Ok the Iron Beetle spawns in the Goblin Caves in the far back by a bunch of wolf spiders and they're used in a quest also from what I read. Here is some gathered information on them.
On Publish 61 they stated that "Iron Beetles will no longer require Animal Taming to control. (SA Still a requirement though.)"
I tested this in game with a beetle tamed just after SA came out, before this publish. Could not transfer to a miner with 0 taming. Contacted a GM about it, and after re paging them 3 times to get them to really read my question, they said it was put in for further investigation. I did submit it on the bug page.
We tried feeding the Beetle Ores, but to no avail. We get the message "There is no container to put that in.". He will however eat meat.
I read somewhere that a guy did some research on his beetle in the following manner.
After beetle ate Ore 4 - 5 times, used Animal Lore to check Barding Difficulty. Barding Difficulty raised by .1 theorizing that these animals have an actual mining skill.
We have tried telling the beetle to "Drop" what it has, but it drops nothing even after it spits out ore.
Context menu on the beetle can be set just like any mining utility. Ore, Gems, Granite, You get the picture. BUT I have not seen a beetle that can actually mine anything besides Ore and I know that the rest of them were "disabled" in beta. My theory is that if you can mind Granite, then your beetle can mine Granite.
The beetles DO bond.
The beetles DO spawn different colors, which leads to the question as to why? My partner did notice that the colors of the beetles followed the colors of the ores. Could this have something to do with better stats?
Someone stated somewhere that the devs said that Iron Beetles weren't quite ready before the launch of SA so maybe they'll be fixed in an upcoming Publish.
If you have any information please help us out and post. Theories? Post them too! Your own research? Post it!
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