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[soulmata]

I've been working through the challenge of getting a stable fortress on a Terrifying map with husk-production clouds - so far I've been doing well, in that it's only taken me about 10 attempts. I do lose caravans time to time and sometimes a migrant pack gets hilariously unlucky and appears right in the middle of a gloom cloud, but for the most part things underground run smoothly.

But, I lost a fort a few days ago because I butchered a water buffalo to use its bones for a strange mood crafter. The bones were used, but the skin reanimated and turned on me. It reanimated rather fast, too - and was surprisingly strong, able to suffocate a handful of dwarves. So, given that, I'm now tasked with still wanting a meat and hide industry underground but minimizing the risk of reanimated cattle coming back to haunt me.

Any suggestions? I do use a trash compactor under the butchers shop to dispose of refuse, which seems reasonable enough, except that I can't make a stockpile for refuse and corpses on top of a bridge. A pit inside the butcher's shop would be useful if I could get them to throw the skins, but I'm not sure how to work the mechanics of that. Perhaps I could post an armed guard inside the butcher shop to deal with reanimated parts? But say I wanted to make my own leather industry work - I'm concerned about hides reanimating before I get a chance to tan them.

Anyway. Thoughts?

[zeziba]

multi z-level drop with minecarts!

Just build a 5x5 area for the work shop then on the back side build a 3 length track with x2 stops have the dwarfs push the cart when its full but change the push immediately every single day(25%) so you never have a mine cart sitting there. You can drop it into magma or an arena type setting purposely meant to reanimate so you can target practice!

[WellBredMutt]

Well, to be honest, your leather industry might be screwed. In any case, it's easy enough to get your dorfs to dump things into a pit. In my experience, you can dig out the pit and then designate a tile next to it as the dumping zone, and your dwarfs will simply chuck dumped items into the gap. Still, a chained war dog would not go amiss.

[soulmata]

Oh the reanimated buffalo skin slaughtered about 6 war dogs before it finally went down. The war dogs then reanimated and turned on me. By the end of the night my catacombs were completely full. It's a good thing zombie dwarves aren't interested in breaking down doors.

I hadn't thought about using the reanimated refuse as target practice. That seems like a fantastic idea.

[Dwarfler]

These suggestions work fine if your only goal is disposal of the bits.  However, this is not always the (only) problem when you have a moody dwarf demanding bones on a map with reanimation.  The problem is that bones, skin and hair (maybe some other parts too, for certain animals) WILL reanimate, period.  You can preempt this by processing the parts before they reanimate (making crafts, tanning, spinning, etc), altho sometimes parts reanimate so quickly that even a quick tanning in an adjacent tanner's workshop is impossible.  This is an even bigger problem with strange moods, because they take much longer than regular labors.  I have tried many methods for circumventing this problem, and the only thing that really works is Being Very Lucky.  That said, I have a couple of superstitions based on experience that I will pass on.  These are just my thoughts based on casual observation - I have conducted no in-depth !!science!! on the matter.

Parts from a corpse seem to reanimate in "waves" - that is, you don't see the skin and bones reanimating at the same time.  One reanimates, and then awhile later the next one does.  What I usually do, then, is butcher a corpse in a "safe room".  The entrance is a bridge that you can raise to block egress after the butcher does his job and gets out.  On the other side of the room is a short dead end corridor with a turkey (or something) chained up at the end.  The skin reanimates, sees that there is no path out of the room, targets the turkey, gets caught in a trap.  You open up the room and let the moody dwarf come get the bones.  Try to keep all remaining needed materials close to his workshop so that construction can begin as quickly as possible.  This gives you the best chance to get the artifact finished before the bones reanimate.

Almost always, when bones reanimate during artifact construction, the dwarf will never resume the job no matter what.  However, on one occasion I did have a dwarf complete an artifact after being interrupted.  Here is what I *think* happened.  A military dwarf was standing right next to the moody one when the bones popped up and he (re)killed them immediately.  The moody dwarf was never attacked or involved in combat and was not moved from the workshop square he was standing on while crafting the artifact.  He finished the artifact some time later - and sure enough, there was no bone in its description.  So my recommendations for maximizing your chances at completing an artifact involving bones on a map with reanimation: butcher, let the first item reanimate, then GO!  Have all remaining "ingredients" nearby, and station a beefy military dwarf right next to your moody one for the duration.

Also, Be Very Lucky.

[Broken]

Bones do NOT reanimate. And the skins can be saved if tanned quickly, although is not really worth the effort unless you need the
leather for a moody dwarf.
In general, is not dificult at all to make a funtional meat industry in reanimating map. You just need to check that all reanimable
parts are marked for dumping and that the order is carried away.

[Dwarfler]

Bones do NOT reanimate.

Perhaps this was true at one point in the game's version history, but it is certainly not true now.  I have bones reanimating all over the place.

[soulmata]

I can't recall if bones are reanimating on me in 34.11, but I certainly don't want to risk it - it's hard enough getting a foothold in a Terrifying map with weather that makes nigh invulnerable husks and kobold thieves bypassing my traps then splitting into multiple undead kobold parts after I dispatch them.

The turkey as a lure idea is pretty interesting - that's one problem I haven't solved yet, how to properly channel the raised inside my fort. So far I've been relying on an unending amount of doors, trapped hallways and other blockades. Living bait as the only option seems great.

I wonder if I could set up some sort of stock room, filled with bone piles in individual chambers, from which I could trigger a trap to instantly kill them all via spike traps or other remote death machines, letting me destroy the bones on request.

Also, I should probably be using bones from weaker creatures, and try to harvest only meat from big creatures. That water buffalo skin was nightmarish.

[theprofessor!]

Since recent updates I've spent about all my time playing on terrifying biomes, honestly for me it's just wayyyyy easier to include another non-evil biome on your embark map, and simply store all your bodies/refuse on the safe side. Lazy and unfun I know, but I spent too many times having an entire fortress go down because a thrips chitin arm murdered some dwarves and caused a massive tantrum spiral, or a goddamn horse skin "pushed" my militia commander's brains in

[Dwarfler]

The turkey as a lure idea is pretty interesting - that's one problem I haven't solved yet, how to properly channel the raised inside my fort. So far I've been relying on an unending amount of doors, trapped hallways and other blockades. Living bait as the only option seems great.

Yeah, that's really the big challenge in a terrifying embark - maintaining some sort of sanity on the surface.  It's pretty easy to isolate your fort and survive indefinitely in a bubble, but what !!fun!! is that?  Anyway, I don't have many answers on that front.  My longest-running terrifying fort is a mess on the surface.  I have trap corridors and atom-smashers and lures galore, and I can't seem to get the surface zombie population to drop much below 200.  You'd think the goblins would eventually learn to stop sieging.

I wonder if I could set up some sort of stock room, filled with bone piles in individual chambers, from which I could trigger a trap to instantly kill them all via spike traps or other remote death machines, letting me destroy the bones on request.

Interesting concept, I like that a lot actually.  I'll have to play around with it.

Also, I should probably be using bones from weaker creatures, and try to harvest only meat from big creatures. That water buffalo skin was nightmarish.

Yeah, this is precisely the purpose of my bugbat farm.  Set up some traps in your first cavern layer and pick up the weakest thing you can, then tame and breed 'em.