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Author Topic: My dwarves are obsessively ratman-phobic.  (Read 642 times)

TurnpikeLad

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My dwarves are obsessively ratman-phobic.
« on: January 26, 2008, 06:12:00 am »

I've got a circular chasm in my fort.  I've given my dwarves access to a couple ledges because there were some promising veins I could see there.  A few ledges below, there's a solitary ratman.  There's no way to get from the ledge my dwarves are on to the one below, but if you walk along the ledge you can certainly see the ratman down there.  Most of my dwarves, attracted there by hauling jobs, are now standing petrified on the ledge overlooking the ratman, unable to move one step to drink, eat, or sleep because when they begin any of these activities they are "interrupted by ratman".  

I could just dig down and send my military there to dispose of the threat, but I thought this behavior was weird enough that Toady might want to see the save.  It should be reproducable though.

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McDoomhammer

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Re: My dwarves are obsessively ratman-phobic.
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2008, 09:17:00 am »

I don't think this is actually that abnormal, I've seen threads about it before.  Dwarves only need line of sight to be scared off by something- (at present?) they have no way knowing that a given creature poses no threat.  Your best bet is likely to send in the marksdwarves.
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Furious Fish

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Re: My dwarves are obsessively ratman-phobic.
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2008, 09:26:00 am »

If they are actually unable to move because of it, then yeah, that's a bug. You could try drafting all the afeared dwarves into the military and moving them away, then undrafting them when they're out of LOS of the ratman.

Or just kill it.

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TurnpikeLad

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Re: My dwarves are obsessively ratman-phobic.
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2008, 04:34:00 am »

Eugh, it happened again with an iron man.

This time I tried to do it by setting all my wrestlers to be marksdwarves and equipping them with some crossbows. The wrestlers went to the ledge where I stationed them, then fired all their bolts at the iron man then _couldn't go to get new bolts because the iron man kept interrupting them._ I tried stationing them somewhere else, turning them on and off duty, etc etc. They wouldn't budge.

In retrospect the thing to do would have been to change their weapon preferences back to unarmed until they walked out of sight of the baddie, then back to crossbow so they would be free to go get bolts without interruptions. But I didn't think of that... I kept sending wrestlers with crossbows out to shoot in the thing's general direction. I drafted all the commoners while I waited because they were going to collapse from hunger and thirst. Eventually one of them got lucky and killed the thing.

This is probably more a case of game mechanics working in an annoying way than a bona fide bug, but if my marksdwarves themselves aren't able to move to get more bolts I think something might need adjusting.  Maybe a 10-second timer between interruptions per dwarf?

Anyway, I kept a backed up save from the ratman incident.

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McDoomhammer

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Re: My dwarves are obsessively ratman-phobic.
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2008, 07:21:00 am »

I didn't think military dwarves were supposed to be interrupted by enemies...
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TurnpikeLad

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Re: My dwarves are obsessively ratman-phobic.
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2008, 07:34:00 am »

I know, huh?  It was pretty weird to see "dwarfname, Elite Wrestler, cancels Pickup Equipment: Interrupted by iron man."
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McDoomhammer

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Re: My dwarves are obsessively ratman-phobic.
« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2008, 09:11:00 am »

Yeah, I take it all back, either iron men are really really scary or you have a problem there.
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Torak

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Re: My dwarves are obsessively ratman-phobic.
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2008, 12:27:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by McDoomhammer:
<STRONG>Yeah, I take it all back, either iron men are really really scary or you have a problem there.</STRONG>

I'm scared of anything that's got a higher Damage block than a colossus.

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McDoomhammer

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Re: My dwarves are obsessively ratman-phobic.
« Reply #8 on: January 27, 2008, 12:58:00 pm »

Mine is stuck on a tiny ledge in the chasm where it can't do any damage, and there it shall stay.
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se5a

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Re: My dwarves are obsessively ratman-phobic.
« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2008, 04:31:00 pm »

yup I've had the same problem. I've lost nearly half my population because they couldn't get food or drink, since they were too scared to move.
I've started a new game.
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Toady One

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Re: My dwarves are obsessively ratman-phobic.
« Reply #10 on: January 27, 2008, 08:55:00 pm »

I've got a save with this, but I haven't addressed it yet.
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