due to the various skills and materials, each with their own quality levels, which go into its construction. Thus, as the center piece for a meeting room, even if they have no water, wells can be very handy in making dwarves very happy.

3. As far as the well itself goes, they take up very little space in your actual fortress. With a water-filled channel, the reservoir is equivalent to the floor space occupied.

4. This is a glitch, but wells are the easiest method for making salt water drinkable. Wells will ignore salinity and allow dwarves to drink salt water directly from its source without a glitch. So long as it isn't murky.

== Choosing a Location ==

Once you've decided it's time to construct a well, you need to consider where the well needs to be. It helps if you've been planning for this while building the rest of your fortress, and have made room for it.

You want a well central to your dwarves, so they'll all get good thoughts from seeing it, and near any [[hospital]] beds you have, but you want it off the main traffic routes. You can have more than one well, which solves that problem, but raises the one of engineering water to feed them all. If it's indoors (or behind walls), then there's little threat from [[carp]], [[goblin]]s, or [[animal]]s, and it can provide a safe source of drinking water during a [[siege]].

Depending on your start location, you may already have a pre-existing water source, such as a flooded cavern, which you can just build a well over. Or, as is usually the case, you may need to transport water from some other location to where you want your well to be. This is where things get complicated.

== Water sources ==

A well needs a water source of at least 3/7 depth, at least 1 [[z-level]] somewhere directly below its opening, with no obstructions between itself and said water. Pre-existing water is safe because it's the most predictable - what you see is what you've got, no surprises. You can instead use dwarven engineering to bring water from a distant source to beneath your well, with a safety factor based on your experience and the complexity of the project. (See [[flood]].)

The important part about the well is to make sure that you don't create a situation where the water will [[flood]] your fortress, due to [[Water_pressure|pressure]] from a source at a higher level. If the water is stable before you build the well above it, it will be safe (unless your dwarves change things), but if you are introducing a flow, make sure you understand how pressure works and will not fall victim to its surprises. (See [[Water_pressure|pressure]].)

=== Pre-existing sources ===

A [[brook]], [[river]], [[murky pool]], or [[cavern]] lakes can provide water under a well. The surface of a brook tile will have to be channeled out, but it works just fine. Murky pools can dry up in warm seasons, and the well will be useless until they refill from [[rain]]. On hot maps, this may never happen - it's quite possible to see your murky pools (which are always full at [[embark]]) [[evaporate]] away before you ever get a chance to build a well.

Using stagnant water directly from murky pools or brooks is not optimal, as it will give dwarves negative thoughts, "Has complained about the nasty water lately". To avoid this, moving water from these places on to floor tiles that are not identified as riverbeds or ponds, and building a well over ''that'' will work just fine, so long as the final depth is 3/7 or greater.

=== [[Aquifer|Aquifers]] ===

If you have an aquifer, just channel a 1x1 square in any open stretch of floor above it and build the well. It will automatically fill and never flood. You'll have other construction projects to worry about.

=== [[Ocean|Oceans]] ===

Oceans and aquifers near oceans carry salty water. This is normally unpleasant to dwarves, but for some reason, drinking that water through a well is perfectly fine. This is a bug. But, if you really want to, it is possible to desalinate water by running it through a pump, (This is ''also'' a bug.) BUT, if that water touches any natural surfaces it will turn salty again. The floor, walls and ceiling of the aqueduct and reservoir all need to be constructed.

=== [[Reservoir|Reservoirs]] ===

If you need to move water to your well, you need to dig/build a reservoir. A reservoir is basically a big hole intended for the storage of large quantities of water.

When digging a reservoir, you need to consider your needs and the space you have available. Do you really need a 20x20x20 reservoir, holding 56,000 tiles of water, requiring 560,000 uses of the well to fully dry up? Frequently, in well-managed fortresses, wells are really only used for the care of sick or imprisoned dwarves and animals. As a result, it doesn't really need to be anything special, unless it's a meeting hall, in which case dwarves will drink from it at random.

Another consideration is safety. (See Below) Specifically, dwarves can fall into wells. You may wish to place some sort of escape route from the well, should anyone do so. At the least, this just needs to be a staircase going up the side of the well to the surface. The shorter the distance they need to go, the better off they are. Keep in mind, of course, that if any wildlife is able to access your reservoir, and if any of them are able to leave the water, they may wander into your fortress through the escape route. If they're particularly malicious, they may even path their way in to attack your dwarves.

