0000022: Vermin remains don't rot - Dwarf Fortress Bug Tracker

(0000013)
Cavalcadeofcats (reporter)
2010-04-01 14:51

I know that _corpses_ still produce miasma. (My poor, doomed miners...) Perhaps it's an intentional change - to stop mice corpses from filling an entire fortress with purple fog?

(0000027)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2010-04-01 16:03

Dunno, I just deleted my refuse stockpile so I can watch for this one. We will see.

(0000034)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2010-04-01 16:43

I think he's on to something here. it's not all corpses. It appears to be vermin that simply refuse to rot. I've got lizard, cave spider, roach, and rat all of which have not rotted, where two troglodyte corpse rotted as expected. So either vermin take an incredibly long time to rot, or they simply don't rot at all. This sounds more like a bug than a feature.

(0000084)
aepurniet (reporter)
2010-04-01 20:34

verified over here, they (vermin remains) do not rot, whether in a stockpile or not. remains were watched for a year over here.

(0000174)
SirPenguin (reporter)
2010-04-02 08:01

Not only do remains not rot, but blood/debris/etc. does not get culled at the start of a season. I had blood from a battle that lasted for many years. I feel these two problems are connected

(0000175)
Ymrel (reporter)
2010-04-02 08:04
edited on: 2010-04-02 08:08

Blood and debris no longer get culled at the start of the season. This was removed. It could still be related to the vermin problem, though I doubt that.

(0000227)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2010-04-02 10:33

Yea, well this all adds up to a clutter problem worse than socks...

(0000232)
MysteriousAges (reporter)
2010-04-02 10:54

Confirmed here too. I also seem to have a couple dwarf corpses in a graveyard outside that have stubbornly refused to rot for 2 years.

(0000249)
Prestonicus (reporter)
2010-04-02 11:35

Two dwarves died and decayed to partial skeleton, but stopped at this point.

(0000331)
garanis (reporter)
2010-04-02 16:32

Forum thread:
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=52118.0 [^]

(0000526)
jfs (reporter)
2010-04-03 08:36

Dwarf corpses seem to rot. (Goblin attack, me unprepared, soon miasma all over.)

Some items produced by butchering seem to not rot, for example untanned skins. I've had skins sit for over a year inside the butcher's shop.

(0000692)
opsneakie (reporter)
2010-04-03 15:45

So far as I can tell, it's just the vermin that don't rot, although this includes unprepared vermin-type fish. Other corpses do seem to rot, although it does take a while.

Possible, if temorary, solution: dump vermin corpses somewhere they will be washed off-map (magma, river, w/e)

(0000725)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2010-04-03 17:46

well yes, my workaround was to channel down until I found something suitably fun to dump my vermin corpses into. It's worth noting that you may need to use o-r-o to enable hauling for any vermin that are outdoors if you wish to clean that up.

(0000945)
Draco18s (reporter)
2010-04-04 15:37

Same thing here. I'm going to start atom smashing this stuff.

(0000954)
Logical2u (manager)
2010-04-04 16:37

From personal experience, vermin corpses are rotting (that is, they are listed as "rotting") - at least some of them - in my outdoor refuse pile.

I am pretty sure at least one corpse has rotted away completely. But some don't appear to be rotting at all.

(0000956)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2010-04-04 16:42

I've seen no evidence of even one single vermin corpse being removed, I have an enormous collection of them.

(0000960)
Draco18s (reporter)
2010-04-04 17:16

Ditto DrZuber. Mine were sitting around for four+ years before I crushed them under a bridge.

(0000969)
madjoe5 (reporter)
2010-04-04 18:23

I've seen rat remains rot away but not anything else. My fortress is still cluttered with lizard/roach/butterfly remains.

Oh and btw, the rotting rot remains happened inside and no miasma was created. I've also seem them rot outside on a separate occasion. Maybe it has to do with the fact that they are mammals? or that they don't have chitin or whatever lizard skin is?

(0001064)
RiceMunk (reporter)
2010-04-05 06:40

I've had ogre (and dwarf, and vermin) corpses refusing to rot away in my fortress, whether they're lying around outside or in a refuse stockpile or a graveyard. I also forgot to pick up a dead horse from outside my fort and all it did was turn into a rotted version. It refused to decay any further than that.

(0001171)
InsanityPrelude (reporter)
2010-04-05 12:48

The only things I've seen rotting are nervous tissue and corpses. Vermin don't.

(0001215)
Rhenaya (reporter)
2010-04-05 14:47

yup its same for me: remains (from vermin) dont rot, but everything else (like corpses from "bigger" stuff) does rot.

(0001330)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2010-04-05 21:17

I have a refuse pile of truly epic scale I've left around for many many years now. I'm going to go ahead and list out various corpses I find there.

toad, firefly, large roach, monarch butterfly, lizard, dragonfly, and blue jay are all found in enormous quantities. I believe these are all examples of permanent non-rotting vermin.

