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[SharkForce]

EDIT: A new and improved animal-based ambush detector is to dig a channel, put a grate on top, and pit an animal into the channel. Yes, in that order. You can pit through closed grates and hatches. Don't do this if your map is prone to flooding with water or magma.

that sounds like it would be subject to building destruction...

[Agent_Irons]

It is, but I don't think there's any design that's safe from flying building destroyers who bring expert archers. Fortifications help but don't failsafe against archers, windows can be broken.

Pitting through a grate is quick and dirty, but really, what else are you going to do with poults?

[slink]

Let them grow into turkeys, for turkey roasts and turkey leather shoes?

[uncool]

Couldn't ambushers just shoot the animals upwards through the grates? That's the advantage that windows have, although TBH my animal guard towers haven't yet actually caught anything through their windows.

No, because floor grates and floor bars block arrows/bolts/etc.
Wall grates and wall bars allow arrows to pass through.

Floor grates and floor bars used to block line of sight, but that was fixed when Toady made human cities with sewers.

EDIT: A new and improved animal-based ambush detector is to dig a channel, put a grate on top, and pit an animal into the channel. Yes, in that order. You can pit through closed grates and hatches. Don't do this if your map is prone to flooding with water or magma.

Well, one of the points of the animals is to detect ambushes in time to flood them with magma, so...
=Uncool-

[SharkForce]

It is, but I don't think there's any design that's safe from flying building destroyers who bring expert archers. Fortifications help but don't failsafe against archers, windows can be broken.

Pitting through a grate is quick and dirty, but really, what else are you going to do with poults?

yes, but this sounds like it would be subject to building destruction by land-based building destroyers, unless i'm understanding what you're doing incorrectly, since the hatch would be on the ground.

[uncool]

Would a grate over a fortification block arrows and stop building destroyers while still allowing vision?
=Uncool-

[Sabreur]

There's a thread about this issue that I can't be bothered to dig up, but the easiest way I've found to deal with this is to have a 3-tile wide entry hallway.  Above the hallway, have a non-grazing animal pastured on top of a row of 3 floor grates. The animal will be impervious to arrows, immune to building destroyers (not 100% sure about flyers), and safely above any cleansing floods of magma.  Since diagonal tiles are still 'adjacent' for detection purposes, a single creature pastured in the center will spot every thief and ambusher without fail.