If you are filling the reservoir by aqueduct, consider the fill point. If you are using only gravity to fill the well, but the water needs to flow up to do so, you may experience problems when it comes time to refill your well. Specifically, water floods upwards into empty space very easily, but for some reason doesn't like to flood through still water. Thus, it may be more appropriate to have the reservoir fill from its top, though keep in mind that this is a very fast fill method and can flood a bit if you aren't watching and have a small reservoir. (As a side note on that, it is possible to fill a well by pouring water directly through the well opening itself)

Finally, you may find some circumstance where you'd wish to make changes to the well. For example, building a statue in its reservoir, or recovering a lost loved one who fell in and cracked his skull open. In these instances, you may wish to construct a manual drain. All it requires is a hatch or floodgate at the bottom of the well, connected to a lever, covering a tunnel leading to an appropriate dump site... Like your subterranean farming operation. Or your obsidian factory. Or a room full of captured <s>nobles</s> goblins. If you already have a drain for the aqueduct, you can easily connect the two.

== Filling the Well ==

If you've had to construct a well separate from a pre-existing water source, you need to move that water to the well itself. There's two main ways to go about this.

=== Bucket Filling a Well ===

If you designate your well as a pit/pond and have empty buckets, dwarves will fill the well manually. Keep in mind that this is slow, time-consuming and occupies dwarves who could be doing something else. Of course, for particularly small wells, it may be of no concern. If the walking distance is quite far, (Like STUPIDLY far- your fortress would need to be a truly tangled maze for this to happen) the water may evaporate faster than dwarves can fill the well.

=== Piping water to your reservoir ===

If the water is not where you want to build the well, you can dig a tunnel or channel and/or otherwise create an [[aqueduct]] to bring it to where you want it. You should consider adding a door or floodgate somewhere near the water source so that you can dry out your tunnels for future projects, repair, or recovery of lost items.

Channels are open to the sky, and if not done properly, (taking advantage of some weird quirks in game functionality) they are subject to evaporation and freezing. As a result, they aren't normally an optimal method of moving water. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from digging a moat, then filling your well from that. Keep in mind, however, that open water frequently becomes a random hazard, as dwarves can be quite careless at times. If you do have open water set up somewhere, make sure your dwarves have some way out of it. You never know when a random goblin will kick your elite stonecrafter into your moat.

Digging tunnels, then, is generally a better way of moving water from place to place. You need to be careful about how you dig such aqueducts. Water can move through diagonal openings, so be sure to avoid flooding nearby rooms from accidental corner intersections. Make sure that any unnecessary access points to your aqueduct are properly sealed before letting the water flow.

The generally accepted method for digging an aqueduct has five steps.

1. Dig out the reservoir where you want to store the water.

2. From the reservoir, dig a tunnel up to your water source, but leave one space of earth to prevent water from flooding in and killing your dwarf.

3. Build a door or floodgate in the aqueduct, either at the end of the tunnel or at the entrance to the reservoir. Or both if you're fancy. (Doors are better, because the dwarf can walk through it if he builds it from the wrong side)

4. Connect the door/floodgate to a lever, and make sure any dwarves stuck in the tunnel are safely evicted.

5. Channel out the final tile from above, pull the lever. Let the water fill the reservoir, then pull the lever again, sealing the water source.

Keep in mind, when you command the lever to be pulled to end filling, it may take some time for an available dwarf to actually do it. Even then, there is some lag time between the lever pull and the action it causes. Finally, if your plug is at some point in the aqueduct, but not at the entrance of the reservoir, any water in the aqueduct above the water level in the reservoir will continue to pour in.

If you want to empty the aqueduct, use a similar method to build a drain to some reasonable dumping location, like a cavern. Make sure you can control it with levers, however, or it will constantly drain instead of filling your well.

== Safety ==

A well is not an obstructing object. That is to say, it doesn't stop things from passing through its space. This is why wells can function through other wells, why water will flood out of them, why a (very) few monsters may be able to climb out through them if you're tremendously unlucky, and why dwarves and animals frequently fall in.