I do also notice turtles, cats, dogs, Rhesus Macaque, and one rat. I know the Rhesus macaque are recent additions. And the turtles are to be expected when i have over a thousand units of raw turtle in the stockpile. I suspect everything on this list is recent kills that simply haven't rotted yet. they represent a very tiny percentage of the accumulated corpses in the pile. The single rat is a surprise to me. I expected to find hundreds. This would seem to validate the claim that rats actually do rot.

As for dwarves, I have seen many many dwarf bodies rot (I am in fact currently watching my fortress die a pitiful death of madness and starvation.) Dwarves do rot. Dwarves do cause miasma. The only quirk here is that dwarves never reduce into bones and skull as they did in 40d. They instead reduce into a skeleton. I suspect this is intentional behavior.

I am skeptical on the claim of a non-rotting ogre but cannot say since I have yet to encounter one.

(0001332)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2010-04-05 21:21

By the way, I believe it may be time to adjust the title of this issue to something like . . .

Vermin do not rot or produce miasma

Just my opinion.

(0001335)
Zas (reporter)
2010-04-05 21:48

Yeah, it seems that rats do rot, albeit slowly. I have at least several items called "rotten rat remains" in my refuse. But not other vermin (I have mostly roaches and fireflies, so I thought it was intentional that insects don't rot. Still have to meet a bigger insect to check if it is so). Bigger animals, at least all I've met, rot okay. Hoary marmots and mountain goats rot, sometimes even faster than I manage to butcher them.

Corpses rot into skeletons, mutilated corpses rot into partial skeletons. It is unclear if it is possible to dismantle a skeleton into something more useful, like bones, skulls, hoofs etc. I think at least one of partial mountain goat skeletons I had did eventually fall apart, at least I can't find it in the stockpile, but it still needs to be confirmed.

(0001408)
Jiri Petru (reporter)
2010-04-06 06:00

>>> It is unclear if it is possible to dismantle a skeleton into something more useful, like bones, skulls, hoofs etc

I've seen a butcher dragging a skeleton to butchery and dismantling it to bones, skull and hooves. So this works.

(0001674)
RiceMunk (reporter)
2010-04-06 22:01

The ogres hadn't rotted into bones and skulls like in they would be expected to do in the old versions but they had turned into their "partial skeleton" counterparts. They haven't at least so far turned into anything else after well over an ingame year of lying around in my stockpiles.

(0001681)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2010-04-06 22:43

alright, so the ogre does go to a partial skeleton, I assume it also generates miasma? My understanding is that in the new system things rot to skeleton or partial skeleton. That much appears to be working as intended.

It's just the vermin that are behaving incorrectly, and apparently rats are an exception to that rule.

(0001716)
RiceMunk (reporter)
2010-04-07 04:16

I'm not sure if they had generated any miasma since I didn't pay much attention to the ogres' corpses right after my military had done them in, only after they failed to turn into anything useful after lying around in my refuse pile for a while. They're not generating any miasma anymore at least.

If butchers can dismantle non-partial skeletons into something useful, I guess this might be a case of the "butcherability" flag having been forgotten to be added to the partial skeletons?
Has anyone noticed any cases of their dwarves doing anything useful with partial skeletons instead of whole skeletons?

(0001728)
Zas (reporter)
2010-04-07 06:02

I believe at least once I had a partial mountain goat skeleton disappear on me. What exactly happened to it, though, I'm not sure. In the same time, I have two goblin partial skeletons that sit in my refuse for several years already. May it be the case that humanoid skeletons are not butchered?

(0001764)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2010-04-07 09:39
edited on: 2010-04-07 16:15

I've personally tested this issue to death and am ready to let it die. I've personally verified much of this from one truly epic refuse pile collected over a period of over 10 years. So here is the list as I understand things. if anybody finds an exception to any of this by all means, add your notes in here. Otherwise, this is an update of the observed behavior.

Vermin corpses do not rot (rats are an exception)
Vermin corpses do not create miasma
Vermin corpses are never removed

Dwarf corpses rot into skeletons or partial skeletons
Dwarf corpses cause miasma
Dwarf corpses are never removed

Other corpses rot into skeletons or partial skeletons
Other corpses cause miasma
Other corpses do seem to be removed eventually

Vermin seem to be the bug here, they are not rotting which is likely related to why they are never getting removed from the map. The other behaviors seem to be correct.

As for the skeletons and partial skeletons behavior. Partial skeletons are believed to be the result of mutilated corpses (which is very cool!) Getting bones from skeletons is apparently done when remains are hauled to a butchers shop. I believe all of this to be intended behavior.

(0002115)
Zas (reporter)
2010-04-08 12:10

I only have to add, that apparently goblin corpses (and corpses of other sapient races? or any other humanoids at all?) act as "dwarf corpses" category rather than as "other corpses". And this, if proven, can be viewed as a bug, because non-dwarfs cannot be buried in burial receptacles.

(0002134)
Chthonic (reporter)
2010-04-08 13:14

My guess for the cause of this, based on what I've been seeing in the material_template_default file in the raws, is this:

Dwarf corpses decay into skeletons, but do not completely rot away, because the bone material lacks the [ROTS] tag. This is also true of cartilage, hair, horn, hoof, and feathers. This may be intended for undead creatures, but every other material on a fleshy creature has the [ROTS] token, and these are what appear to go away when something is killed.

