autobutcher.rst

autobutcher

.. dfhack-tool::
    :summary: Automatically butcher excess livestock.
    :tags: fort auto fps animals

This plugin monitors how many pets you have of each gender and age and assigns excess livestock for slaughter. See gui/autobutcher for an in-game interface. Units are protected from being automatically butchered if they are:

• Untamed
• Named or nicknamed
• Caged, if and only if the cage is in a zone (to protect zoos)
• Trained for war or hunting
• Females who are pregnant or brooding a clutch of fertile eggs

Creatures that are least useful for animal breeding programs are marked for slaughter first. That is:

• Creatures who will not reproduce (because they're not interested in the opposite sex or have been gelded) will be butchered before those who will
• Creatures that are only partially trained will be butchered before those who are fully domesticated.
• Older adults will be butchered before younger adults.
• Younger juveniles will be butchered before juveniles that are closer to becoming adults.

The default targets are: 2 male kids, 4 female kids, 2 male adults, and 4 female adults. Note that you may need to set a target above 1 to have a reliable breeding population due to asexuality etc.

Nestboxes module extends autobutcher functionality to monitoring and protection of fertile eggs. It facilitates steady supplay of eggs protected for breading purposes while maintaining egg based food production. With default settings it will forbid fertile eggs in claimed nestboxes up to 4 + number of annimals missing to autobutcher target. This will allow for larger number of hatchilings in initial breadin program phase when increasing livestock. When population reaches intended target only base amount of eggs will be left for breading purpose. It is possible to alter this behaviour and compleatly stop protection of eggs when population target is reached. In case of clutch larger than needed target eggs will be split in two separate stacks and only one of them forbidden. Check for forbidding eggs is made when fertile eggs are laid for one of watched races.

Usage

enable autobutcher

Start processing livestock according to the configuration. Note that no races are watched by default. You have to add the ones you want to monitor with autobutcher watch, autobutcher target or autobutcher autowatch.

autobutcher [list]

Print status and current settings, including the watchlist. This is the default command if autobutcher is run without parameters.

autobutcher autowatch

Automatically add all new races (animals you buy from merchants, tame yourself, or get from migrants) to the watch list using the default target counts. This option is enabled by default.

autobutcher noautowatch

Stop auto-adding new races to the watch list.

autobutcher target <fk> <mk> <fa> <ma> all|new|<race> [<race> ...]

Set target counts for the specified races: - fk = number of female kids - mk = number of male kids - fa = number of female adults - ma = number of female adults If you specify all, then this command will set the counts for all races on your current watchlist (including the races which are currently set to 'unwatched') and sets the new default for future watch commands. If you specify new, then this command just sets the new default counts for future watch commands without changing your current watchlist. Otherwise, all space separated races listed will be modified (or added to the watchlist if they aren't there already).

autobutcher watch all|<race> [<race> ...]

Start watching the listed races. If they aren't already in your watchlist, then they will be added with the default target counts. If you specify the keyword all, then all races in your watchlist that are currently marked as unwatched will become watched.

autobutcher unwatch all|<race> [<race> ...]

Stop watching the specified race(s) (or all races on your watchlist if all is given). The current target settings will be remembered.

autobutcher forget all|<race> [<race> ...]

Unwatch the specified race(s) (or all races on your watchlist if all is given) and forget target settings for it/them.

autobutcher now

Process all livestock according to the current watchlist configuration, even if the plugin is not currently enabled, and thus not doing automatic periodic scans.

autobutcher list_export

Print commands required to set the current settings in another fort.

autobutcher nestboxes enable (autobutcher nb e) autobutcher nestboxes disable (autobutcher nb d)

It is possible to enable/ disable autobutcher nestboxes module.

autobutcher nestboxes ignore <true/false> (autobutcher nb i <1/0>)

By default nestboxes module respects main plugin's enabled status, autowatch and watched status for specific races. It is possible to allow nestboxes module to ignore that and work on it's own. In case like that missing animal count will not be added to target of protected eggs.

autobutcher nestboxes target <race> <base_target> <ama> <stop> <watched> autobutcher nb t <race> <base_target> <ama> <stop> <watched>

Nestboxes target command allows to change how script handles specific animal race, DEFAULT settings for new races or ALL curently watched races and default value for new ones. <race> parameter accepts "DEFAULT", "ALL", creature id (e.g. BIRD_TURKEY) or race id (190 for Turkey) <base_target> base number of fertile eggs that will be protected by frobidding them in nestboxes. Default 4. <ama> true/false value, if set to true animal count missing to autobutcher popualtion targets will be added to base target for protected eggs. Default true. <stop> if set to true module will stop protection of eggs for race as long as population target is maintained. Default true. <watched> If eggs laid by race should be monitored and protected. Default true. If parameter is not specified already existing value will be mantained. If new race is added missing values will be taken from default settings.

autobutcher nestboxes split_stacks <true/false> (autobutcher nb s <1/0>)

split_stacks command allows to specify how egg stacks that are only partialy over target should be handled. If set to false whole stack will be forbidden. If set to true only eggs below target will be forbidden, remaining part of stack will be separated and left for dwarves to collect.

autobutcher nestboxes clear (autobutcher nb clear)

Remove all settings for module and restore them to initial default values.

To see a list of all races, run this command:

devel/query --table df.global.world.raws.creatures.all --search ^creature_id --maxdepth 1

Though not all the races listed there are tameable/butcherable.

Note

Settings and watchlist are stored in the savegame, so you can have different settings for each save. If you want to copy your watchlist to another, savegame, you can export the commands required to recreate your settings.

To export, open an external terminal in the DF directory, and run dfhack-run autobutcher list_export > filename.txt. To import, load your new save and run script filename.txt in the DFHack terminal.

Examples

Keep at most 7 kids (4 female, 3 male) and at most 3 adults (2 female, 1 male) for turkeys. Once the kids grow up, the oldest adults will get slaughtered. Excess kids will get slaughtered starting the the youngest to allow that the older ones grow into adults:

autobutcher target 4 3 2 1 BIRD_TURKEY

Configure useful limits for dogs, cats, geese (for eggs, leather, and bones), alpacas, sheep, and llamas (for wool), and pigs (for milk and meat). All other unnamed tame units will be marked for slaughter as soon as they arrive in your fortress:

enable autobutcher
autobutcher target 2 2 2 2 DOG
autobutcher target 1 1 2 2 CAT
autobutcher target 10 10 14 2 BIRD_GOOSE
autobutcher target 2 2 4 2 ALPACA SHEEP LLAMA
autobutcher target 5 5 6 2 PIG
autobutcher target 0 0 0 0 new


autobutcher nb t BEAK_DOG 10 1 1 1
autobutcher nestboxes target BEAK_DOG 5 true true true

Command sets base target for beak dog eggs to 5, animals missing to population tresholds will be added to base target. Once autobutcher population target is reached no new eggs will be forbidden as long as population is at or above target.

autobutcher nb t DEFAULT 4 1 0 0 autobutcher nestboxes target DEFAULT 4 true true false

Command will change default settings for watching new races disabling it.

autobutcher nb t ALL 15 0 1 1 autobutcher nestboxes target ALL 15 false true true

Command will change setting for all currently watched egg races as well as default ones. Target for protected eggs is set to 15, missing animals count to livestock targets is not taken into account. Once population target is reached eggs will no longer be protected. All current and new races will be watched.

autobutcher nestboxes split_stacks false autobutcher nb s 0

Disable spliting of egg stacks.