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[Eric Blank]

Yeah, I understood it, I think. I don't think Toady is explicitly planning to make social predators hunt together as a pack, though, since he hasn't mentioned it AFAIK. Seeing it as "emergent behavior" wherein a few individuals target the same prey item and give chase, who are then chased by the remainder of the members of the group because they want to stick together is entirely possible. That sort of behavior already occurs in goblin squads where the leader seeks out a target and the rest of the squad clusters around the leader.

Troglodytes are probably a good example of pack hunters in the caverns. They certainly love to invade your fortress and murder your dwarves in packs

Cave crawlers, jabberers, green devourers, and maybe really ambitious giant cave spiders are probably more likely candidates for predators of animals like rutherers. At least, my memory tells me those are all fairly hefty carnivores/omnivores.

[WillowLuman]

GCS probably eats nearly everything in the caverns that doesn't have supernatural powers.

[LordBaal]

Yes I understood too.. perhaps it was just a poor example, but a valid one nevertheless. But as Eric point out, Toady hasn't said anything about that kind of behavior specifically.

[Just Some Guy]

A hypothetical that just crossed my mind.


Fifty twenty year old dwarves, twenty five male and twenty five female, are put locked in a chamber within the magma sea with seeds, picks, axes, booze, and other necessities and through the clever use of syndromes put in stasis for a hundred years. Once the chamber has been sealed and the inhabitants put into hibernation, all entrances to the fort are closed off and the dwarves not lucky enough to be chosen for the experiment are killed, either through magma or another syndrome. Also inside the chamber is a lever that will open a passage between the chamber and the rest of the fort, for use after the syndrome takes its course. The fort is then retired.

The fort is reclaimed a year or two before the dwarves in the chamber wake up. When they pull the lever and enter into the actual fort, what will they see? What about outside the fort?

[Nasikabatrachus]

I have no idea what to make of Just Some Guy's question, but it does remind me of something I've been wondering about recently.

In retired forts, do the various denizens of the fort respect pathing while the fort is retired? That is, if I put a dwarf vampire into an oubliette, retired the fort, and then unretired the fort, would the vampire still be there? Would the same hold for an army of captured goblins held prisoner in a giant pit with smoothed walls (or a sealed off chamber)? Would a revealed circus destroy a retired fort from the inside even if it was isolated from the dwarven population by, say, some cast obsidian?

[Mesa]

A hypothetical that just crossed my mind.


Fifty twenty year old dwarves, twenty five male and twenty five female, are put locked in a chamber within the magma sea with seeds, picks, axes, booze, and other necessities and through the clever use of syndromes put in stasis for a hundred years. Once the chamber has been sealed and the inhabitants put into hibernation, all entrances to the fort are closed off and the dwarves not lucky enough to be chosen for the experiment are killed, either through magma or another syndrome. Also inside the chamber is a lever that will open a passage between the chamber and the rest of the fort, for use after the syndrome takes its course. The fort is then retired.

The fort is reclaimed a year or two before the dwarves in the chamber wake up. When they pull the lever and enter into the actual fort, what will they see? What about outside the fort?

This is !!SCIENCE!! material in its purest and most literal form right there.

[TastyMints]

Seeing as the recent devblog update concerns lairs and night creature abductions, I was wondering how this behavior might play out on "civilized" spouse converters. It is 100% possible to create a civilization of "mono-gendered" spouse converters that survive and thrive in world-gen in the current release (As long as you define their Converted Spouse and set them to never be born the game generates them abstractly.) I was wondering if, when included, the abduction system would cause a [SPOUSE_CONVERTER] civ who declares war on a [SPOUSE_CONVERSION_TARGET] civ to spouse convert their prisoners?

I realize that changing the lair code doesn't really change the behavior or nature of night creatures as it stands, nor of spouse converters, but I'm curious as to how this might be used in mods and such further down the line.

[misko27]

Seeing as the recent devblog update concerns lairs and night creature abductions, I was wondering how this behavior might play out on "civilized" spouse converters. It is 100% possible to create a civilization of "mono-gendered" spouse converters that survive and thrive in world-gen in the current release (As long as you define their Converted Spouse and set them to never be born the game generates them abstractly.) I was wondering if, when included, the abduction system would cause a [SPOUSE_CONVERTER] civ who declares war on a [SPOUSE_CONVERSION_TARGET] civ to spouse convert their prisoners?

I realize that changing the lair code doesn't really change the behavior or nature of night creatures as it stands, nor of spouse converters, but I'm curious as to how this might be used in mods and such further down the line.

Judging from goblins and their children abduction thing, they would simply hate each other very much. And, as in Dwarf Mode, periodically send ambushes and sieges to loot your fort.

I can't wait for looting actually. When losing to a goblin siege no longer means literally everyone is slaughtered, and they actually take some of the damn wealth that attracted them in the first place. We have yielding now, and occupation; the steps to surrendering and plunder are already there.

[Inarius]

I can't wait for looting actually.

I can't wait for EVERYTHING in this release, actually.

[CaptainArchmage]

Personally, I think Toady should just put night troll abductions into the game already.

Now that vehicle collisions have been fixed, does that mean the minecarts in the gravity-fed minecart autocannon will stack up to the ceiling?

[smjjames]

A hypothetical that just crossed my mind.


Fifty twenty year old dwarves, twenty five male and twenty five female, are put locked in a chamber within the magma sea with seeds, picks, axes, booze, and other necessities and through the clever use of syndromes put in stasis for a hundred years. Once the chamber has been sealed and the inhabitants put into hibernation, all entrances to the fort are closed off and the dwarves not lucky enough to be chosen for the experiment are killed, either through magma or another syndrome. Also inside the chamber is a lever that will open a passage between the chamber and the rest of the fort, for use after the syndrome takes its course. The fort is then retired.

The fort is reclaimed a year or two before the dwarves in the chamber wake up. When they pull the lever and enter into the actual fort, what will they see? What about outside the fort?

In order for the experiment to work and for it to be true stasis, the syndrome would have to eliminate the need for food and drink. Also, I don't think there is a way to suspend the aging proccess, so you'd have to use young dwarves (or children even) to make sure they don't die of old age, or increase lifespan in the raws.

Bonus points if you do it in a freezing biome and the dwarves all have their own icy chambers.

[WillowLuman]

Sure there's a way to suspend aging. The necromancer syndrome already does it. The only thing is, it's likely permanent.

[Mesa]

Coudln't you just mod in a temporary syndrome then?

[WillowLuman]

What I mean is, I think if you remove the syndrome after they're far older than their natural lifespan, they just die.

[LordBaal]

Because the game keep adding their age chronologically (I think), despite whatever it's physiologically age might be. For that kind of stuff you would need some kind of Snow White or Sleeping beauty syndrome that not only make them sleep, but also that makes the game engine not age them or make them special cases where the years they went in hibernation are not take into account towards their biological age.