40d Talk:Carp

King of the Animals?

There is another contender for the position of King of the Animals, and this one is land-based. --BDR 14:42, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

Hmm, what about the other fish? sea lampreys? pike? etc? what about them? Do they just get shunted, and their named champions brushed aside?

I was going to propose the eagles that seem untargetable as they fly in, grab a dwarf, then drop him from a dizzying height whereupon he spats into chunks on the ground.--Draco18s 03:45, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

Well, until Toady lets carp and elephants fight each other to settle this once and for all, perhaps carp should be King of the Sea and elephants King of the Land. Eagles can have King of the Air.--Xazak 19:53, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

Wait! I've just realized. Have you ever seen a carp and an elephant sitting at the same table?! NO! They're the same person! It makes so much sense. Everything fits. I have to go tell people... 128.250.224.97 12:53, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, wonder if you can have those eagles tamed. Dwarven air force anyone? --frostedfire 10:02, 9 November 2007 (AEDT)

All the other types of hostile fish (e.g. longnose gar, pike, etc) are just as dangerous as carp, or were the last time I had a fort on a river infested by them (it was a "major river" which was only 4 or 5 tiles wide, had about 3 different kinds of hostile fish, and no carp). --SL 12:06, 29 July 2008 (EDT)

Solen > carp. Who'd win--a fish, or this? ~ Midna 13:18, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

Biome/habitat

It might be worth noting somewhere that you only seem to get "dangerous" fish if you have an actual river (or coastline?). If you only have a brook and murky pools, you get our old friends turtles and salmon who never attack or scare anyone. From what I can tell, salmon, turtles, and char seem to be classified as vermin, not creatures, so they don't freak out the dwarfs. The aquifer seems safe too, though that may depend on what other water sources are nearby.

Can anyone confirm or refute? -- Angela Christine 19:32, 9 November 2007 (EST)

From what I've seen, this is correct. While starting and abandoning several fortresses trying to get the handle of making machines and other devious devices, 5 out of 5 fortresses started next to brooks generated no dangerous fish, while 3 of the 4 started next to major rivers and 2 out of 2 started on the coast had my poor dwarves molested by those vile things. --TheUbie 01:57, 18 November 2007 (EST)

Brooks cannot contain fish because they don't exist on two z-levels, at least that's what I've seen. No fish. --Vanan 00:52, 26 November 2007 (EST)

Brooks exist on z-levels the same way rivers do, however brook tiles are filled with rock which means no fish can be in them (and is why dwarves can walk on them). Channeling a brook so it shows 'real' water will cause it to occasionally get fish like all other pools of water, however large fish such as carp never seem to migrate onto the map so you won't get any of them, just the small 'vermin' fish. --BurnedToast 00:14, 5 December 2007 (EST)

Brooks don't have "river" biome. Creatures (vermin included) are generated in biomes. That's why no goats spawn in your fortress, but olms do, if you have corridor near cave river. If you flooded entire river with magma, and then refilled it with water carp would probably respawn. --Someone-else 17:25, 9 May 2008 (EDT)

Almost all fish do not scare dwarves, but undead versions do. Hoborobo 07:26, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

Carp symbols

I was only curious, since the wiki article lacked a picture, and me and some others would like to know, what does the carp look like in game. Thank you for the help beforehand.

Please do sign your edits with ~~~~. At any rate, the fish icon is best described as such: three quarters of an infinity sign. Plain meat has the same symbol. --GreyMario 15:01, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

I'd say it looks like an alpha sign. Almost all fishes are blue-colored because they count as underwater. --Someone-else 17:25, 9 May 2008 (EDT)

Salmon are pink though Hoborobo 06:44, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

Butchering?

Has anyone managed to butcher a carp, and if so what do you get from it? --GreyMario 15:01, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

I've never managed it, but I've only had carp once. Next time I get them I'll cheat really fast and dam the river to see what I can do with the air-drowned carp afterwards.--Eurytus 21:56, 2 April 2008 (EST)

New Version

In the new version, I have had two fortresses right next to a river filled chock full of carp, and have yet to see a dwarf even get a scrape from one. Have they been toned down to more 'realistic' strength, or have I been obscenely lucky? --Mabmoro 10:37, 29 July 2008 (EDT)

Can you say what version it is? Hoborobo 06:43, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

I dont recall the version number, but so far in v0.28.181.39f, I havent gotten it either. None of the more recent versions have had aggressive carp, unless they were floating skeleton carp.

