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[joeclark77]

Hi, just coming back to the game after several years.  I like the new interface, mostly, and am figuring out how I like to run my fortresses again.  One thing I haven't figured out yet is what to do with my caged prisoners without massive tedium.  I used to use "mass pitting" where you empty all the cages through hatch covers into a room below.  (In my case I'd strip them first, then pit them into a room a couple z-levels below where my archers could practice on them.)  Now it seems like the goblins get loose as soon as someone shows up to "pit" them.  I know I can open cages with levers, but when we're talking about dozens of cages, that's lots and lots of key presses and mouse clicks for me.

So: is there a solution?  A way to make mass pitting work in the new version?  Or some other way to safely get enemies out of cages without losing control of them?  The lever thing is so tedious I'll probably just turn to dumping them in magma or leaving them in cages forever, rather than bothering to recycle the cages.  It seems such a waste, though.  For example I have lots of captured beak dogs that could become food and leather if I could mass-pit them.

[anewaname]

The mass pitting method stopped working about DF 45... Creatures grab onto the pit edge and climb up while your hauler runs in terror.

Besides the "build cage, link, and pull lever" method, you can also use minecarts to eject creatures from cages. This is a good method because your haulers will be safe and the micromanaging should be limited to queuing up another minecart to be filled up. See the wiki's Remotely Opening cages and the link contained there to the minecart thread including the Live Ammo Minecart Shotgun.

Minecart shotguns are not that complicated... this is an 11 minute youtube vid on creating a minecart shotgun designed to fire furniture into a room. I believe you would modify this by having the area to the right of the fortifications be a fall down several z's, so the cages and their occupants fall into the pit. I haven't tried this...

[aSpatula66]

If you need to dispose of sentient prisoners, you can sell them to human caravans if they can hold the weight