=== Flooding ===

More fortresses have fallen at the hands of a flooding well than they have to megabeasts, sieges or demons. If you are going to be shifting water around in any form other than buckets, be prepared for the worst.

There are several solutions to the flooding problem.

1. Overflow Drainage. At the top of a reservoir, dig a tunnel to drain water out the side, and have it dump out into some appropriate sump, like a cavern full of armok-knows-what.

2. Emergency auto-plug. You can make pressure plates sense water. If you set up a pressure plate beside your well, and connect it to a hatch or door blocking your reservoir, it will automatically seal the reservoir off from its flow source, should the thing flood.

3. No Exits. The safest and easiest way to do it, is to dig out the reservoir, ''but not the opening for the well itself''. This way, you can fill the reservoir completely, and because there's nowhere for it to flood out to, it simply WON'T! Then you can seal off the reservoir at your leisure and dig the opening without concern! (Though not without caution. Make sure you turned the taps off first.)

=== Falling ===

The main problem is that while dwarves will normally walk around random holes in the ground, a well is treated as a "passable" tile. It's what allows them to use the well itself. However, this doesn't stop them from simply walking across its space and falling through the hole it was built over. And because there's no such thing as buoyancy or water resistance yet, dwarves fall through water at the same rate they would through air. Meaning the deeper your reservoir, the bigger the splatter they make at the bottom. The following are all suggestions which decrease the likelihood of anyone falling into a well. Keep in mind what you want to use the well for, however. There's little point of making a high value well if nobody will ever see it.

1. Put it somewhere out of the way. If your dwarves don't have any reason to path over it, they won't fall into it.

2. Surround it with restricted traffic control. Then dwarves will be less likely to actually walk over it, even if they do go through that area.

3. Don't make it a meeting hall, or people will throw parties at it, and dwarves don't really care about traffic, when they're on break/partying/nojob, because they aren't trying to find the fastest route to their task, because they don't have a task. Also, animals like to ignore traffic control.

4. For the same reasons, don't put it ''in'' a meeting hall.

5. Don't put it in a barracks, or around other places where dwarves may be fighting for any reason, as dwarves don't look before they leap.

6. Making a well so it's at the end of a hall, with only one tile dwarves can stand on next to it, will dramatically decrease the chances of anything ever falling in. because then the only reason anything could have to go there, is to use the well, which does not involve standing ON the well.

7. Making a well's reservoir shallow, but wide, is also a good idea, I think. A wider reservoir holds a LOT of water, and takes a LONG time to dry out. If a reservoir is shallow, that means a dwarf will only fall one level or so, which can only cause momentary unconsciousness at the worst. That means your dwarves won't fall down the well, break their leg and drown.

8. Making an escape route from a well is probably also a good idea.

=== Monsters ===

You don't need to worry too much about monsters crawling out of your well to gobble down your hairy friends these days, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. It all depends on what beasts may be lurking around- and how you build your well.

First off, if you're bucket-filling a well, you need to make sure that their initial water source is safe. Make sure it isn't full of crocodiles or carp. (Or other dangerous fishy things)

If you are draining water through an aqueduct, and you know there may be dangerous animals (Or even just unwanted regular animals) living in it, there is a way to stop them from wandering in. You can place [[Grate|wall grates]], [[Bars|upright bars]], or [[fortification]]s in the aqueduct to act as filters. These allow water to pass through, but animals cannot. It has been observed that in very rare occasions, animal may be pushed through. If you're that concerned about it (Or have HORDES of angry crocodiles in your river) putting two filters in a row pretty much eliminates any chance of this happening. If you plan to use filters in conjunction with [[floodgate]]s, remember to connect your floodgate to its trigger ''before'' placing the filters.

Even if monsters do get into your well, they're rarely a genuine threat, and at worst can give your dwarves an unhappy thought by scaring them. However, if your reservoir is filled right to the brim, carp and other fish CAN attack your dwarves, just as they would from a river. Also, any amphibious creatures may be able to use an escape passage to make their way into your fortress and make a mess. (Keep in mind, zombified fish are amphibious) And, of course, anyone who falls into a well full of predators is pretty much doomed.

