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[MonkeyHead]

Hey, expendible fisherdwarf... plenty more where that one came from. TBH it wasnt so much dropped on him, as "thrown upwards" by him against a wall/garbage zone as a test to see if that was a suitable method to get dwarves to practice dodging.

[MasterShizzle]

From looking at the wiki, it seems that large gems, rings, earrings, and bracelets all have a weight of 20 or less, comparable to seeds. Does the game take material into account for fall damage, or just the item size? And what's the upper weight limit we're talking about here to avoid injury?

If material isn't a factor, it might be more efficient to have a craftsdwarf making stone crafts at a workshop next to the dump zone, then dumping off the lightweight stuff to the drop zone and trading away the rest. Train-able items that don't degrade, using up excess stone, and training up a valuable skill (stonecrafting) seems like a good way to go. Amulets are only 50 weight, which might be acceptable for a 1-z drop on a dwarf in metal armor. If mugs are light enough, there's the added bonus of the dwarf producing 100% usable items in a hurry.

Experimentation is needed.

[megahelmet]

What about mugs? Seems a pretty trivial matter to make 10,000 mugs really.

[EpeeGnome]

Don't drop things on a Dwarf unless they are wearing METAL ARMOR.

Unless of course you don't care if the dwarf is killed. Then go right ahead.

[Urist Da Vinci]

I did some arena testing and found that small non-weapon items strike with a smaller contact area than larger non-weapon items. A platinum pestle and a saguaro rib nest box both have the same weight, but the pestle chips/fractures bones while the box bruises muscle.

Therefore to minimize damage (training), one wants to select small items that are also made of low-density materials. For example, plant fiber socks (pig tail, rope reed, etc.) are 3x heavier than silk or wool socks.

[SharkForce]

Many drops for the price of one? I like this idea.  I've been using a hatch since it responds quickly and doesn't seem to toss items the way a bridge does, but having multiple layers of "Item Drop Training Grounds" could certainly reduce the hauling cost of this training method.  Can a Barracks designation extend over a hatch?  If not, it might be difficult to get your dwarf to stand still in the proper location.  "Defend Burrows" for a 1 tile burrow seemed to have them just stand off to the side as though they had merely been issued a "move" command to go there.

Additional research is required.

isn't the traditional solution to this sort of problem having a lever assigned to only the dwarf you want to train which activates a hatch above the only place you could possibly stand while operating the lever?

i mean, i know it's *usually* used for such purposes as drowning nobles or catapulting werecreatures into volcanoes or condemning a suspected vampire to an eternity of isolation and maddening unquenchable thirst or extracting babies from their mothers and other such horrific things, but i see no reason it *couldn't* work for making a dwarf drop one thousand dirty tattered socks on their own head just as easily as any of those other purposes.

[wagawaga]

I did some arena testing and found that small non-weapon items strike with a smaller contact area than larger non-weapon items. A platinum pestle and a saguaro rib nest box both have the same weight, but the pestle chips/fractures bones while the box bruises muscle.

Therefore to minimize damage (training), one wants to select small items that are also made of low-density materials. For example, plant fiber socks (pig tail, rope reed, etc.) are 3x heavier than silk or wool socks.

Density being a factor in calculating bludgeoning damage makes sense...
Just for the sake of knowing, how would stacks of items factor into this?
What I mean is: let's assume that iron has 30 times the density of copper.
In that scenario, would a stack of "copper coins [30]" deal the same damage as a single iron coin? Or would the copper coins do less damage because they're less dense? Or more because they strike multiple times?

isn't the traditional solution to this sort of problem having a lever assigned to only the dwarf you want to train which activates a hatch above the only place you could possibly stand while operating the lever?

i mean, i know it's *usually* used for such purposes as drowning nobles or catapulting werecreatures into volcanoes or condemning a suspected vampire to an eternity of isolation and maddening unquenchable thirst or extracting babies from their mothers and other such horrific things, but i see no reason it *couldn't* work for making a dwarf drop one thousand dirty tattered socks on their own head just as easily as any of those other purposes.

While you're right that it work wonders for one-time activations such as "Unfortunate" accidents, the problem with that approach is the impossibility of making the machine multi-leveled (which means multiple runs before resetting), as suggested a few posts ago:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

AH HA! Quantum stockpile all your refuse/seeds/etc on a bridge over a series of bridges leading vertically downwards. Stand a dwarf on the one unerneath the top, open the top bridge. Move your dwarf down a level, open the next bridge. Repeat all the way down, then have a chain of minecarts to stockpile it back at the top.
Whatever method you use to load the stockpile, it's many drops for the price of one.

You can't build Levers on Hatch Covers or Bridges.

Well, actually you could, if the lever pull would also trigger a water flush to move the junk onto another nearby hatch, rigged in the same way to another lever one z-level below, and so on.
I'm unsure if water would flush the heap of items fast enough for this to be a decent solution.