Since rats appear to be the only vermin that definitely rots, there must be some token that have (or lack) that other vermin do not. Based on DoctorZuber's refuse pile report, I was comparing rats to toads, lizards, blujays, and others. I thought that the [VERMIN_EATER] tag might be contributing (not making them act like vermin as far as rots?) but lizards have that, and I can't find any notable difference between rats and other vermin that could cause this... The only thing I can find is that rats have hair, but hair doesn't have a [ROTS] token and I don't think that would do it. I am stumped.

(0002142)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2010-04-08 13:25

It's possible there's more I'm not understanding on the new mechanics of harvesting skeletons. for skeletons to not rot may be intentional since they still have usable materials on them.

I have not been taking a bonecrafter with me lately deciding to favor a weaver/clothesmaker instead. Can someone do me a favor and explain the mechanics of how bonecrafting works with these new skeletons? it might help clear up a thing or two up on this topic.

(0002147)
Footkerchief (manager)
2010-04-08 13:32
edited on: 2010-04-08 13:32

The reason some vermin rot and others doesn't is that it picks the single most abundant material in the creature's body for vermin remains (this is straight from Toady). For most of them that's bone or chitin, which don't rot. For rats, it's probably muscle, which does rot.

(0002158)
Chthonic (reporter)
2010-04-08 14:23

That certainly explains a lot. However, while it's realistic and makes sense, I think there's a playability/clutter issue here that still needs to be resolved.

(0002184)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2010-04-08 15:50

my theory is that because it doesn't rot and cause miasma, it also never gets removed from the map, which becomes a pretty severe clutter issue over a period of years.

(0002295)
Zas (reporter)
2010-04-09 04:35

Yeah, the material-based explanation kind of makes sense. But then it should be possible to fix the raws so that all the vermin would be made of meat. Can anyone advise such a workaround?

(0002358)
RiceMunk (reporter)
2010-04-09 10:39

I tried fiddling around with the raws, including trying to make bone, cartilage and pretty much everything that living things are composed of rottable stuff. I was hoping that, after killing some stuff in the arena, skeletons would start rotting away completely. Didn't seem to work though.
I was hoping that there'd be some sort of a "skeleton" object hidden somewhere in the raws that I could make rottable but doing a mass search through the files I couldn't find anything.

(0002426)
kaefermelder (reporter)
2010-04-09 14:35

This should be fixed in 31.02. Please try it out before further commenting!

(0002436)
Footkerchief (manager)
2010-04-09 15:06

Fixed in 31.02? That's news to me.

(0002455)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2010-04-09 16:35

it's not in the patch notes, and footkerchief doesn't know about it. who is this monkey?

(0002577)
Zas (reporter)
2010-04-10 08:32

No, it's not fixed in 31.02. Tested.

(0002679)
supa (reporter)
2010-04-10 17:29
edited on: 2010-04-11 00:53

Taking note of footkerchief's info, a temporary fix would be to edit the raws in material_template_default.txt.

One option would be to add the [ROTS] token to chitin and bone. This would make any materials made of chitin or bone rot eventually. (I am unsure if this would mean crafts made of chitin/bone, like bone bolts, rot as well).

---update

The alternative fix requires a bit more work than the first. Basically, I intended to create a copy of the chitin/bone entries in the material_template_default.txt.

So we will have two templates:
[MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CHITIN_TEMPLATE]
[MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CHITIN_TEMPLATE_VERMIN] (or whatever you want to call it)

The difference is that the vermin entry will have the [ROTS] token. I would then edit the creature_ files so that the vermin that aren't rotting use the new template instead.

It gets a bit complicated there because each creature file is unique.

---update

Did some raw editing. Here are the results.

material_template_default.txt
- Copied all of [MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CHITIN_TEMPLATE] and renamed the copy [MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CHITIN_TEMPLATE_V].
- Included [ROTS] in [MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CHITIN_TEMPLATE_V]

creature_insect.txt

[CREATURE:ROACH_LARGE]
- under [BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:CHITIN_MATERIALS], included the following tokens:
[REMOVE_MATERIAL:CHITIN]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CHITIN:CHITIN_TEMPLATE_V]

I embarked with 10 cats and created a 4x4 room underground for a refuse stockpile. The roaches eventually became rotten (no miasma). The other insects that I did not tamper with did not rot.

Interestingly, some lizard corpses were rotting even though I did not change anything for lizards. There were a lot of flies however, and they have the [VERMIN_ROTTER] tag so that may be the cause for rotting.

(0003063)
shadow_slicer (reporter)
2010-04-12 09:19

On my save, I added the [ROTS] tag to CHITIN and BONE, and this seemed to work (as my stockpile filled up much more slowly). One problem is that fluffy wamblers still don't seem to rot and I have a stockpile full of them. I think that adding ROTS to the HAIR_TEMPLATE or inside the fluffy wambler definition should fix it, but I haven't tested it yet.

(0003118)
supa (reporter)
2010-04-12 13:03
edited on: 2010-04-12 13:27

Adding [ROTS] to the HAIR_TEMPLATE should work for fluffy wamblers.