To prevent amphibians from getting out of your well, should they somehow get there, simply put a lockable hatch over the escape route.

Finally, if you are drawing directly from a cavern lake, and have simply opened a hole in its ceiling for the well, any flying creatures in the cavern may be able to use the well as an access point to your fortress. You could potentially construct a wall surrounding the pathway of the bucket. This would prevent flying creatures from entering, unless they are also capable of swimming. Do not forget the perils of dwarves falling into a well, however, falling into a cavern lake full of cave crocodiles will cause lots of fun.

== Above Ground ==

The previous sections focused mostly on subterranean wells and gravity-filling reservoirs. Now we need to consider the special circumstances of wells built at ground level, above ground level, and simply outdoors.

The main problem is that anything above what was ground level at embark is considered "above ground" and has different behavior, even if enclosed to be indoors. In particular, it will freeze and evaporate according to the temperature. This includes everything on level 0 and -1, unless there is something about them preventing the temperature from removing them, like rivers flowing faster than the water can evaporate out of them.

Enclosing the water, so that it is "indoors" will decrease the rate of evaporation, but there isn't much you can do to prevent water from freezing above ground. (There is a way, but if you're new, you may not enjoy [[#Fighting the Ice|the prospects of actually constructing it]].)

=== Outdoor Wells ===

There are plenty of good reasons to build a well outdoors. First and foremost, to be decorative or thematic. The wells don't necessarily need to be functional if this is your intent. But another use would be as a functional source for an outdoor meeting hall... Or in other words, a vomitorium. Because dwarves will clean themselves in a well, having one in such a vomitorium would just make things more efficient!

Of course, as with any outdoor meeting place, you need to be certain that it is a safe place, where goblins and giant eagles are unlikely to descend upon your sickly party-goers.

=== On The Level ===

Now, about ground level, or specifically, the place where "above ground" and "below ground" meet. Z-levels 0 and -1 on flat maps. If you are on a very cold or very hot map, any water open to the sky on these levels will freeze or evaporate very quickly. As said before, you can minimize this by simply roofing in the water and making it "indoors".

Also keep in mind the floor type. Murky pools, even when roofed over, will behave as though they are open to the sky. This is because murky pools, rivers, oceans, etc. all have a special floor tile which modifies the behavior of any water above it. Simply putting floor tiles on the basin of a murky pool can minimize evaporation, but it will eliminate rain refill.

If you dig a channel down to z-2, the water in it will not evaporate very quickly at all, as it's "under ground".

=== In the Sky ===

And now for the final type of well, and this one is very uncommon, you may wish to build a well high above ground. A well tower may indeed be a cool, though completely non-functional idea. Be aware what the environmental conditions are before you do this, of course, as the only real way of dealing with ice involves pumping magma up the tower as well.

In all honesty, a sky well would be built and function pretty much the same as a subterranean well. The only difference is that it is very difficult to get the water up there. You need to build a pumpstack, lifting the water, level by level, pump by pump, up to your reservoir. And you need to lift the water to the top of your reservoir, as pumps will not pump upward naturally.

== Step by Step ==

A guide explaining the exact processes to go through when building the main well types and their infrastructure.

=== The Well Itself ===

So you're really new, you've read the well page, and you're still a little lost? Well, not to worry! We like our newbies! So we're gonna' show you exactly what needs to be done to just build a well from scratch. Keep in mind that a lot of this can be sped up by buying the materials at embark or from a caravan, rather than making them yourself. This is especially true with the restraint component.

Essentially, the components are: '''Rope | Bucket | Block | Mechanism'''

1. Start digging up stone. You need a dwarf with the miner skill enabled and a pickaxe. You need to dig through stone layers to get stone, as dirt yields nothing. The miner will leave rubble behind him. These are your primary building materials.

2. Start chopping down trees. You need a dwarf with the woodcutter skill enabled and a battle axe to do this. Each tree chopped down leaves a log. You'll need this for other components.

3. Set up an underground farm plot and cover it in water. It only needs a dusting of 1/7. Once it's been covered, drain it. It should now be muddy and will allow you to plant things on it. In order to plant seeds and make the farm plot, you'll need a dwarf with the grower skill enabled. Make sure you have pig tail seeds.

