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[Mintaka]

It's been a bad year for claustrophobic dwarves in my fortress.  One child tragically starved to death, trapped under a drawbridge, and two masons were narrowly rescued from starvation after walling themselves into different parts of the caverns.  These experiences have made me wonder: Does the "[NAME] has been missing for a week" message appear whenever someone hasn't been seen for a week, or only when they've been dead for a week?  I'm pretty sure it's the latter.  I never got any message about the two masons (discovered them when I looked through the jobs list and saw "hunt for small creature").  And I'm pretty sure that the message I got about the trapped child came much more than a week after the drawbridge was closed.  Thoughts?  !!Science!! ?  I don't suppose anyone's tested how long it takes a dwarf to starve/dehydrate.

[wierd]

It has been my experience (after sitting and *watching* a dwarf die for science!) That the message appears as soon as they die.

They are not officially declared dead until the body is discovered, or their mononoke starts eating people, whichever comes first.

[Flying Dice]

It has been my experience (after sitting and *watching* a dwarf die for science!) That the message appears as soon as they die.

They are not officially declared dead until the body is discovered, or their mononoke starts eating people, whichever comes first.

Spoiler: I love misunderstandings, especially when I think of an alternate meaning first. (click to show/hide)

Also, I would guess that it is the latter based on my own experiences, but I haven't actually scienced it.

[Urist Da Vinci]

... Does the "[NAME] has been missing for a week" message appear whenever someone hasn't been seen for a week, or only when they've been dead for a week? ...

At the moment, it only appears when they've been dead for a week and the body hasn't been found.

Fun fact: now that dwarves don't get bad thoughts from "missings", instead only from confirmed deaths (and presumably ghosts), atom-smashing pets placed on a pasture is an effective & happiness-preserving method of reducing unwanted migrant pet numbers. There is no body to be found.

[Darekun]

It has been my experience (after sitting and *watching* a dwarf die for science!) That the message appears as soon as they die.

It may be "dead plus a week since last seen"; if the stockpiles and bed are complete and a mason goes off to spend a month on a remote project, no message. If a hunter picks a giant sponge in a waterfall for her first target, shoots it, jumps in, and drowns, it takes much longer thereafter than she lived on-map for the message to appear. But if the mason died two weeks into the remote project, the message would probably happen right then.

[Mintaka]

It has been my experience (after sitting and *watching* a dwarf die for science!) That the message appears as soon as they die.

It may be "dead plus a week since last seen"; if the stockpiles and bed are complete and a mason goes off to spend a month on a remote project, no message. If a hunter picks a giant sponge in a waterfall for her first target, shoots it, jumps in, and drowns, it takes much longer thereafter than she lived on-map for the message to appear. But if the mason died two weeks into the remote project, the message would probably happen right then.

That sounds plausible.  There have definitely been times in my fort when the message didn't happen right at death. 

[zubb2]

Hey dice, I beleive ive seen that movie I like that guy who makes them movies.
Laputa was weird and howles castle I liked the least.

[wierd]

Fun fact!

Both of those movies are studio ghibli.

Studio ghibli didn't actually write the script for one of those movies. For most of their movies, they Instead select novels that have ideals and messages they feel are compatible with their own, cast voice actors, artists, et al, and turn them into ovas.

Howl's moving castle is based on a book of the same name written by dianna wynne jones.

Laputa is however the work of ghibli director hayao mayazaki.

For TRUE crazy from ghibli though... look for:

Heisei tanuki gassen pompoko

(It was never released in the US, for reasons that will be self evident if you look it up.)

[kaenneth]

Wicked thought for future release; changelings that sneak attack dwarves that are alone, and replace them. perhaps with a swallow whole attack, or like the movie 'Body Snatchers' or 'The Thing'.

Then they kill someone else and replace the new victim; Only then does the old victim get reported missing.

[pushy]

It's been a bad year for claustrophobic dwarves in my fortress.  One child tragically starved to death, trapped under a drawbridge, and two masons were narrowly rescued from starvation after walling themselves into different parts of the caverns.  These experiences have made me wonder: Does the "[NAME] has been missing for a week" message appear whenever someone hasn't been seen for a week, or only when they've been dead for a week?  I'm pretty sure it's the latter.  I never got any message about the two masons (discovered them when I looked through the jobs list and saw "hunt for small creature").  And I'm pretty sure that the message I got about the trapped child came much more than a week after the drawbridge was closed.  Thoughts?  !!Science!! ?  I don't suppose anyone's tested how long it takes a dwarf to starve/dehydrate.

From the dev log:

As it stands, all "missing" dwarves will actually be dead, but it'll be fun to add situations where that isn't necessarily true later on. Dwarves snatched by the goblins might fit into this, since they'd be "missing" -- there's a balance of concerns, since having the "a dwarf has been snatched!" announcement is good to see, to avoid false bug reports if anything, but I think working to make a new system that covers everything is going to be the better alternative in the end. It would be amusing to make a hunter or miner that hasn't seen another one of your dwarves for a year or two be marked as missing, but that might be going too far, he he he.

And since you asked, from memory it takes somewhere in the region of two months for dwarves to die of dehydration. I didn't test how long that takes, but it's something I'm vaguely familiar with from walling off areas for testing many other things. The testing area has all the things those dwarves need to survive long enough to do their science successfully, while migrants outside the testing area will stand around doing bugger all for most of the year (they'll drink from the river or hunt for vermin to eat if they're hungry or thirsty) but if the river freezes for long enough over winter then they won't survive (vampires will in the latest versions since they don't need to eat or drink but regular dwarves will die of thirst). Starvation probably takes a bit longer, but in most forts in my experience it's rare to actually see dwarves die of starvation. Rivers may freeze which stops dwarves from having access to water, but vermin appear all over the place and desperate dwarves will eat vermin to stay alive that little bit longer.

[KodKod]

Wicked thought for future release; changelings that sneak attack dwarves that are alone, and replace them. perhaps with a swallow whole attack, or like the movie 'Body Snatchers' or 'The Thing'.

Then they kill someone else and replace the new victim; Only then does the old victim get reported missing.

How about your idea, but having them replace children and babies?

That way not only is it in keeping with the changeling idea, but it's also less annoying that having yet another means for your legendary workers to die. After all you'll (probably) want to stop the kids from going missing, if only so stop tantrums, but if a few of them do disappear before you can do anything about it then it isn't a huge loss.