[Reelya]

The problem is the lever won't help with the multiple-level system we're talking about, to save on reloads.

[Hans Lemurson]

I just performed a test with 250 seeds dropped onto a new recruit:

Code: [Select]

Ral Avalgeshud, Dropping 250 seeds.

Prior After Boost
Speardwarf    0 0 0

Biter        0 0 0
Dodger      500 500 0
Fighter      0 0 0
Kicker      33 33 0
Striker      33 33 0
Wrestler    33 33 0

Armor      500 2744 2244
Shield      500 500 0

Strength  1186 1231 45
Agility    1149 1194 45
Toughness 1447 1517 70
Endurance 1177 1227 50
Recupr    1896 1896 0
Disease 1013 1013 0

Analytic 586 586 0
Creativity 1639 1639 0
Empaty 991 991 0
Focus 2023 2028 5
Intuition 842 847 5
Kinesthet 825 895 70
Linguistc 1323 1323 0
Memory 1436 1436 0
Musicality 873 873 0
Patience 812 812 0
Social Awr 973 973 0
Spatial 1498 1548 50
Willpower 816 886 70
Conclusions: Dropped items seem to always hit the armor, although this may be reflective of the dwarf's poor blocking/dodging abilities.

Confirming Urist DaVinci's results, Dropped items seem to yield 9XP per deflection against armor (although 9x250=2250, and so the 2244 bonus seems to be mysteriously short 6XP.  Perhaps some impacts or deflections were different?.

Physical Attributes boosted by Strikes against armor:
+45 Strength
+45 Agility
+70 Toughness
+50 Endurance

All good things you want in a soldier!  The Toughness and Agility Boost was great enough to knock my Dwarf into bonus territory for being both "Agile" and "Tough", bonuses he did not have previously.

Soul Attributes boosted by Strikes against armor:
+5 Focus
+5 Intuition
+70 Kinesthetic sense
+50 Spatial Sense
+70 Willpower

I was surprised by the boost to both Focus and Intuition, but they are an order of magnitude too small to be of importance.  The boost to Kinesthetic Sense is quite welcome, since this helps, well, everything involving movement.  Not sure how spatial sense will play out, but it's a non-trivial boost.  The high willpower bonus will be very nice, since this will improve their resistance to pain.

It's interesting to note that the numbers 70, 50, 45 and 5 showed up consistently.  Given that this was from 250 impacts, the +50 and +45 bonuses are clearly working off of different coefficients.

All of the majorly boosted attributes are noted in the wiki's 'Attributes' page as being boosted by "general combat" (well except for endurance, which is likely an oversight).

Item-Drop Training at it's core seems to just be a way of triggering numerous small combats, and so delivers a boost to all attributes that are boosted by combat of any kind.

It's interesting to note that all of the items hit the dwarf and had to be deflected by armor.  There was no dodging, no parrying with the weapon, and no shield-blocking to speak of.

[Hans Lemurson]

A subsequent test on the same dwarf using a danger room equipped with a +Menacing Fungiwood Spike+ resulted a strike that chipped bone in the leg even through bronze greaves.  Conclusion: Menacing spikes of ANY kind are unsuitable for danger rooms.  (Will have to test Elven non-training spears in the future to see if they are a better balance between injury and training potential)

Stat-boosts from the attempted impalement:
+51 to Speardwarf
+2 to Dodger
+4 to Fighter
+9 to Armor user
+24 to Shield User

+1 Strength
+1 Agility
+1 Toughness
+2 Endurance

+1 Kinesthetic
+0 Spatial
+1 Willpower

The fact that Spear and Shield skills were boosted even though this was a strike (and injury) directly to a leg seems to indicate that Falling Items Attacks don't have quite the same stat effects that more conventional combat does.  Or maybe the difference was that there was an injury?  I'll get my other quick-healing dwarf recruit and drop a boulder on him to see if he gets any bonuses to weapon or shield use when hit by an injuriously large item.

[Sheb]

I don't know if this has been proposed, but why not used sequential training room? A bunch of 1-tile training room, each above each other, and each with a hatch on the ground. Put the soldier in the first one, drop the seeds, then move the soldier to the second one (or have another soldier there), pull a lever and he get the training from the same bunch of seed.

[Hans Lemurson]

The dwarf gained a further 7 points of "Willpower" from struggling to avoid passing out from the pain!  "Gives in to pain" and "Is no longer stunned" and the like  have actual value to them.  Who knew?  (no other traits were boosted by his suffering for the greater good)

I don't know if this has been proposed, but why not used sequential training room? A bunch of 1-tile training room, each above each other, and each with a hatch on the ground. Put the soldier in the first one, drop the seeds, then move the soldier to the second one (or have another soldier there), pull a lever and he get the training from the same bunch of seed.