4. The pig tail seeds grow into pig tails, which can be processed into thread and turned into ropes for the well. Alternatively, if you run into metal ore, you can make a chain. But that process is even more complex, and there are plenty better uses for chains, so we'll stick with the rope.

5. Now you need a dwarf with the thresher skill enabled and a farmer's workshop set up. Set it to process plants. He will take any available pig tails and turn them into thread.

6. Next you need a weaver and a loom. The weaver will automatically turn thread into fabric at a loom. Yes, you need to make sheets of fabric into ropes, no it doesn't make much sense.

7. Now you need a dwarf with the clothier skill and a clothier's shop. Have the clothier make ropes. He'll use whatever fabric is available to him.

8. Have a mason make a stone block at the mason's workshop.

9. Have a carpenter make a bucket at the carpenter's workshop.

10. Have a mechanic make a mechanism at the mechanic's workshop.

11. Channel out a one-square hole in the ground. This is an example location, to show how a well is to be oriented to actually be built.

12. Build the well. It needs to be placed on the hole. Not in the hole, not above the hole, but directly on it. A well needs at least one adjacent floor tile, and must be built over empty space. Select your block, bucket, mechanism and rope. (Or chain if you went that route)

13. Once that's done, the well designation will just sit there. You need a dwarf with the architect skill to design it. Once he's done, the appropriate worker will drop in and finish building the thing.

It takes 10 skilled dwarves and 6 workshops to build the base materials for one well from scratch. Of course, all of its materials can simply be bought, speeding the process up a fair bit. However, keep in mind that all of its components have value. Value which can be increased. A gem-encrusted masterpiece bucket with a gem encrusted masterpiece platinum chain, with a gem encrusted masterpiece mechanism, with legendary architectural skill and legendary construction, can be of insanely high value. As a result, you can engineer them to artificially increase the value of your fortress very quickly, once you have the infrastructure to do so.

=== Murky Pools ===

A relatively large and deep murky that has not been contaminated will work. You will want to build a wall around the pool to prevent contamination and creatures using it to access your fortress. Next build a reservoir one level below the murky pool. Remember that part of your reservoir will have to be directly below the spot you want to build your well. Make the reservoir fairly small as murky pools do not hold much water. If you make the reservoir to large you will just end up with a muddy floor. Drain the water into the reservoir. Once it has filled, you can build your well on an available square directly above your reservoir.

=== Brooks ===

Brooks are nice. We'll show you why!

=== Rivers ===

Rivers are different from brooks, in that they have things living in them and are a little more dangerous to be around.

=== Oceans ===

This explains the salinity glitch with oceans again, and discusses how to safely draw water from an ocean.

=== Aquifers ===

This section explains why the only thing aquifers are good for, are wells.

=== Flooded Caverns ===

This will discuss different methods of utilizing water from flooded caverns, specifically for the construction of a well, safely.

=== Water Falls ===

If you have a waterfall on your map, you are truly lucky. You can do so many cool things with waterfalls, it's enough to make a dwarf consider crying, just this once, maybe, if nobody's looking. But, here, we'll show some step-by-step ideas for how to use waterfalls to make awesome wells.

=== Reservoirs ===

So, you've decided you need to store water elsewhere, eh? Well, I can't blame you. Here's some discussion about the traits a reservoir can have, how to build them without trapping your dwarves, safety concerns, escape routes, and a discussion on effective filling methods.

=== Bucket Filling ===

This talks about how to go about bucket filling a well, the benefits of doing so, and the problems therein.

=== Aqueducts ===

This talks about how to build several generic aqueducts, drawing from different types of sources. Specifically, gravity-draining above-ground sources and pumping upward from subterranean sources.

=== Drainage ===

This talks about what drains are used for, why you might want them, and then how to build several types of functional drain mechanisms.

== Style and Design ==

This section discusses purely aesthetic and functional decisions people have made in the past with their wells, as well as advanced designs.

=== Fighting the Ice ===

So you have a frozen well, and you want to know how to keep it liquid do ya? You're going to need to build a heated reservoir.

First, have magma on your map. If you don't, dig deeper and be prepared for [[Fun]].

Next, you need some [[magma-safe]] materials. You'll need this to build floodgates and pumps.

