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[Blastbeard]

Damn. Any other uses for an insane vampire? o3o

Stark raving mad dwarves run around and pull any lever they can reach, right? So, if you were to put a mad vampire in a sealed room full of levers linked to whatever, would you end up with a continuous lever-pulling mechanism guaranteed for eternity?

[Random_Dragon]

Damn. Any other uses for an insane vampire? o3o

Stark raving mad dwarves run around and pull any lever they can reach, right? So, if you were to put a mad vampire in a sealed room full of levers linked to whatever, would you end up with a continuous lever-pulling mechanism guaranteed for eternity?

Not sure. I know berserk ones are rumored to do so, but no idea if they're inclined to do so repeatedly.

Plus a berserk dwarf no longer counts as a citizen, so if you're relying on one sealed up to prevent losing the game through population loss, you're screwed.

[Blastbeard]

The intention is not that the vampire is a citizen sealed away from harm, but rather is just a cog in a machine. It's kind of like those dwarfputers where you put a kitten in a loop and every time it walks over a pressure plate something happens.
So yeah, crazy vampire in a room full of levers and pressure pads. They hopefully constantly run around and set off everything linked to the plates and levers. Exactly what those devices are linked to and what it does is entirely up to the player. You lose a citizen but don't have to worry about replacing the core mechanism because they never die.
...Man, that's dark.

[Larix]

It's only ever been rumoured about berserkers, and even that rumour is very likely false.

Babbling and melancholic units don't pull levers. An insane vampire can however wander randomly, which could be used to extract signals via pressure plate. That'd be extremely erratic and irregular, expect them to stand in one tile for weeks occasionally.

You can put a sane vampire on permanent "pull lever" duty by simply giving them one to operate and assigning "Pull lever/R". That'll give you a steady stream of on/off signals. Vampires may interrupt their lever-pulling to take a break from time to time.

[Blastbeard]

Babbling and melancholic units don't pull levers. An insane vampire can however wander randomly, which could be used to extract signals via pressure plate. That'd be extremely erratic and irregular, expect them to stand in one tile for weeks occasionally.

That's perfect for a 'Schrodinger's Cat' device. The actual mechanism used doesn't matter, so long as the result is a machine that does different things and even the creator doesn't know the chances of any one outcome. People have done this before, usually with pets, but those tend to die eventually. A vampire won't.
As for what the machine does, that's entirely up to the designer. you could open and close floodgate doors that redirect fortress traffic at random, or flood/drain areas with your liquid of choice. you could even set it so retracting drawbridges activate at random, rendering entire parts of your fortress inaccessible at a moment's notice. Really, the only limit here is imagination.