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[VerdantSF]

I haven't had a chance to see a tame dragon in battle as part of an overall defense force.  Is dragon fire enemy-only, like marksdwarf bolts, or does it burn everything in the cone?  Can dwarves with shields still block fire from a friendly dragon that breathes through them to get to the goblins at the front lines?

[IronValley]

Fire does not distinguish friend from foe, however, it is quite common to block the dragonfire. I have yet to test my war dragons in a siege, but I'm going to do so when the opportunity arises.

[crazysheep]

Dragonfire burns hotter than magma, and causes rampaging forest fires, so you're better off using the dragon as a pillbox and leaving your militia behind to defend against crispy fried goblins.

[IronValley]

Dragon?

I'll be testing 3!

[VerdantSF]

Testing this right now with arena-mode (I always forget about arena mode...).  I had 10 dwarves and a dragon vs 10 trolls.  Dwarves 1-5 had no shield, while 6-10 did, along with Shield User at skilled.  All the dwarves were arranged in the middle of the field between the enemy trolls and the friendly dragon. 

Here's Dwarf 1 .


And here's Dwarf 10 =D!


The shield-free dwarves got F-ed up, but the shield-bearing dwarves blocked EVERY single spout of dragonfire!  Dwarf 7 got caught in the middle of a burst of boiling troll blood... but he was completely unscathed . 

Edit: I just noticed that the date is partially covering "Dwarf Fortress."  This happens when I expand DF to full screen.  Odd that this happens when I *expand* from the default window, but just an FYI in case the odd lettering makes anyone suspect the images are shopped.

[IronValley]

My greatest challenge so far is that Dragons that spray fire demolish all my old bridges!!!! I guess it was time to replace the granite with steel blocks, and get some firesafe mechanisms.

[celem]

I want to say dragonfire is hot enough to melt magmasafe bridges and steel, but whether it actually does so in practice im fuzzy on, I think i've only ever used deon's obsidian dwarves in conjunction with these tests and it was so long ago I forget the conclusion.

Shields as proved above me rock for blocking dragonfire, it does appear to depend on skill to use them to gain a good block rate.

In a live fort however this is only comforting if you engage over rock.  My dwarves blocked a lot of dragonfire only to burn to death as the tiles around them caught fire.  Engaging a dragon with foot soldiers over grass or near trees is fairly suicidal

[Quietust]

Some quick disassembly diving suggests that, in version 0.34.11, Dragonfire heats its targets to a temperature of 50000. By comparison, magma mist heats them to 12000, fire heats them to 11000, and steam heats them to water's boiling point (which is 10180).

For a bit of historical perspective, in version 0.23.130.23a (the last 2D version), dragonfire had a temperature of 50000 (the same as today), magma mist (and actual magma) was 14000, fire breath was 11500, and steam was still the boiling point of water (10180).

[Urist Da Vinci]

Some quick disassembly diving suggests that, in version 0.34.11, Dragonfire heats its targets to a temperature of 50000. By comparison, magma mist heats them to 12000, fire heats them to 11000, and steam heats them to water's boiling point (which is 10180).

For a bit of historical perspective, in version 0.23.130.23a (the last 2D version), dragonfire had a temperature of 50000 (the same as today), magma mist (and actual magma) was 14000, fire breath was 11500, and steam was still the boiling point of water (10180).

I had pegged dragonbreath at 14000 in one of the last few 0.34.xx versions (after the fire update) by having a blizzard man wearing various metal items stand on a pillar in the arena in sight of a dragon, and checking the melting/boiling points of the metals that melted/boiled.

Why doesn't steam cause fat melting bleeding in 0.34.11?

Can you tell us how the current insulation and heat transfer calculations work from the disassembly?

[Quietust]

Why doesn't steam cause fat melting bleeding in 0.34.11?

Probably because it's only in contact with you for a brief instant, and that short instant isn't long enough to actually inflict any serious damage. This is probably also why dragonfire doesn't routinely melt Adamantine - though it's hot enough to do it, it'd have to be sustained for a very long period of time.

Can you tell us how the current insulation and heat transfer calculations work from the disassembly?

Nope, because I don't know how they work.

[Seraphim342]

The only time I ever had a tame dragon, I kept him in a little pillbox setup in my siege entrance channel, something like this:

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
WFB_____________________^
DFB______________________^
WFB_____________________^
W__WWWWWWWWWWWWW
   \/
 Fort
W= Wall, F= Fort, D= Dragon, B=Bridge

Had the channel lined with cage traps past the dragon's range to catch the first few waves of gobbos for training dummies, then once they started getting past that I'd drop the bridge in front of the fortifications holding the dragon as soon as they'd get in range and make some kentucky fried goblin.  Marksdwarf bunker above was just gravy.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Nope, because I don't know how they work.

...
Wow, and here I thought you knew more than Toady about how DF works.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Some quick disassembly diving suggests that, in version 0.34.11, Dragonfire heats its targets to a temperature of 50000.
...

...
This is probably also why dragonfire doesn't routinely melt Adamantine - though it's hot enough to do it, it'd have to be sustained for a very long period of time.
...

I repeated my blizzard man experiment with 70 dragons and after several minutes managed to melt Adamantine (MELTING_POINT:25000). OK, it looks like you are correct.

EDIT: There appear to be 2 types of steam in the game:

Steam white cloud from magma/water to obsidian
steam grey cloud from boiling off a water coating

Note the capitalization difference. I haven't yet been able to hurt a creature with either.

[Quietust]

I haven't yet been able to hurt a creature with either.

That's because all of the "organic" material templates have nonsense values for HEATDAM_POINT and COLDDAM_POINT - frostbite does not occur until -68°F, and burning damage does not occur until 282°F.