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Author Topic: Statues and hostile movement  (Read 1325 times)

Alastar

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Statues and hostile movement
« on: February 05, 2022, 01:15:53 pm »

Statues seem to be popular for traffic control, as citizens don't voluntarily path through them... but to which extent does that affect other creatures - animals, invaders, megabeasts, clowns etc? Does the ability to fly or building destroyer status matter?

If the behaviour is predictable, it would be useful either way.
If they resepct statues, we have a deterrent for places where a hard barrier would be inconvenient.
If they don't, we can have open areas that are safe-ish for dwarves but hazardous to uninvited guests.
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A_Curious_Cat

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Re: Statues and hostile movement
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2022, 05:59:56 pm »

You might find this of interest.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Statues and hostile movement
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2022, 03:17:24 am »

As far as I know, statues are not passable to creatures. They can be targeted for de-construction by building destroyers, though. They are passable to mine carts, and so can be used to keep cats and visitors away from the tracks (which obviously means the carts have to be powered by something other than a creature pushing/guiding it).
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Ziusudra

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Re: Statues and hostile movement
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2022, 04:01:01 am »

Building destroyers can target them, though, whether they will, I don't know. The thing is, even non-building-destroyers can topple statues in adventurer mode and world gen - that might be something that can happen during tantrums in fort mode. Whether invaders can topple them, I also don't know.

Another thing adventurers can do with statues, is they can jump into or through them, though, I doubt invaders would attempt that, as they mightn't see it as a path. Other possibilities are that creatures might dodge onto the statue's tile, get thrown into it by a wrestler, or maybe knocked by a minecart.

Given that they can be jumped through, I would assume that flyers could pass through them, but again the question is whether the pathing code would try.
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anewaname

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Re: Statues and hostile movement
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2022, 05:46:26 pm »

Statues seem to behave like the impassible workshop tiles, where units cannot walk-path into them but dodging units and flying/moving items can land in the tile.

If one wanted to test if flyers would pass through a statue tile, one could set up a vulture/kea bait trap like this:
WWWW                  W=wall, S=statue, M=moat, a and b are stockpiles
WaSaM
WbSbM
WWWW

The stockpiles would have either a furniture item or a fruit/leaves item.
If that bait trap was roofed, keas and vultures would need to fly over the moat to get to the first stockpiles and fly through the statues to get to the second stockpiles. To make this work, you probably need to lock up the fort so the scavengers have no other items to target.
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Mobbstar

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Re: Statues and hostile movement
« Reply #5 on: February 08, 2022, 12:54:35 pm »

If that bait trap was roofed, keas and vultures would need to fly over the moat to get to the first stockpiles and fly through the statues to get to the second stockpiles. To make this work, you probably need to lock up the fort so the scavengers have no other items to target.

What if the default pathfinder requires a non-statue path but the flight pathfinder can move through the statues?  To test this particular case, an unobstructed winding path to the other side should be available.

anewaname

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Re: Statues and hostile movement
« Reply #6 on: February 10, 2022, 07:29:49 pm »

If that bait trap was roofed, keas and vultures would need to fly over the moat to get to the first stockpiles and fly through the statues to get to the second stockpiles. To make this work, you probably need to lock up the fort so the scavengers have no other items to target.

What if the default pathfinder requires a non-statue path but the flight pathfinder can move through the statues?  To test this particular case, an unobstructed winding path to the other side should be available.
If I am understanding your post right, I'd reply "there is no alternate winding secondary tunnel to the western stockpiles because the moat is intended to remove the default walk-pathing from the test. The eastern stockpile is only accessible to a flying creature*1 and so the western stockpiles are only accessible to flying creatures that are also willing to fly through statues (there should be a roof above all stockpiles and statues), There are three presumptions in this test: that a flying creature will continue in flying-mode while in a 1-z-height-tunnel, that at least 2 birds of the species will arrive, and that the overseer will only notice the theft as the birds are leaving the map and the "stolen item" popup displayed. The expectation is that you check the test results when the "stolen item" popup is displayed. If they steal items from the eastern stockpile but not the western stockpile, then flyers are unable to path through statues in tunnels. If they didn't steal from the eastern stockpile then the test itself was faulty. And, if they stole from both eastern and western then flyers can path through statues in tunnels.

Do you understand me? Did I understand you?

*1Swimmers are ignored in this test because once they access the eastern stockpile, they have changed from swim-mode to walk-mode, so they will be unable to bypass the statue.
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Quote from: dragdeler
There is something to be said about, if the stakes are as high, maybe reconsider your certitudes. One has to be aggressively allistic to feel entitled to be able to trust. But it won't happen to me, my bit doesn't count etc etc... Just saying, after my recent experiences I couldn't trust the public if I wanted to. People got their risk assessment neurons rotten and replaced with game theory. Folks walk around like fat turkeys taunting the world to slaughter them.

Mobbstar

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Re: Statues and hostile movement
« Reply #7 on: February 11, 2022, 01:59:12 am »

Do you understand me?

So you want to test if flier are inately willing to cross the barriers, got it.  The test makes sense for this purpose.

I was thinking of this:
Given that they can be jumped through, I would assume that flyers could pass through them, but again the question is whether the pathing code would try.

Fliers do not usually take a "job"/target if they cannot path to it normally.[1]

This is similar to how building destroyers can destroy hatches from underneath, but only if the normal pathfinder can reach the tile the hatch is in (= the topside of the hatch).[2]