Yes, that has been suggested, but not yet built and tested.  Alternate approaches would be something with minecarts that I have yet to figure out. 

I'm thinking a minecart that can be loaded up with non-fatal junk and then with the pull of a lever, rollers move it uphill to a track stop where it dumps its load onto the dwarf below.  The dwarf will be standing on the stockpile tile that the minecart is filled from, so the items will be ready for immediate re-loading.  That's my best minecart related idea since I still don't really understand how they work.

Edit:
Minecarts full of seeds fail, since the dwarfs put them all in bags before stuffing them in the cart.  These heavier bags were dense enough to injure my Militia Captain and break his leg also through bronze armor.  He's going to be hospital-buddies with his squad-mate.  Both of them are named Ral, and both are "incredibly quick to heal" which is why I'm putting them through such danger.  Also gotta train up my nursing staff...

Anyways, I got some important results:  Speardwarf, Dodger and Fighter skills were ALL BOOSTED by this incident.  Perhaps the difference is about whether the dwarf is injured or not.  So far, all dwarven injuries in my tests have been accompanied by boosts to their combat skills (along with the related attributes).

This suggests that it might be optimal to use items that are dense enough to cause occasional bruising or injuries in order to improve the skills of the dwarf rather than just their physical attributes.  Then again, plinking with light items is a good way to boost attributes just by themselves (along with armor use), so I think you should be able to customize your training experience by varying the density and or weight of the items dropped on your soldiers.

[DiezIrae]

Don't drop things on a Dwarf unless they are wearing METAL ARMOR.

Unless of course you don't care if the dwarf is killed. Then go right ahead.

Dwarf Fortress: Teachs you natural selection -> The last three dwarfs that survive without armor are named 'Badass' 'Chuck' and 'Urist McFuckLogic'

[QuantumMenace]

Here we go with another stupidly overpowered danger room alternative...

A 1x2 ditch with ramps so dwarves can walk right in and out, and two retracting bridges built down in it. (I think you need to temporarily open up a space to the side to build a 1x2 bridge there instead.)

Attach the bridge(s) to lever(s), then dump seeds et al. on the bridge using a dump zone inside the pit itself to avoid unintended injuries from falling items.

Get your military to stand in the pit, easier if there's nowhere else to stand on that z-level within a few tiles. Pull the lever(s) on repeat. The seeds (and dwarves) go flying, knocking into each other. It worked gloriously well with 2 1x1 bridges connected to separate levers, haven't tried a single bridge yet. I didn't see any injuries from dwarves smashing into each other either.

For some reason I seem to have lost a few seeds (dropped from 200 to 197 on the stocks screen) but besides that, all you need to do is flip the lever(s) on repeat, or build a repeater, no reloading needed.

My only regret is that it won't train shield user.


[edit] This idea was based off my "deadly disco floor" trap I tried before. A pit corridor full of retracting bridges and rocks, as well as tons of goblinite from previous victims. The disadvantage is that if a giant animal or other un-smashable creature comes in, a retracting bridge that tries to extend will be destroyed just like a drawbridge, and dwarves will rush to their doom to pick up the pieces.

[Hans Lemurson]

Here we go with another stupidly overpowered danger room alternative...

A 1x2 ditch with ramps so dwarves can walk right in and out, and two retracting bridges built down in it. (I think you need to temporarily open up a space to the side to build a 1x2 bridge there instead.)

Attach the bridge(s) to lever(s), then dump seeds et al. on the bridge using a dump zone inside the pit itself to avoid unintended injuries from falling items.

Get your military to stand in the pit, easier if there's nowhere else to stand on that z-level within a few tiles. Pull the lever(s) on repeat. The seeds (and dwarves) go flying, knocking into each other. It worked gloriously well with 2 1x1 bridges connected to separate levers, haven't tried a single bridge yet. I didn't see any injuries from dwarves smashing into each other either.

For some reason I seem to have lost a few seeds (dropped from 200 to 197 on the stocks screen) but besides that, all you need to do is flip the lever(s) on repeat, or build a repeater, no reloading needed.

My only regret is that it won't train shield user.


[edit] This idea was based off my "deadly disco floor" trap I tried before. A pit corridor full of retracting bridges and rocks, as well as tons of goblinite from previous victims. The disadvantage is that if a giant animal or other un-smashable creature comes in, a retracting bridge that tries to extend will be destroyed just like a drawbridge, and dwarves will rush to their doom to pick up the pieces.

I'm a little unclear on how this would be set up, but it does sound promising.

How many layers deep is the pit, and how do you make sure that stuff doesn't fly out of it? (or does stuff only fly upwards with raising bridges?)

I am also not familiar with the properties of items getting tossed off of bridges, would you be able to explain the basic mechanism at work here for creating flying/falling dwarves and objects?  (Or is this a thing where the dwarves are falling down INTO the pit?  it's not 100% clear to me)