Now, you need to pipe and pump the magma with the magma-safe pumping equipment. Be sure to use mechanical power for these, as dwarves are too likely to kill themselves.

The magma needs to be piped under your reservoir. That is to say, there needs to be just one floor tile between the two, just enough to keep them from touching and turning into an accidental obsidian factory.

The magma needs to be piped around under your water, it needs to keep on moving or the water will freeze again. That means it needs an infinite, cyclical flow.

And even if you get all of this built and working, it will only melt one level. Which means the reservoir can only be 1 level deep.

That's a lot of work to have an above-ground well in a frozen environment. Probably easier to melt a pool and drain it.

=== Ultimate Party Machine ===

It is possible to pour water through the mouth of a well from above. This frequently causes water to spray out in a mist, which pleases dwarves. If you power it, you could have a pump stack draw water from beneath the well and pour it back in from above, turning your fancy meeting hall into a FANCIER meeting hall! Throw in some platinum statues while you're at it.

=== Well Stacking ===

Have you ever needed to have more than one well on multiple z-levels and disliked the work of setting up multiple reservoirs? Well fret no more!

Because a well can function through the opening of another well, it's possible to stack well openings through z-levels! So long as they're all in a perfectly straight line above each other, and there's at least 3/7 tiles of water somewhere directly below them, they will all be perfectly functional!

Of course, if you go too far, this may become something of a safety concern, as dwarves would plummet mile after mile, through dozens of well openings before finally hitting the bottom.

=== Multitasking Wells ===

Because wells aren't actually USED all that often, and are usually more valuable as decorations, there isn't really any reason to keep its reservoir completely full all the time. So, what can you do with a giant bucket of water in the middle of your fortress? Well, luckily, there are a few other reasons you could have for piping water around.

First, you need to "irrigate" underground floors before you can actually farm on them. Instead of making a separate, elaborate irrigation system for just one use, (mud doesn't dry naturally, though it could be smoothed/floored over and disappears when reclaiming a fortress) why not just drain it out of your well?

You could also use your well as a water reservoir for an obsidian factory. Fill a chamber with a single layer of magma, then pour your well's contents over it!

You could use your well to dispose of unwanted life forms, such as siegers, elves, goblins, nobles and other miscellaneous things that wandered into your cage traps. (This only works on non-amphibious creatures)

=== The Dwarven Toilet ===

I built this in an experiment. At the top of the reservoir is a platform with a pressure plate on it. When the pressure plate senses 5/7 water, it triggers, closing the fill pipe, and opening the drain. So, when you pull the lever to fill the thing, it fills up to the top, then drains. Just like a giant toilet. I have not found any functional use for this. In all honesty, it was a simple accident I made, connecting the pressure plate to the drain as well as the plug. But, hey, what the heck, I made a giant toilet. There ya' go. Perhaps you could use this to get rid of the crud that accumulates in a well as dwarves clean themselves in it?

This can be VERY useful when you have a larger reservoir that fills your well. This way every pull of the lever delivers a set amount of water into your well. Thus eliminating1 the risk of flooding due to the well becoming pressurized. 
1Beware dwarves that throw tantrums, they randomly pull levers.

User:Dree12/Sandbox

2012-07-04T03:52:20Z

Daonitre: /* Miners */

====Training: self-sorting migrants====
When you get a new wave of 10 or 30 migrants, especially early on, what jobs do you give them? If they have obvious [[Preference|likes or dislikes]], you can go with those - if they like "steel", they'll be a [[weaponsmith]] or [[armorsmith]], if they like aluminum or platinum, maybe a [[metal crafter]], and so on. But for those who have no such special talents, you may want a bunch to become military, both weaponsdwarves and marksdwarves, and some to become haulers — who's who?

The answer is - let ''them'' decide, by what [[attribute]]s they gain. Haulers need some strength if they're hauling stone (and [[furnace operator]]s are not hurt by it either). Toughness is not immediately useful to anyone out of combat, but is critical to survive military training and surviving and healing from combat injuries. Agility helps anyone, giving more actions/time spent, which includes a faster movement across distances. So put any migrants who are not obviously ear-marked into a quick training program - have them [[mining|mine]] soil for a season, or work on [[pump]]s, or assign them as your [[bookkeeper]] or [[stone detailing|smoothing stone]], whatever works for you. After a few attribute gains, see where they are - send your Toughest into sparring for weaponry, your most Agile into hauling, your Strong/Agile into crossbow training, and so on. (Note - metal crossbows plus bolts weigh much more than a hand-weapon, as much as half the armor itself!) Agile makes anyone "faster", both walking and many tasks, so that is up to you to place where you want it most.

