Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Maur]

Basically, all my forts end as one big happy family. Which is not good, as we know, for tantrum spiral prevention.

Now, i could give them lavish rooms, legendary meals and whatnot, but if i get serious casaualties, it won't help, since the happiness hit is so big. But, if they didn't really care about anything anymore, i guess it would be manageable.

So, what is the best way to trauma train your fort? One that does not include dwarves dying. I can think of two things.

1. Cage traps. After you get enough gobbos, mass pit them in some room, station your soon to be shocked dwarves as military squad in another, then open the door. Mass slaughter, trauma training. Tested, it works.

It's slow, though.

2. Pet slaughter. Some sort of elaborate mechanism for killing off pets. Pasture in a room that can be flooded or has spike traps... do dying pets harden the dwarves, or they need to witness it with their own eyes (assuming they didn't got them plucked out, obviusly)?

[MrCat]

I havn't done the !!SCIENCE!! myself, but I've heard that the dwarf has to actually witness death. Also,dead pets often make unhappy dwarfs, which may be more trouble than its worth.  You could take dwarfs with no friends and have them killed in front of your entire fort, if you were willing to take the hit in time, dwarves and resources.

[Maur]

I'm unwilling to sacrifice my playthings, though.

Does witnessing pet death traumatize them? Perhaps a gallery in meeting room, with pets being slaughtered by spike traps...

Or if pets doesn't work, i need to make that goblin-slaughter room next to a burrow where civilians will be able to watch it. With a bridge so they don't run prematurely...

[TeleDwarf]

There was an idea some time ago to use meat-farm for trauma training:

Capture some elephants. any other beast will do just fine, but elephants provide a lot of meat as an added bonus.

Chain elephant females in a room way above(20z levels) your dining hall. Room should be small and with a chute in the center. Chained females should be unable to reach the chute. Chute should be closed by hatch. hatch should be linkled to presure plates accessible to elephant females.
Put an elephant male somewhere safe.

The wild elephants do not graze, but reproduce. The litter will ran around the room. Elepant femailes will step on the presure plates and occasionally an elephant baby will be dropped into the dining room, providing shock, dread and meat in one explosion.

[Maur]

There was an idea some time ago to use meat-farm for trauma training:

Capture some elephants. any other beast will do just fine, but elephants provide a lot of meat as an added bonus.

Chain elephant females in a room way above(20z levels) your dining hall. Room should be small and with a chute in the center. Chained females should be unable to reach the chute. Chute should be closed by hatch. hatch should be linkled to presure plates accessible to elephant females.
Put an elephant male somewhere safe.

The wild elephants do not graze, but reproduce. The litter will ran around the room. Elepant femailes will step on the presure plates and occasionally an elephant baby will be dropped into the dining room, providing shock, dread and meat in one explosion.

Jesus... i have too vivid imagination...

[TeleDwarf]

Jesus... i have too vivid imagination...

Then imagine what happened when I made too short chute (only 12z levels)
Broken and disfigured babyelephants vere running amock while my hunters tried to corner them. Blood and broken arrows everywhere, almost every job cancelled, elephant babies are limping in twisted corridors in circles (I love to have multiple ways to access anything) ...

[Maur]

Jesus... i have too vivid imagination...

Then imagine what happened when I made too short chute (only 12z levels)
Broken and disfigured babyelephants vere running amock while my hunters tried to corner them. Blood and broken arrows everywhere, almost every job cancelled, elephant babies are limping in twisted corridors in circles (I love to have multiple ways to access anything) ...

No, sorry, but the thought of my dwarves happily eating their meals in nice comfy dining room, socializing and playing and being generally cheerful and happy and then BAAAAM! huge elephant drops down the inconspicious hole in the ceiling and splatters on the floor and meat and bones flying everywhere, everyone is covered in blood, screams and shocked dwarves everywhere, babies covered in elephant intestines...

The surprise factor does it for me. I think i'll simply force them to witness slaughter of goblins...

[MrCat]

I was imagining dwarves attempting to eat while listening to the sounds of elephants having sex, giving birth, then waiting fearfully for the next barely-formed foal to fall into the dining room.

[Noodz]

I remember this idea, but is it still worthy now that falling objects (and afaik creatures) do damage? I imagine you want the traumatizing to be only psychological.

Though the idea of elephants crushing dwarves is hillarious.

[Telgin]

I remember this idea, but is it still worthy now that falling objects (and afaik creatures) do damage? I imagine you want the traumatizing to be only psychological.

Though the idea of elephants crushing dwarves is hillarious.

That is my first concern.  I'm pretty sure that dwarves can see exploding elephants through glass though, so maybe just have cordoned off areas where elephants can explode behind glass?

[TeleDwarf]

I am pretty sure that elephant will not cause cave-in dust, so windows, grates and fortifications will work equally well to protect your dwarves. You can also assign traffic restiriction to the chute output area, so dwarves will tend to avoid standinng there.

[Maur]

Okay, okay, but the main question is: do the dwarves need to witness death, any death (excluding vermin of course, but including animals, and again excluding butchering), to become hardened?

[Mr S]

Classicly, the "puppy chute" is the most viable, and survivable, option for dwarven soul chilling.

[TeleDwarf]

where will you get wild puppies? The animal must be wild for it's meat to be usable after non-butchery death.

[LoSboccacc]

didn't butchering by itself train trauma resistance?