I also checked the raws- they're the same for damage... maybe its a hardcoded difference?--mabmoro 12:50, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

Rest assured, carp and other fish are still most certainly deadly. At least, at the time of the question. I can't confirm yet if 39e and 39f had any serious changes, but 39d still boasts deadly, deadly fish so I would assume the latter versions do as well.

It's just tricky. They don't always strike, and the dwarf actually has be standing right at the river's edge for the carp to take notice. Fisherdwarves, of course, fill this role quite nicely.

I've got a named carp floating in my river that's got about four kills under it's belt, as well as managed to catch and drag in a random mountain goat. That thing is evil incarnate... it won't even fall for my fishkilling trap. --Lightning4 02:10, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

I had assorted fish types (gar, pike, lampreys, carp) in the river outside of my fortress. They managed to kill 3-4 dwarves before I could get some marksdwarves to take care of them. I can confirm that fish, carp included, are still aggressive in the latest version (as of this post). Spoggerific 14:46, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

Hunters

Can hunters kill carp? Random832 12:26, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

Depends on if they're close enough to the water to aim at said carp. --GreyMaria 18:54, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

Will they take it out of the water to return their kill? Gairabad 20:37, 15 November 2008 (EST)

In Adventurer mode, you need to be standing directly on top of an item in order to grab it. Since dwarves will refuse to path through water (except when they're already in it [and ESPECIALLY when they're swimming]), no. --GreyMaria 20:49, 15 November 2008 (EST)

E-Z

so I just had a novice axedwarf slaughter a pond full of carp in 10 seconds, and then he drowned. I had another pool with a sturgeon, and this guy took 3 dwarves lives before the next killed him. The water than took his life. So why are carp given the honorable title of "king of the sea"? what makes them different from sturgeon and the like? They really aren't that scary, if you know how to deal with them.--Destor 22:22, 24 December 2008 (EST)

I'd say it's because of the ludicrousness. Sure, sturgeon are deadly -- deadly as any other toothy carnivore bigger than a bear. They earned their place in the food chain. Carp on the other hand are cat-sized goldfish that suck down dwarven children like unlucky flies. Pound for pound, carp win. --Corona688 20:48, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Some carp can get pretty big: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/article6737929.ece Iapetus 22:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

oh, and the guy who got the sturgeon was basically the same as the other, might have had a different attribute or something, but this was a fresh reclaim of a fresh fortress. (that I made to test using gear assemblies and the like, but then flooded it.)--Destor 22:24, 24 December 2008 (EST)

Fighting like a cornered carp

Note that while carp found in murky pools seem to fiercely defend their territory
(believing themselves to be cornered), those that swim through rivers generally 
prefer to flee from dwarves rather than fight. 

Interesting observation - but should that read "flee from armed dwarves..."? Don't river-carp still predate on unarmed fisherfolk/etc when the opportunity presents itself?--Albedo 18:31, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I did a test in order to refute a claim made on the Fishing talk page (suggesting that carp were no longer dangerous) where I sent seven dwarves fishing by a carp-infested river - the carp (and pike and gar and sturgeons) would immediately swim away (while my dwarves would cancel fishing but then immediately resume - fishing is ultra high priority, for some reason), occasionally swimming in closer but then usually fleeing again, only rarely going in for an attack. However, once I tried the same with a murky pool containing several carp, each of the dwarves got torn to shreds almost instantly (the first one was reduced to 36 chunks and a severed lower left leg). Given that carp are not defined as predators, it makes sense that they were behaving like other animals such as elk and groundhogs, only attacking when provoked (or, in this case, cornered). --Quietust 19:28, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Good point - I'm convinced. But you should run the same experiment it with 1 dwarf, not 7, and a river. Animals sometimes can sense "the odds" if outnumbered. I have full confidence the outcome is predictable - but pro forma it should be run anyway to be thorough.--Albedo 21:04, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

When I did the experiment, I sent the dwarves fishing one by one. --Quietust 23:02, 3 November 2009 (UTC)