For reference, here is a list of relevant material templates that do not have the [ROTS] token.

Bone
Cartilage
Hair
Feather
Scale
Nail
Tooth
Leather
Horn
Hoof
Shell
Chitin

We need to be cautious on which templates we want [ROTS] to be in since it will be affecting other things besides vermin remains. There's also the fact that these materials do not decompose in real life so we would be altering DF reality.

However, as a game mechanic, it's understandable that we want these vermin remains to disappear from the map. My personal reasoning would be that the vermin's remains are small enough so that the bones/scales/chitin/hair become insignificant among other trash in the refuse pile. They may become crushed, scattered, buried, etc.

Thus, I opted to making a separate material template for the vermin (like I did for the roaches above). Small unbutcherable corpses should disappear while regular corpses should remain on the map as usual.

---edit

Also, another idea. All this can be fixed (avoiding any raw editing) by changing how the [SMALL_REMAINS] token works. I dunno how it's coded but it should probably just ignore material templates of the creature when determining weather it rots and set it to behave like it's rotting. Just an idea though.

(0003429)
Toady One (administrator)
2010-04-14 02:03

I've made vermin always disappear over time for 0.31.04. The rot process is still in place, but for those remains for which it doesn't work, they'll be taken out starting after around a month, randomly. This will also happen for non-processable corpse pieces left outdoors as well, after a season. The vermin remains don't have to be outdoors.

