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[Gerottomo]

Guys. You're forgetting something

Breeding dragons? Kinda cool.

Breeding the deadly giant sponges and the flying lungfish,
then training them into war giant sponges and war lungfish, now thats cool.

The goblins and other creatures will be attacking your giant sponges to no avail but still be assaulted from the air, the sea, and the land by your flying lungfish army.

Now lets just hope Toady doesn't fix those beautiful creatures in that release.

[Aoi]

How... how do giant sponges reproduce...?

On the other hand, now I'm having images of an underwater living citadel, formed by a massive giant sponge that has had hallways and rooms dug into it.

[Girlinhat]

Lungfish are vermin, so good luck with that...  And sponges don't move, so good luck taming them.  I mean, I'm sure it will happen, just need to find how.  Sponges are also strictly aquatic and will air-drown, making their war uses... less than useful.

[sneakey pete]

Am i the only one who's just excited about taming giant tigers?

[Nil Eyeglazed]

Aquatic warbeasts aren't about offense, they're about defense.

Consider a wall of fortifications with a moat.  What happens normally?  Your marksdwarf goes up there, and if he's lucky enough to return home, it's as a pincushion.

Now put a tame giant sponge in that moat.

Suddenly, all of the goblin archers are targeting the member of your civilization closest to them-- in other words, the giant sponge.  What do sponges do?  They soak.  Meanwhile, your recruit goes back for another load of bolts, then another, then another, and eventually, all of the goblins are dead, without a single dwarven casualty.

Of course, it's complicated a bit by the fact that nobody will have line of sight to your sponge until they're right up next to the moat.  Hence, a Moses-effect moat wall becomes necessary, and the trick is promoted from boring exploit to practical engineering challenge.

[wierd]

Now I want to start a fortress where kobolds are given PET_EXOTIC....


Catch some with a dustguster, tame them......


Kobold shock troops!

[Girlinhat]

+1 for Moses Effect sponge wall.

-1 because you still have a LOT of trouble trying to get a sponge into a cage.

[Sadrice]

Will cave in dust move a sponge?

[Girlinhat]

In theory yes, and so should moving water (as long as it's changing depth during movement).  The issue then becomes getting a cave-in or water movement to occur nearby a sponge that will also result in the sponge being moved onto a cage trap.

[Sadrice]

Well turns out they don't have pet tags anyways.  And why should they?  They have [NOTHOUGHT], taming would be meaningless.  Now to get them to realize that they're brainless and incapable of movement so they'll stop murdering dwarves...

[Nil Eyeglazed]

Sphalerite mentioned the difficulty involved in using flowing water to trap aquatic critters in his harpoon thread.  I think I would probably instead try to undermine a giant sponge, with a bunch of cage traps underneath it.  That might work.  (Or, you might get countless interruptions as you tried to channel up around the sponge, and separate it from its water source, leading to the giant sponge drowning.)

Well turns out they don't have pet tags anyways.  And why should they?  They have [NOTHOUGHT], taming would be meaningless.  Now to get them to realize that they're brainless and incapable of movement so they'll stop murdering dwarves...

Regular sponges don't have the pet tag, but giant sponges do.  Exotic, of course.

[Girlinhat]

This might work better:

Code: [Select]

~%% #
~## #
~#_
~#~#
~~~#
####It's a side view.  The %% is a pump, # are walls, ~ is water (or magma, if you're into that sort of thing), and the very important _ is a floor grate.  The sponge would rest atop this grate.  Because of the positioning, water would be pumped towards the right, fall down, and push the sponge against the wall.  Since the sponge is against the wall, it won't be pushed at all, while the water may still drain down safely.

If you built this into your wall, you could position sponges in small alcoves in the wall, where they are elevated slightly and very easy for goblins to spot - hopefully allowing the goblins to spot the sponges first and open fire on something that isn't a dwarf.

This could be used for any other aquatic animal, assuming that it maintains 4/7 or less the majority of the time to prevent air-drowning.  Utilizing multiple pumps and a depressurizer may prove more effective at keeping the sponges hydrated.  Of course, none of this actually handles the "how to cage" issue, but once it is caged you can keep them intact in the walls, drawing aggro to protect your marksmen on the walls.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

You know, that's why this game is so awesome.  A few months ago, I was trying to figure out how to make a clock by cyclically dropping a fish on a kobold's head.  Today, you're demonstrating how to design a defensive giant sponge alcove.

[Eric Blank]

make a clock by cyclically dropping a fish on a kobold's head.

How does THAT work, anyway? Trying to scare the kobold off a pressure plate at a set time interval?

[Kofthefens]

You know, that's why this game is so awesome.  A few months ago, I was trying to figure out how to make a clock by cyclically dropping a fish on a kobold's head.  Today, you're demonstrating how to design a defensive giant sponge alcove.

Wait, what?!