:''(* A Very Strong dwarf can carry most any single stone, though it takes a Mighty dwarf to carry platinum or gold ore without slowing down. A full suit of plate layered over chain armor weighs a staggering amount, but [[Armor user]] can negate part or even (at Legendary) all of that. A metal crossbow, metal bolts and backup quiver can be lugged by any unarmored dwarf, but don't allow much margin for additional armor.''

Remember that the three attributes are chosen at random, and a dwarf will gain more with military or any additional training ("Hauling" doesn't give any experience). Also, [[soldier]]s that have any full rank in a civilian skill don't get bad thoughts when de-Activated, are more useful when there is no threat. Similarly, civilians who have a full rank in a combat skill get no bad thoughts when suddenly Activated when the need arises. This can be used to create civilian "reservists" who can be called upon when needed, military with a civilian application, or in a quick-and-dirty program, civilians who can better defend themselves when necessary - wood cutters with some [[40d:Axedwarf|Axedwarf]], or miners with extra [[wrestling]] for when their picks get stuck in a [[goblin]] - even a few ranks can make a big difference in an [[ambush]]. There is a reason Sparta had so many citizen-soldiers.

====Gobbo season open!====
It can be a fairly decent idea to keep mass numbers of cheaply-made crossbows (or your lower-quality rejects) and bone/wood bolts on hand, and all expendable dwarves in one mass military squad set to use crossbows (and leather armor, if you have enough). What [[skill|dabbling]] marksdwarves lack in speed and accuracy, they more than make up for with incredible enthusiasm, as a hailstorm of pathetically-aimed bolts will tear over anything stupid enough to move. Not nearly as effective or useful as properly-emplaced marksdwarves with high skill and proper equipment, but a good emergency measure, especially if you keep your [[craftsdwarf|craftsdwarves]] busy churning out cheap ammo from spare bones from the [[kitchen]]s and cheap crossbows from fishbones from the [[dining hall]].

====Non-hunting hunters====
Sometime you will embark in an area devoid of (huntable) wildlife. In that case, you can turn on the [[Hunting]] skill for all civilians and use the {{k|m}}ilitary menu to arm (and more importantly, armor and shield) them. Normally turning on hunting will cause dwarves to wander outside looking for wildlife, and turning it on on all your dwarves would delay your economy greatly - but without wildlife, no hunting jobs are generated, and they go about their business armed and armored. Note that if X number of hunt-able animals do appear on the map, that many dwarves will then go hunt them. Do note that hunters will sleep on the ground when they are tired instead of walking to a bed, which will result in unhappy thoughts.

====Woodcutters====
Any dwarf with the Woodcutting labor designated will carry an axe, even when they are not cutting wood. If one (or more) of your starting seven have one rank or more of [[axedwarf]], no unhappy [[thought]]s will be generated if they are drafted into active service. This dwarf might serve to fill several or all above-ground activities, such as Plant Gathering, Architecture and Masonry for bridges and defensive walls, above ground farming, and any hauling, as well as wood cutting. Later, a squad of dedicated woodcutters, possibly with some training in axedwarf, masonry and other skills, can respond en masse to orders to cut trees, providing mutual support and finishing off a large section of trees and getting back to safety that much faster. Actually training them in axedwarf is optional, but certainly helps.

Note that so long as you have no tree {{k|d}}esignated for cutting (or have no [[path]] to those trees), the woodcutters will not respond. However, if you do, as many woodcutters as trees will respond to those locations - it's recommended that if/when you do, you centralize the designations to allow them to more fully support each other.

===Miners===
The above tactic can also be used with Miners. When you activate a miner with a [[pick]] into the military with no weapon designated, they fight with the pick they are holding and their skill is their [[mining]] - and it's not hard for a miner to gain legendary miner skill quite quickly. Parallel problems arise when designating areas to be mined, but careful use of locked doors or hatches on mineshafts can prevent too many from responding to an area to be excavated.

