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[fizmat]

Not wanting to clog the forum with two bad suggestion topics I give you two suggestions in one post:

1) tantruming (maybe berserk) miners/(or anybody carrying a pick so you can't affect this by disabling mining job for the miner JUST as he goes mad) have a chance to dig/channel into a random wall. If behind that wall lies lava/water or an untamed GCS silk farm then Fun is inevitable. Engravers engrave crud pix and curse words / mad chutulhuesque gibberish ruining better engravings. Woodcutters chop wooden furniture with axes. Bookkeepers burn their records and reset stocks precision to minimum. Managers should do something interesting too, maybe delete all orders and add random jobs to random workshops for you to clean up before going on their killing spree.

2) A new type of HFS "phantoms" that can ONLY path through walls. That is, when you open the clown car, they can appear in wall squares adjacent to it and can walk through walls (including up/down z-levels, maybe diagonally) but not through open space, water or magma (maybe warm or wet walls even hurt them). They can attack anybody standing next to a wall from that wall like normal close-combat creatures

Code: [Select]

##...
#&D..
##.A.
##...
where D is the dwarf about to die, while dwarf A is safe if phantoms have no ranged attack (to be clear there's a wall in the same square as &)

Of course, phantoms that are not in the surface walls, for example like below, are invisible:

Code: [Select]

###...
#&#...
###.A.
###...

So to be safe from them you can build a chamber suspended by floors alone (which they can't pass, because there's no wall) and try to survive there, or station everybody in the middle of a large room as a temporary countermeasure.
(maybe the "phantoms" need a weak ranged attack to prevent marksdwarves from just picking them off from the center of the room without any danger, or just make them hide deeper if they can't path to hurt anybody)

Something you can't see (until it hits you from the wall behind you) is scary, and HFS is supposed to be scary, not just a tougher megabeast to cave-in knock out and cage-trap for a zoo.

[Julius Clonkus]

I don't like the tantrum idea, those things are already destructive enough when popular dorfs have one.

But "wall phantoms" sounds nice. I think they'd pick off only those dwarves far away from the rest of the fortress, effectively making hauling the mined stones dangerous. Now the dwarves they attack should be listed as "Deceased" but their death shouldn't be announced, related dwarves ending up with a "had a friend/lover/partner/parent disappear mysteriously" announcement. You'll know the dwarf is dead when you check the Unit List OR find a "masterfully embedded dwarf corpse" in a tunnel wall. But having an "empty" HFS would quickly reveal what you got, so it'd be nice to have a random demon type be in there as well.

[fizmat]

I don't like the tantrum idea, those things are already destructive enough when popular dorfs have one.

A tantrum spiral means the fort is more or less doomed anyway, why not make it look a little more epic?

[silhouette]

I like the phantom idea, if the things required for the phantom are included then my creature could be included .

But anyway.

Dont have it so the death is not listed, that would just be plain anoying and no Fun.
Prehaps instead giving false messages...
What i mean is that phantom (or another creature) takes on the form of a dwarf that crosses its path, now once it dies the phantom could come out of the disguise and now really be vulnerable. But it must be killed before another dwarf crosses its path ( marksdwarves are your friends!)

Or you could just have it possess dwarves and once that dwarf is killed it becomes vulnerable again till it possesses another one.

[Geb]

If you restrict these noclip beasts to stone, I'd agree with the idea. It should be possible to have some form of sensible defense, even if that means sending every civilian in the fort outside to stand on nice safe soil while the military go down to act as bait.

[alfie275]

Perhaps they can't pass certain stones or maybe can't travel through soil?

[Siru]

But "wall phantoms" sounds nice. I think they'd pick off only those dwarves far away from the rest of the fortress, effectively making hauling the mined stones dangerous. Now the dwarves they attack should be listed as "Deceased" but their death shouldn't be announced, related dwarves ending up with a "had a friend/lover/partner/parent disappear mysteriously" announcement. You'll know the dwarf is dead when you check the Unit List OR find a "masterfully embedded dwarf corpse" in a tunnel wall. But having an "empty" HFS would quickly reveal what you got, so it'd be nice to have a random demon type be in there as well.

I like the sound of this. But when dealing with dwarf death I'd have a delay from the time the phantom kills the dwarf then a day or two later in game time where the game announces 'Urist McHauler has mysteriously disappeared!'.

Finding the missing dwarf corpse in an unmined tile (Which would be reachable by the phantom) actually sounds really creepy and atmospheric. I'm getting Amigara Vault vibes there.

They should only occur in certain areas though, Sinister perhaps? (If you are going by a randomised version not HFS style)

Perhaps they can't pass certain stones or maybe can't travel through soil?

Or damp soil/rock?  And if they hunt by picking off people away from the main group/fortress, maybe they avoid large groups of people, noise from all those workshops etc.?

[FluffyToast J]

My idea:

They only pass through rough rock. Wood, smoothed and soil would block them. So, suddenly, smoothing the entire fortress now has a use apart from looking neater.

[Silverionmox]

I like it, because it makes you think differently about safe obstacles and dangerous open spaces. (And because it definitely drives a nail into the idea that the HFS as we know it is 'trapped' there.)

[Malsqueek]

I'd prefer to see the creatures only capable of moving through stone. It would encourage us to Periodically toss up an Iron section of wall, or use wooden rooms for particularly important safe rooms, which of course have their own down sides.