I'm not sure if anyone has done this before, but I had an idea for a way of making a timer for machines using were-beasts. The machine would be pretty simple. The infected dwarf would be placed ina 1*1 room with a life supply of food and drink (much like dwarven child care) atop a pressure plate, set to be triggered by non-civilians. That way whenever the dwarf transforms, it becomes a non-civilian, setting of the pressure-plate. Even if the dwarf set off the pressure plate when not transformed or the transformed dwarf counted as a civilian. You could acheive the same goal by setting the preassure plate to be set off by civilans at just over the weight of a large dwarf. that way when they transform, the gained mass sets off the pressure plate.
I have not tried this yet, and so I'm not sure which way would be most effective, but I'm almost certain this would work. It would allow you to make things happen every full moon. you could use it to automate a GCS silk farm by opening floodgates to give it a line of sight to a chained animal, and close said floodgates to allow dwarves to collect the webs, maybe even incorperating a door that locks when the spider has line of sight, thus making it less likely that dwarves will be caught in the webs.
Any ideas for ways to use and/or improve this "
were-clock". One idea I have is that you could make it so the dwarf has line of sight to a legendary dining room to keep them from going melancholy, the design I have in mind is something like this:
+++++++++++
++.......++
++.BBBBB.++
+..BBBBB..+
+.BB===BB.+
+.BB|W|BB.+
+.BB===BB.+
+..BBBBB..+
++.BBBBB.++
++.......++
+++++++++++
key:
+ = floor (part of dining room)
. = pit (to keep stupuid dwarves from being crushed by the bridges)
B = bridge connected to the clock (raising in the direction of the clock to keep other dwarves happy and un-frightened)
= and | = glass or fortifications
W = the clock itself
once agian, any improvements or uses are appreciated.