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[cancel.man]

I've never used fortress mode to supply an adventurer with badass weapons & armor so I decided it's about time. My dwarves have carved out a nice little hole next to the sea near a human settlement that I should be able to find pretty easily when the time comes. I've dug up the candy and my legendary weapon & armorsmiths are busy pounding it into toothpicks, etc.

Now I'm starting to plan for the next phase: Abandon & Explore. Here are my questions:

• Will all the items (weapons, armor) be scattered around the site? I think I've read before that they will. Is there any way to prevent this from happening and still allow my adventurer access? How scattered will the items be (will stuff stored at the magma level come all the way to the surface)?
• Should I seal up the fortress and how? Doors? Doors on levers? Bridges on levers? (can my adventurer even interact with levers?) Or just leave it open for my adventurer to walk right into? This goes doubly for the caverns- should I door them off or keep them accessible?
• Should my dozens of critter-killing weapons traps be removed? Will these remain active and decimate my adventurer when he stumbles in?
• Will the food remain? Wondering how much sustenance my adventurer will need or if my thousands of pots of plump helmets will be there for him.
• Is it safe to sleep in abandoned fortresses? Without companions (will bogeymen show up)? Assuming he can use levers, should I build a safe house for my adventurer?
• I assume a human adventurer will not be able to wear dwarf-constructed armor but cloaks, hoods and other accessories aren't size-dependent, right? Which dwarf-made armor/clothing will fit a human?
• What else should I do to maximize fun (!!FUN!!) prior to abandoning? Any fun or helpful constructions, items, etc. I should make use of? Planning to make access to all the caverns but what else is fun/helpful for an adventurer in an abandoned fort?
• And finally: Abandon peacefully, succumb to siege, or invite the clowns out to play- what's the best way to kick out the dwarves to make room for the roaming hero?

Huh... that's sort of a long list. Wonder if I missed anything. Plenty of time to kill while my weapons and armor are being crafted.

[LordSlowpoke]

1. They will, unless you wall them in. See #2.
2. You can wall in the room with a constructed wall with supports holding a natural wall a z-level above, but make sure to also dig out the area only one z-level below the constructed wall so the natural one doesn't just break the other and replace it. That's a base design I use in most of my vaults.
3. If you wish, you can keep them, but that's your choice entirely. Whenever adventurers activate traps is aii in the init file.
4. I think that if it stays in barrels it shouldn't rot. Think being the key word here.
Not sure on #5 entirely, so going to skip it. Someone else probably knows more on this.
6. All dwarf-made armor and clothing is made for dwarves, which are smaller than humans, landing you a lot of unusable equipment. Elves can use it, if it helps.
7. You could make yourself a live magma pumpstack complete with reactor ready to start flooding things as you reactivate the reactor itself (I found it useful to have a windmill farm, which by lever connected to gear assembly is connected to the main reactor, which is then via lever connected to gear assembly connected to the stack. You're going to have to guess whenever it's all active from the looks though.) Access to all the caverns should be avoided, unless you plan to do it in the vault manner described above, since you're going to have a funfest with it's various critters once you come back as an adventurer... Rest's up to you, it's your fort after all.
8. Varies whenever you want to achieve Fun or not. Abandoning will leave a bunch of critters from the areas you have access to, succumbing will leave in goblins, and inviting the clowns will cause them to stay for a while. Note that if you don't get to the toothpick storage before meeting a clown you may be in for a very, very Fun time.

Hope it helps.

[Sscral]

5. Bogeymen will appear outdoors in abandoned fortresses, but if you walk into an indoor space either constructed or underground they generally poof away after a few turns.

[cancel.man]

Thanks Slowpoke! Great answers!

So the vault holds everything in and then when your adventurer trips the lever it will drop the natural wall to destroy the constructed wall and expose the vault, yes?

[Garath]

I guess that doesn't work with a raised bridge?

[cancel.man]

I guess that doesn't work with a raised bridge?

No, raised bridges don't keep items from scattering.

I've been trying to come up with a vault design but none of mine are working. Constructed walls don't break (or push down) when a natural wall is dropped on them. Not sure how Slowpoke has achieved this.

[gomwon]

Lead bins. I heard heavier items dont scatter as easily.

[SirAaronIII]

You could use dfhack and make it a lair, stopping scattering.

[Yoink]

I think the best option would be to build a completely sealed cube, raised 1 z-level off the floor by a pillar, with all your goodies inside. Hook a lever up to that pillar, then your adventurer can pull it and BAM!
That may have been what he meant.

[cancel.man]

I think the best option would be to build a completely sealed cube, raised 1 z-level off the floor by a pillar, with all your goodies inside. Hook a lever up to that pillar, then your adventurer can pull it and BAM!
That may have been what he meant.

This is what I tried but dropping the vault destroys everything (ceiling- natural or built- crushes everything).

Might try lead bins and sealing off more of the unused areas of the fort.

[zx.pr0jk#]

I can't say for sure, but I think items forbidden in a dump don't get scattered.

I also think a small room with a forbidden(pet unpassable) stone door also prevents scattering.

I can't say for sure about either, but both are easily enough tested. I distinctly remember something wasn't scattered when I explored one fort. Don't recall why it wasn't. Could have just been dumb luck that it didn't scatter. So long ago, don't even remember what the item was. Might have been an artifact if it warranted me exploring the fort.

[Gizogin]

There's a modded "display case" building floating around somewhere that you might find useful.  I haven't personally tried it, but apparently you make the workshop using whatever item you want, then set it up so that the building drops and deconstructs at the pull of a lever.

[cancel.man]

Could have just been dumb luck that it didn't scatter.

I'm finding this to be the most reliable factor. Oddly in my last vault attempt there were about 10 bins of armor left right where my dwarfs left them. Everything else in from vault was scattered all over.

Gonna try forbidding the items and a door. Even easier than producing lead bins...

[acetech09]

I think the best option would be to build a completely sealed cube, raised 1 z-level off the floor by a pillar, with all your goodies inside. Hook a lever up to that pillar, then your adventurer can pull it and BAM!
That may have been what he meant.

This is what I tried but dropping the vault destroys everything (ceiling- natural or built- crushes everything).

Might try lead bins and sealing off more of the unused areas of the fort.

They shouldnt... you sure the items weren't covered by rubble?

[cancel.man]

They shouldnt... you sure the items weren't covered by rubble?

Absolutely. The announcement screen even featured several pages of "A master work of Urist McMetalsmith has been lost!" as soon as the vault dropped. I tried the vault drop cave in while still in fortress mode (to ensure it would work)- would the result have been different in Adventure mode?

Forbidding the items (through designations, not dumping) and forbidding the access door didn't make any difference either.