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2010-04-01 14:50	Dwarfu	New Issue
2010-04-01 14:51	Cavalcadeofcats	Note Added: 0000013
2010-04-01 16:03	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0000027
2010-04-01 16:08	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0000028
2010-04-01 16:10	DoctorZuber	Note Edited: 0000028	View Revisions
2010-04-01 16:43	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0000034
2010-04-01 16:43	DoctorZuber	Note Deleted: 0000028
2010-04-01 20:34	aepurniet	Note Added: 0000084
2010-04-02 00:53	Dwarfu	Tag Attached: miasma
2010-04-02 00:53	Dwarfu	Tag Attached: remains
2010-04-02 00:53	Dwarfu	Tag Attached: rot
2010-04-02 00:53	Dwarfu	Tag Attached: vermin
2010-04-02 08:01	SirPenguin	Note Added: 0000174
2010-04-02 08:04	Ymrel	Note Added: 0000175
2010-04-02 08:08	Ymrel	Note Edited: 0000175	View Revisions
2010-04-02 10:33	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0000227
2010-04-02 10:54	MysteriousAges	Note Added: 0000232
2010-04-02 11:35	Prestonicus	Note Added: 0000249
2010-04-02 16:32	garanis	Note Added: 0000331
2010-04-03 07:42	Footkerchief	Relationship added	has duplicate 0000061
2010-04-03 08:10	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0000519
2010-04-03 08:36	jfs	Note Added: 0000526
2010-04-03 15:45	opsneakie	Note Added: 0000692
2010-04-03 17:43	DoctorZuber	Issue Monitored: DoctorZuber
2010-04-03 17:44	DoctorZuber	Note Edited: 0000519	View Revisions
2010-04-03 17:46	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0000725
2010-04-03 18:54	Footkerchief	Relationship added	has duplicate 0000338
2010-04-03 20:09	chuzzum	Issue Monitored: chuzzum
2010-04-04 15:37	Draco18s	Note Added: 0000945
2010-04-04 15:46	NobbZ	Issue Monitored: NobbZ
2010-04-04 16:37	Logical2u	Note Added: 0000954
2010-04-04 16:42	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0000956
2010-04-04 17:16	Draco18s	Note Added: 0000960
2010-04-04 18:20	madjoe5	Issue Monitored: madjoe5
2010-04-04 18:23	madjoe5	Note Added: 0000969
2010-04-05 06:40	RiceMunk	Note Added: 0001064
2010-04-05 12:48	InsanityPrelude	Note Added: 0001171
2010-04-05 14:47	Rhenaya	Note Added: 0001215
2010-04-05 21:03	Footkerchief	Relationship added	has duplicate 0000560
2010-04-05 21:17	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0001330
2010-04-05 21:21	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0001332
2010-04-05 21:48	Zas	Note Added: 0001335
2010-04-06 05:18	Kode	Tag Attached: dead noble
2010-04-06 05:18	Kode	Tag Detached: dead noble
2010-04-06 06:00	Jiri Petru	Note Added: 0001408
2010-04-06 13:26	Justice	Issue Monitored: Justice
2010-04-06 18:44	Footkerchief	Summary	Remains seem not to rot or produce miasma => Vermin remains don't rot
2010-04-06 18:46	Footkerchief	Sticky Issue	No => Yes
2010-04-06 22:01	RiceMunk	Note Added: 0001674
2010-04-06 22:43	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0001681
2010-04-07 04:16	RiceMunk	Note Added: 0001716
2010-04-07 04:18	RiceMunk	Issue Monitored: RiceMunk
2010-04-07 06:02	Zas	Note Added: 0001728
2010-04-07 09:31	DoctorZuber	Note Deleted: 0000519
2010-04-07 09:39	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0001764
2010-04-07 16:15	DoctorZuber	Note Edited: 0001764	View Revisions
2010-04-08 12:10	Zas	Note Added: 0002115
2010-04-08 13:14	Chthonic	Note Added: 0002134
2010-04-08 13:25	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0002142
2010-04-08 13:32	Footkerchief	Note Added: 0002147
2010-04-08 13:32	Footkerchief	Note Edited: 0002147	View Revisions
2010-04-08 14:23	Chthonic	Note Added: 0002158
2010-04-08 15:18	Phydaux	Issue Monitored: Phydaux
2010-04-08 15:50	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0002184
2010-04-08 16:07	Anydwarf	Issue Monitored: Anydwarf
2010-04-09 04:16	Khym Chanur	Issue Monitored: Khym Chanur
2010-04-09 04:35	Zas	Note Added: 0002295
2010-04-09 04:57	Zas	Issue Monitored: Zas
2010-04-09 08:58	jarvoll	Issue Monitored: jarvoll
2010-04-09 10:11	Dissonance	Issue Monitored: Dissonance
2010-04-09 10:39	RiceMunk	Note Added: 0002358
2010-04-09 14:35	kaefermelder	Note Added: 0002426
2010-04-09 15:06	Footkerchief	Note Added: 0002436
2010-04-09 16:35	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0002455
2010-04-10 08:32	Zas	Note Added: 0002577
2010-04-10 08:45	Dame de la Licorne	Issue Monitored: Dame de la Licorne
2010-04-10 09:04	supa	Issue Monitored: supa
2010-04-10 11:03	Footkerchief	Relationship added	related to 0000161
2010-04-10 17:29	supa	Note Added: 0002679
2010-04-10 17:46	supa	Note Edited: 0002679	View Revisions
2010-04-11 00:53	supa	Note Edited: 0002679	View Revisions
2010-04-12 09:19	shadow_slicer	Note Added: 0003063
2010-04-12 12:41	Jinalealia	Issue Monitored: Jinalealia
2010-04-12 13:03	supa	Note Added: 0003118
2010-04-12 13:27	supa	Note Edited: 0003118	View Revisions
2010-04-12 15:58	Jimmy	Issue Monitored: Jimmy
2010-04-14 02:03	Toady One	Note Added: 0003429
2010-04-14 02:03	Toady One	Status	new => resolved
2010-04-14 02:03	Toady One	Fixed in Version	=> 0.31.04
2010-04-14 02:03	Toady One	Resolution	open => fixed
2010-04-14 02:03	Toady One	Assigned To	=> Toady One
2010-04-14 03:14	Dame de la Licorne	Issue End Monitor: Dame de la Licorne
2010-04-14 03:14	supa	Issue End Monitor: supa
2010-04-14 03:15	Jimmy	Issue End Monitor: Jimmy
2010-04-14 09:31	Jinalealia	Issue End Monitor: Jinalealia
2010-04-14 12:23	Khym Chanur	Issue End Monitor: Khym Chanur
2010-04-23 10:57	Footkerchief	Relationship added	has duplicate 0001458
2010-04-25 07:48	narcitel	Issue Monitored: narcitel
2010-04-25 07:49	narcitel	Issue End Monitor: narcitel
2010-04-30 11:41	Footkerchief	Relationship added	has duplicate 0001661
2010-06-02 13:07	Footkerchief	Sticky Issue	Yes => No
2010-06-02 21:04	Dwarfu	Tag Detached: miasma
2010-06-02 21:04	Dwarfu	Tag Detached: remains
2010-06-02 21:04	Dwarfu	Tag Detached: rot
2010-06-02 21:04	Dwarfu	Tag Detached: vermin
2010-06-09 06:45	Toady One	Status	resolved => closed
2010-06-19 11:27	Footkerchief	Relationship added	related to 0002377
2010-07-11 10:28	Footkerchief	Relationship added	related to 0002626

Notes
(0000013) Cavalcadeofcats (reporter) 2010-04-01 14:51	I know that _corpses_ still produce miasma. (My poor, doomed miners...) Perhaps it's an intentional change - to stop mice corpses from filling an entire fortress with purple fog?

(0000027) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2010-04-01 16:03	Dunno, I just deleted my refuse stockpile so I can watch for this one. We will see.

(0000034) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2010-04-01 16:43	I think he's on to something here. it's not all corpses. It appears to be vermin that simply refuse to rot. I've got lizard, cave spider, roach, and rat all of which have not rotted, where two troglodyte corpse rotted as expected. So either vermin take an incredibly long time to rot, or they simply don't rot at all. This sounds more like a bug than a feature.

(0000084) aepurniet (reporter) 2010-04-01 20:34	verified over here, they (vermin remains) do not rot, whether in a stockpile or not. remains were watched for a year over here.

(0000174) SirPenguin (reporter) 2010-04-02 08:01	Not only do remains not rot, but blood/debris/etc. does not get culled at the start of a season. I had blood from a battle that lasted for many years. I feel these two problems are connected

(0000175) Ymrel (reporter) 2010-04-02 08:04 edited on: 2010-04-02 08:08	Blood and debris no longer get culled at the start of the season. This was removed. It could still be related to the vermin problem, though I doubt that.

