Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[shadow_archmagi]

In my first attempt at a goblin torture device, I discovered that tossing a cage into water will not drown the goblin. This is PROBABLY a glitch, unless goblins are aquatic. It was such a shame too, as I was hoping to re-use the cage afterwords, which I can't do with magma executions.

I hope draining the pond and then constructing it properly will work.

[Torak]

Cages act as a separate dimension so far, which will be fixed later.

[Zereth]

You can build the cage next to the edge of a pit, make a pit zone, and order the goblin thrown into the pit, though. If you don't care about his stuff, you can build a drawbridge int he pit to smash him out of existence afterward.

Note that if you have to move him any farther than that, the dwarf doing the moving is likely to notice he's hauling a goblin and panic after a random amount of squares, so you need the distance to be as short as possible. If the cage is directly adjacent to the open space, it seems to not give them enough time to notice.

I think this also only works one goblin at a time, since the dwarves will be able to see the goblins in the pit, and I don't recommend trying it with marksgoblins.

[numerobis]

You can also build the cage in a floodable room, link the cage to a lever, also link the lever to the relevant floodgate, pull the lever, and watch.

I engraved that room in my fortress with engravings of waves and engravings of dwarves fighting goblins and engravings of goblins making plaintive gestures.  Just so that they have images to help them reflect upon their final moments.

[numerobis]

quote:Originally posted by Zereth:
<STRONG>I think this also only works one goblin at a time, since the dwarves will be able to see the goblins in the pit, and I don't recommend trying it with marksgoblins.</STRONG>

If you make the pit deep enough, they'll be able to see goblins parts, which aren't quite so scary.

To deal with marksgoblins, you can go to the 'z' screen, 'stocks', tab, ammunition, find their bow / crossbow, and dump it.  Maybe dump their arrows, too.  And their clothes, to keep them from getting bloody.  You do need to have kept sufficiently good records to use that technique, though.

[ein Syndication]

I've had mixed results pitting goblins. The thieves, more times than not, scare the ones doing the hauling and manage to escape. A locked door does not help in this respect, as they also had a tendency to mortally wound the person left in the locked room. The ones from sieges, I've accidentally pitted the wrong ones before and had a dwarf haul the thing a good 30 tiles from its cage and tossed it right in the pit. It really seems to vary.

[shadow_archmagi]

quote:Originally posted by benoit.hudson:
<STRONG>You can also build the cage in a floodable room, link the cage to a lever, also link the lever to the relevant floodgate, pull the lever, and watch.

I engraved that room in my fortress with engravings of waves and engravings of dwarves fighting goblins and engravings of goblins making plaintive gestures.  Just so that they have images to help them reflect upon their final moments.</STRONG>

How did you pick your engravings!??!

[numerobis]

quote:Originally posted by shadow_archmagi:
<STRONG>How did you pick your engravings!??!</STRONG>

Clearly, I picked dwarves with good taste.

[numerobis]

quote:Originally posted by ein Syndication:
<STRONG> The thieves, more times than not, scare the ones doing the hauling and manage to escape.</STRONG>

Same here.  I've had a thief make his getaway to the main entrance (and jump into a cage trap, 'natch), whereas I've seen military goblins get dragged 50 tiles through the entire fortress without incident.  The former are escape artists; the latter honorably accept their fate, I guess?

Of course, I was taking no chances and had stripped them all naked ahead of time.

[Shadowlord]

On cages:
Cages are one of the main types of dwarven magic (the other really obvious one being the bookkeeper). Things in cages can age, and clothes can decay, and dwarves still get fed and watered, but that's about it. Marksgoblins in cages can't fire out, things inside can't drown when dropped in water, can't suffocate due to running out of air due to having been underwater for months, can't be hurt by their cage falling vast distances (the last time I tried it, which was admittedly in 33a or so - dropped a wooden cage holding a goblin 11 or so stories onto wooden spikes, and the cage, goblin, and spikes all survived unharmed), and so on.

They do have one weakness, though - wooden cages at least - Like matter and antimatter, if you drop a wooden cage into magma, the cage and everything inside it vanishes (last time I tried it, in 33g?) (Alas, no magma is destroyed in the process, and no energy is generated*). Even if there are bones inside the cage, you don't end up with bones in the magma - everything just vanishes. (I haven't tried with non-magma-safe metal cages, though, and I did have temperature on. And, I bet iron and steel cages would just sit in the magma and protect their contents.)

* = Unless the remote fire starting bug still exists.

On pitting goblins:
I haven't seen any goblins escape when being tossed into a pit when their cage was right next to said pit (unless I ordered more than one goblin pitted at a time) - but I have seen a small portion of those pitted goblins (say around 5%) survive the 14 story fall down said pit with no injuries (Every other goblin exploded into their component parts on impact).

The pit was a simple 5x1 channeled out area going all the way down to a floor 14 stories below. Presumably the goblin ninjas could have somehow grabbed the walls and held on or something.

(I reported this but it wasn't easily reproducible, so I don't think it has been fixed)

Side note: I've had a great deal more goblins dropped by having hatches open underneath their feet (with no walls in reach or anything), and none of those ever survived the fall.

[ March 05, 2008: Message edited by: Shadowlord ]

[Lord Nightmare]

Maybe its the same 'cages go invisible when underwater and stay invisible' bug, but with magma instead of water?

LN

[Alfador]

To avoid goblins surviving a pit fall, build an "upright spike/spear" trap at every tile on the bottom and link it to a lever before sealing off the pit. Then set the lever to repeat. Instant goblin Swiss cheese.

[numerobis]

quote:Originally posted by Shadowlord:
<STRONG>survive the 14 story fall down said pit with no injuries ...
(I reported this but it wasn't easily reproducible, so I don't think it has been fixed)</STRONG>

I would argue that's a feature.

[numerobis]

If you mark a cage containing a jailed dwarf for melting, you get a message about a dwarf dying from overheating.  I don't know what would happen to their gear -- the dwarf I did that to only had burnable things on.

[Jay]

quote:Originally posted by benoit.hudson:
<STRONG>If you mark a cage containing a jailed dwarf for melting, you get a message about a dwarf dying from overheating.  I don't know what would happen to their gear -- the dwarf I did that to only had burnable things on.</STRONG>

Well yeah, I'd assume it doesn't remove things from cages before melting them...  I gotta say, that's a good method of execution for bad dwarves..  Cage 'em and melt 'em.