A dwarf will hold ''either'' an axe or a pick, depending on which labor is activated - it's not possible to activate both at once; the game does not allow it.

1) Build your fortress so that your entrance(s) have fortifications where you can position marksdwarves. Train marksdwarves as your primary defense first, unless you've got a large undead threat. 4-8 marksdwarves w/ ammo stockpiles nearby will eliminate most threats for the first few years.

2) Build a few sets of pumps that don't connect to anything. Select your melee dwarves, but before you draft them, assign them to do nothing but pump operation until they achieve legendary pump operator status. This will give them much better stats when they eventually do become champions. <s>and are far less likely to be injured during sparing if they have excellent stats and armor.</s> Sparring now "lightly taps" the opponent, no real chance of harming other dwarves.

2a) Craft some <s><nowiki><no-quality></nowiki> silver weapons for your dwarves to practice with, so they {{subst:subl|Weapon#Damage calculation|aren't as dangerous}}. ''(See {{subst:subl|strange mood}}s for related advice on this.)''</s> weapons from whatever material you have at hand, remember to upgrade it later. Silver is the best for warhammers; focus on Steel, (Iron/Bronze), Copper - in that order of preference for basically everything else. <s> Once they achieve champion status, switch them to Unarmed, then forbid every weapon except the one you want them to use, and swtich them back to their primary weapon type. Great armor + good stats + crappy weapons = relatively safe sparring.</s> (Not only does this part make no sense, but legendary wielders quickly gain a preference for the weapon they use: If that happens you give them a very bad thought for taking away their prize possession; Instead, train them in what you want them to be using, then upgrade the weapon type as soon as possible - preferably before they become legendary. Alternative method of leveling, following the (older) [[http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Captured_creatures]] page set up an arena training room, strip the targets of weapons and armor (doesn't work great on animals obviously), and beat them with training weapons. ...if you're looking to only have them be brutally effective with a pick, then assign them the "Pick (Foreign)" [W]eapon within the [m]ilitary [e]quip list. It's common for them to drop it (as a mining tool) and pick it or another back up (as a weapon) or opposite as they switch between miner and militia. While extremely deadly (Arguably overpowered) to enemies, the light taps caused by sparring are still harmless. ''There was some talk in DF2012 about easily angered dwarves effectively berserking on their sparring opponents if losing the bout voiding the light taps, so try to avoid placing dwarves with no self control into positions to be sparring while in a poor mood in case this is correct.''

3) Try to get a legendary armorsmith and weaponsmith (use [q]->hover over forge->[P]->select the specific builder to avoid allowing random people to switch out crafting, this streamlines the primary crafter leveling but slightly slows production... you can build a burrow ([w]) and have others bring him food and water while providing him an assigned bed nearby to speed it up a little.). Exceptional / Masterwork steel armor will keep your champions quite safe, and a masterwork steel weapons will devastate your foes.

4) Important safety tip: If you send your dwarves outside to fight, build ramps out of every lake on the map. Nothing is more depressing that watching your invulnerable champion drown. Or better yet give their barracks a constant 1/7 to 2/7 of water, they'll learn to swim while training normally -- as well as increasing their stats further. More often than not if they end up in the water something is attached to them, better they know how to hold their breath than trying to squirm four squares away while being held in place drowning.

v0.34 Talk:Captured creatures

2012-07-04T03:00:54Z

Daonitre:

Is the command to capture animals described anywhere else? This might be a good place for it. [[User:USP45|USP45]] 01:29, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I just made an account for the first time since I started playing around 2005 to say that deletion of this page is ridiculous. Every time I come back to the game I find myself relearning almost everything (and using a different texture pack hehe)... The previous versions of this page are incredibly helpful in the amount of info directly relating to fun things to do with captured creatures. In response to above: Since when was there a command to capture animals? Are you referring to the animal traps used to catch /vermin/? That part is mentioned in the 'Animal Traps' page I believe, if we're talking about the same thing. ...now how do I sign this thing... --[[User:Daonitre|Daonitre]] 03:00, 4 July 2012 (UTC)