(0000227) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2010-04-02 10:33	Yea, well this all adds up to a clutter problem worse than socks...

(0000232) MysteriousAges (reporter) 2010-04-02 10:54	Confirmed here too. I also seem to have a couple dwarf corpses in a graveyard outside that have stubbornly refused to rot for 2 years.

(0000249) Prestonicus (reporter) 2010-04-02 11:35	Two dwarves died and decayed to partial skeleton, but stopped at this point.

(0000331) garanis (reporter) 2010-04-02 16:32	Forum thread: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=52118.0 [^]

(0000526) jfs (reporter) 2010-04-03 08:36	Dwarf corpses seem to rot. (Goblin attack, me unprepared, soon miasma all over.) Some items produced by butchering seem to not rot, for example untanned skins. I've had skins sit for over a year inside the butcher's shop.

(0000692) opsneakie (reporter) 2010-04-03 15:45	So far as I can tell, it's just the vermin that don't rot, although this includes unprepared vermin-type fish. Other corpses do seem to rot, although it does take a while. Possible, if temorary, solution: dump vermin corpses somewhere they will be washed off-map (magma, river, w/e)

(0000725) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2010-04-03 17:46	well yes, my workaround was to channel down until I found something suitably fun to dump my vermin corpses into. It's worth noting that you may need to use o-r-o to enable hauling for any vermin that are outdoors if you wish to clean that up.

(0000945) Draco18s (reporter) 2010-04-04 15:37	Same thing here. I'm going to start atom smashing this stuff.

(0000954) Logical2u (manager) 2010-04-04 16:37	From personal experience, vermin corpses are rotting (that is, they are listed as "rotting") - at least some of them - in my outdoor refuse pile. I am pretty sure at least one corpse has rotted away completely. But some don't appear to be rotting at all.

(0000956) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2010-04-04 16:42	I've seen no evidence of even one single vermin corpse being removed, I have an enormous collection of them.

(0000960) Draco18s (reporter) 2010-04-04 17:16	Ditto DrZuber. Mine were sitting around for four+ years before I crushed them under a bridge.

(0000969) madjoe5 (reporter) 2010-04-04 18:23	I've seen rat remains rot away but not anything else. My fortress is still cluttered with lizard/roach/butterfly remains. Oh and btw, the rotting rot remains happened inside and no miasma was created. I've also seem them rot outside on a separate occasion. Maybe it has to do with the fact that they are mammals? or that they don't have chitin or whatever lizard skin is?

(0001064) RiceMunk (reporter) 2010-04-05 06:40	I've had ogre (and dwarf, and vermin) corpses refusing to rot away in my fortress, whether they're lying around outside or in a refuse stockpile or a graveyard. I also forgot to pick up a dead horse from outside my fort and all it did was turn into a rotted version. It refused to decay any further than that.

(0001171) InsanityPrelude (reporter) 2010-04-05 12:48	The only things I've seen rotting are nervous tissue and corpses. Vermin don't.

(0001215) Rhenaya (reporter) 2010-04-05 14:47	yup its same for me: remains (from vermin) dont rot, but everything else (like corpses from "bigger" stuff) does rot.

(0001330) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2010-04-05 21:17	I have a refuse pile of truly epic scale I've left around for many many years now. I'm going to go ahead and list out various corpses I find there. toad, firefly, large roach, monarch butterfly, lizard, dragonfly, and blue jay are all found in enormous quantities. I believe these are all examples of permanent non-rotting vermin. I do also notice turtles, cats, dogs, Rhesus Macaque, and one rat. I know the Rhesus macaque are recent additions. And the turtles are to be expected when i have over a thousand units of raw turtle in the stockpile. I suspect everything on this list is recent kills that simply haven't rotted yet. they represent a very tiny percentage of the accumulated corpses in the pile. The single rat is a surprise to me. I expected to find hundreds. This would seem to validate the claim that rats actually do rot. As for dwarves, I have seen many many dwarf bodies rot (I am in fact currently watching my fortress die a pitiful death of madness and starvation.) Dwarves do rot. Dwarves do cause miasma. The only quirk here is that dwarves never reduce into bones and skull as they did in 40d. They instead reduce into a skeleton. I suspect this is intentional behavior. I am skeptical on the claim of a non-rotting ogre but cannot say since I have yet to encounter one.

(0001332) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2010-04-05 21:21	By the way, I believe it may be time to adjust the title of this issue to something like . . . Vermin do not rot or produce miasma Just my opinion.

(0001335) Zas (reporter) 2010-04-05 21:48	Yeah, it seems that rats do rot, albeit slowly. I have at least several items called "rotten rat remains" in my refuse. But not other vermin (I have mostly roaches and fireflies, so I thought it was intentional that insects don't rot. Still have to meet a bigger insect to check if it is so). Bigger animals, at least all I've met, rot okay. Hoary marmots and mountain goats rot, sometimes even faster than I manage to butcher them. Corpses rot into skeletons, mutilated corpses rot into partial skeletons. It is unclear if it is possible to dismantle a skeleton into something more useful, like bones, skulls, hoofs etc. I think at least one of partial mountain goat skeletons I had did eventually fall apart, at least I can't find it in the stockpile, but it still needs to be confirmed.

