Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[VerdantSF]

I recently killed my first forgotten beast with a cave-in trap after breaching the first caverns.  I'm in somewhat new territory here, having only seen the cavern in a previous, very short-lived fort.  About how often do they spawn?  Do they fight each other if left alone?  Cave-in traps are effective, but I can see this getting tedious if I have to do this for every single forgotten beast.  If I let the forgotten beasts continue to spawn without taking them out, could they conceivably fight each other enough that I only have to deal with the winning beast every few years or so? 

[Lord_Phoenix]

They kind of pop in at random, could be several a year.

They don't fight each other, but they will fight with various other types of things wandering around down in the cavern like groups of humanoids and such.

You only really need to worry about pulling out the big guns for FBs that do nasty stuff like dust clouds and poisonous blood and such. 

Best bet is to wall off a portion of the caverns for you to use.  Seek out choke points and wall them off from floor to ceiling.  Make sure you get them all.

[laularukyrumo]

It's completely random whenever they spawn. I do know, however, that once you've reached the triggers as defined in worldgen (80 dudes and 100K dwarfbucks I think by default), then even if you dip below the required threshold, they keep coming. I'm in an evil fort currently, walled off 12 or so dudes underground and turned off migration, but I didn't deal with childbirth, and so we had enough babies born to reach the artifact threshold, and since I set the titan/FB triggers ludicrously low (30 dudes and 30K dwarfbucks) they started showing up pretty early. I think I had like... six or seven squatting in the caves at one point, though I just caved in two of them last time I played.

[usgreth]

In a previous fort I have had 2 separate spawning messages within 5 minutes which I thought was a bit harsh. FB's do not delibarately fight each other although they can get hit by anothers deadly dust etc.
Can opening the clown car affect the chances? Are there more than three places in .raws where their appearances can be altered?
I am wondering since this fort has not had any FBs in its 14 year history. This world has had fbs in previous forts and there are plenty of fbs still alive. The fort has had visits from a dragon, a cyclops, an ettin, a bronze colossus and enough goblins to make more steel than I'd ever need. All the caverns are opened and not even walled off to try encourage something to come along.

[VerdantSF]

The wiki says that it's possible to build right to the edge underground, unlike the surface.  Is this still true?  If so, I'm going to wall off the cavern sides from top to bottom.  The place looks really cool and I want it all to myself!

[Loud Whispers]

The wiki says that it's possible to build right to the edge underground, unlike the surface.  Is this still true?

Yes. Be sure to close down on the open spaces once it's secured, you don't want the massive FPS drain that comes with taking over the whole cavern.

[Kumis]

Often enough to cause my army of highly trained 16 steel and bronze clad warriors to be reduced to 2.
They didn't kill it, no, I just made them give up and hope it dies from its wounds.

Note to self: Fortified cavern entrance.

(In the past I've had them spawn within a few minutes of each other, or gone ingame years without a single appearance, it seems.)

(Update to the interested, it was a giant turtle that breathed fire. Countless deaths later and it finally succumbed to its wounds. Huzzah!)

[Button]

For a cheaty and reusable FB grinder, set up a hallway of upright spikes with something tasty on the other side. (FBs don't attack Wild Animals but they'll attack any civ member or the undead.) I recommend undead because they're immune to many syndromes/therefore can be reused more often.

Put the spikes on repeat,

Profit.

Remember to include airlocks as necessary so you can close off your fort from the bait, and close off the entrance to the trap room from the outside (for repairs, etc.)

[VerdantSF]

Thanks for the tips, all.  Since the first cavern doesn't really have the animals I'm looking for (jabberers and cave dragons), I've sealed off all entrances.  It's now just a big silk farm .