(0001408) Jiri Petru (reporter) 2010-04-06 06:00	>>> It is unclear if it is possible to dismantle a skeleton into something more useful, like bones, skulls, hoofs etc I've seen a butcher dragging a skeleton to butchery and dismantling it to bones, skull and hooves. So this works.

(0001674) RiceMunk (reporter) 2010-04-06 22:01	The ogres hadn't rotted into bones and skulls like in they would be expected to do in the old versions but they had turned into their "partial skeleton" counterparts. They haven't at least so far turned into anything else after well over an ingame year of lying around in my stockpiles.

(0001681) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2010-04-06 22:43	alright, so the ogre does go to a partial skeleton, I assume it also generates miasma? My understanding is that in the new system things rot to skeleton or partial skeleton. That much appears to be working as intended. It's just the vermin that are behaving incorrectly, and apparently rats are an exception to that rule.

(0001716) RiceMunk (reporter) 2010-04-07 04:16	I'm not sure if they had generated any miasma since I didn't pay much attention to the ogres' corpses right after my military had done them in, only after they failed to turn into anything useful after lying around in my refuse pile for a while. They're not generating any miasma anymore at least. If butchers can dismantle non-partial skeletons into something useful, I guess this might be a case of the "butcherability" flag having been forgotten to be added to the partial skeletons? Has anyone noticed any cases of their dwarves doing anything useful with partial skeletons instead of whole skeletons?

(0001728) Zas (reporter) 2010-04-07 06:02	I believe at least once I had a partial mountain goat skeleton disappear on me. What exactly happened to it, though, I'm not sure. In the same time, I have two goblin partial skeletons that sit in my refuse for several years already. May it be the case that humanoid skeletons are not butchered?

(0001764) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2010-04-07 09:39 edited on: 2010-04-07 16:15	I've personally tested this issue to death and am ready to let it die. I've personally verified much of this from one truly epic refuse pile collected over a period of over 10 years. So here is the list as I understand things. if anybody finds an exception to any of this by all means, add your notes in here. Otherwise, this is an update of the observed behavior. Vermin corpses do not rot (rats are an exception) Vermin corpses do not create miasma Vermin corpses are never removed Dwarf corpses rot into skeletons or partial skeletons Dwarf corpses cause miasma Dwarf corpses are never removed Other corpses rot into skeletons or partial skeletons Other corpses cause miasma Other corpses do seem to be removed eventually Vermin seem to be the bug here, they are not rotting which is likely related to why they are never getting removed from the map. The other behaviors seem to be correct. As for the skeletons and partial skeletons behavior. Partial skeletons are believed to be the result of mutilated corpses (which is very cool!) Getting bones from skeletons is apparently done when remains are hauled to a butchers shop. I believe all of this to be intended behavior.

(0002115) Zas (reporter) 2010-04-08 12:10	I only have to add, that apparently goblin corpses (and corpses of other sapient races? or any other humanoids at all?) act as "dwarf corpses" category rather than as "other corpses". And this, if proven, can be viewed as a bug, because non-dwarfs cannot be buried in burial receptacles.

(0002134) Chthonic (reporter) 2010-04-08 13:14	My guess for the cause of this, based on what I've been seeing in the material_template_default file in the raws, is this: Dwarf corpses decay into skeletons, but do not completely rot away, because the bone material lacks the [ROTS] tag. This is also true of cartilage, hair, horn, hoof, and feathers. This may be intended for undead creatures, but every other material on a fleshy creature has the [ROTS] token, and these are what appear to go away when something is killed. Since rats appear to be the only vermin that definitely rots, there must be some token that have (or lack) that other vermin do not. Based on DoctorZuber's refuse pile report, I was comparing rats to toads, lizards, blujays, and others. I thought that the [VERMIN_EATER] tag might be contributing (not making them act like vermin as far as rots?) but lizards have that, and I can't find any notable difference between rats and other vermin that could cause this... The only thing I can find is that rats have hair, but hair doesn't have a [ROTS] token and I don't think that would do it. I am stumped.

(0002142) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2010-04-08 13:25	It's possible there's more I'm not understanding on the new mechanics of harvesting skeletons. for skeletons to not rot may be intentional since they still have usable materials on them. I have not been taking a bonecrafter with me lately deciding to favor a weaver/clothesmaker instead. Can someone do me a favor and explain the mechanics of how bonecrafting works with these new skeletons? it might help clear up a thing or two up on this topic.

(0002147) Footkerchief (manager) 2010-04-08 13:32 edited on: 2010-04-08 13:32	The reason some vermin rot and others doesn't is that it picks the single most abundant material in the creature's body for vermin remains (this is straight from Toady). For most of them that's bone or chitin, which don't rot. For rats, it's probably muscle, which does rot.

(0002158) Chthonic (reporter) 2010-04-08 14:23	That certainly explains a lot. However, while it's realistic and makes sense, I think there's a playability/clutter issue here that still needs to be resolved.

(0002184) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2010-04-08 15:50	my theory is that because it doesn't rot and cause miasma, it also never gets removed from the map, which becomes a pretty severe clutter issue over a period of years.

(0002295) Zas (reporter) 2010-04-09 04:35	Yeah, the material-based explanation kind of makes sense. But then it should be possible to fix the raws so that all the vermin would be made of meat. Can anyone advise such a workaround?

(0002358) RiceMunk (reporter) 2010-04-09 10:39	I tried fiddling around with the raws, including trying to make bone, cartilage and pretty much everything that living things are composed of rottable stuff. I was hoping that, after killing some stuff in the arena, skeletons would start rotting away completely. Didn't seem to work though. I was hoping that there'd be some sort of a "skeleton" object hidden somewhere in the raws that I could make rottable but doing a mass search through the files I couldn't find anything.

(0002426) kaefermelder (reporter) 2010-04-09 14:35	This should be fixed in 31.02. Please try it out before further commenting!

(0002436) Footkerchief (manager) 2010-04-09 15:06	Fixed in 31.02? That's news to me.

(0002455) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2010-04-09 16:35	it's not in the patch notes, and footkerchief doesn't know about it. who is this monkey?

(0002577) Zas (reporter) 2010-04-10 08:32	No, it's not fixed in 31.02. Tested.

(0002679) supa (reporter) 2010-04-10 17:29 edited on: 2010-04-11 00:53	Taking note of footkerchief's info, a temporary fix would be to edit the raws in material_template_default.txt. One option would be to add the [ROTS] token to chitin and bone. This would make any materials made of chitin or bone rot eventually. (I am unsure if this would mean crafts made of chitin/bone, like bone bolts, rot as well). ---update The alternative fix requires a bit more work than the first. Basically, I intended to create a copy of the chitin/bone entries in the material_template_default.txt. So we will have two templates: [MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CHITIN_TEMPLATE] [MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CHITIN_TEMPLATE_VERMIN] (or whatever you want to call it) The difference is that the vermin entry will have the [ROTS] token. I would then edit the creature_ files so that the vermin that aren't rotting use the new template instead. It gets a bit complicated there because each creature file is unique. ---update Did some raw editing. Here are the results. material_template_default.txt - Copied all of [MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CHITIN_TEMPLATE] and renamed the copy [MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CHITIN_TEMPLATE_V]. - Included [ROTS] in [MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CHITIN_TEMPLATE_V] creature_insect.txt [CREATURE:ROACH_LARGE] - under [BODY_DETAIL_PLAN:CHITIN_MATERIALS], included the following tokens: [REMOVE_MATERIAL:CHITIN] [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:CHITIN:CHITIN_TEMPLATE_V] I embarked with 10 cats and created a 4x4 room underground for a refuse stockpile. The roaches eventually became rotten (no miasma). The other insects that I did not tamper with did not rot. Interestingly, some lizard corpses were rotting even though I did not change anything for lizards. There were a lot of flies however, and they have the [VERMIN_ROTTER] tag so that may be the cause for rotting.

(0003063) shadow_slicer (reporter) 2010-04-12 09:19	On my save, I added the [ROTS] tag to CHITIN and BONE, and this seemed to work (as my stockpile filled up much more slowly). One problem is that fluffy wamblers still don't seem to rot and I have a stockpile full of them. I think that adding ROTS to the HAIR_TEMPLATE or inside the fluffy wambler definition should fix it, but I haven't tested it yet.

(0003118) supa (reporter) 2010-04-12 13:03 edited on: 2010-04-12 13:27	Adding [ROTS] to the HAIR_TEMPLATE should work for fluffy wamblers. For reference, here is a list of relevant material templates that do not have the [ROTS] token. Bone Cartilage Hair Feather Scale Nail Tooth Leather Horn Hoof Shell Chitin We need to be cautious on which templates we want [ROTS] to be in since it will be affecting other things besides vermin remains. There's also the fact that these materials do not decompose in real life so we would be altering DF reality. However, as a game mechanic, it's understandable that we want these vermin remains to disappear from the map. My personal reasoning would be that the vermin's remains are small enough so that the bones/scales/chitin/hair become insignificant among other trash in the refuse pile. They may become crushed, scattered, buried, etc. Thus, I opted to making a separate material template for the vermin (like I did for the roaches above). Small unbutcherable corpses should disappear while regular corpses should remain on the map as usual. ---edit Also, another idea. All this can be fixed (avoiding any raw editing) by changing how the [SMALL_REMAINS] token works. I dunno how it's coded but it should probably just ignore material templates of the creature when determining weather it rots and set it to behave like it's rotting. Just an idea though.

(0003429) Toady One (administrator) 2010-04-14 02:03	I've made vermin always disappear over time for 0.31.04. The rot process is still in place, but for those remains for which it doesn't work, they'll be taken out starting after around a month, randomly. This will also happen for non-processable corpse pieces left outdoors as well, after a season. The vermin remains don't have to be outdoors.