Print

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

[Urist McDwarfFortress]

Giraff wars?!

Puppy chutes?!

Dropping babies and pets to their deaths!?

Holy cRap where has this game been all my life?

A typical reaction to Dwarf Fortress (typical from us psychopaths here at bay12, NOT typical of normal people!)

[Xob Ludosmbax]

Do zombies count?  Specifically, you could have the soldiers watch their zombie mothers rise from the dead and get impaled by a retracting spear repeatedly whenever they train.  All you need is a door, a minecart, some mechanisms, and a necromancer.

[misko27]

Do zombies count?  Specifically, you could have the soldiers watch their zombie mothers rise from the dead and get impaled by a retracting spear repeatedly whenever they train.  All you need is a door, a minecart, some mechanisms, and a necromancer.

No. But perhaps attacked by dead recently? That could work. Unleash a few hand, or mussels or something, have marksdwarves shoot them down while children get traumatized! Two birds with one stone!

[Telgin]

I'm not sure getting attacked by the undead alone will cause "Doesn't care about anything anymore." traits.  A question however is whether or not having a once friendly dwarf zombie die and revive in front of a dwarf over and over again will rack up the trauma until they get that trait.  I'm not sure what all bugs remain for zombies, but there was that one bug where undead cats would still attempt to adopt owners, so who knows?

If killing or seeing anything die is enough to get the trait then it should work.  I'm fairly sure that dwarves don't get the "witnessed death" thought unless it's a dwarf from their civ that dies in LOS.  Whether that's needed or just seeing something die is enough for the trait I don't know.

[Sutremaine]

Seems as though seeing death (not the 'has witnessed death' thought) is enough, and not just of friendlies. Most of my military have suffered losses (pet, lover, 'major' injuries) but not a lot of them, and the only one who's a mere hardened individual joined the military a couple of years after the others.

I do have one dwarf who's been training under another and has never seen combat or had anything bad happen to him (his child was snatched, but I don't know if dwarves even notice that). He's probably skilled enough now to wrestle with a disarmed goblin and not pick up any injuries, but it might take several goblins to show something in the thoughts screen.

[Talvieno]

I still love threads like these. They never fail to make me laugh. Things like dropping puppies and babies is one of the reasons I love this game. lol

I would like to (for a moment) avert your attention to Girlinhat's Dwarven... "Child Care", which aims to desensitize (and fireproof) young dwarven children by the age of 12, to turn them into superdwarven machines of terror. The strategy: lock them into tiny rooms, alternately pour magma and water on them, and attack them with dogs for months at a time.
    I would also like to point out that "Dwarven... 'Child Care'" is a nominee on The Hall of Legends and is due to be stricken from the nomination list if it doesn't receive at least three more votes this month. It is, in my opinion, most certainly a legendary thread.

[hiroshi42]

I generally use naked goblins and kobolds to desensitize and train at least one squad of the military.  you get all sorts of training and it seems to get you to the exalted state of not caring fairly rapidly if you have lots of prisoners. 

I have yet to use zombies as training dummies extensively, but if they do work even if it is less effective than regular enemies then a necromancer training pit might be in order.

On a slightly related note, why is everyone's first suggestion always to kill your own people.  I get the ra ra dwarven spirit thing, but why waste a perfectly good decoy puppy or potential meatsheild?

[omg_scout]

Do they get the modifier for enough kills? If so, necro zombi machine might indeed do the thing + free effective training.

[Telgin]

On a slightly related note, why is everyone's first suggestion always to kill your own people.  I get the ra ra dwarven spirit thing, but why waste a perfectly good decoy puppy or potential meatsheild?

I think it's because as things stand, dogs and even dwarves reproduce like rabbits.  Dogs are pretty much only good as guard animals and eat FPS, dwarven kids are only there to eat FPS for 13 game years.  It's a way of protecting your FPS while getting amusement out of the deal.

I prefer to just cage and sell my puppies, and set the child and pop caps in the init file, but that's just me.

[Tirion]

I'm not sure getting attacked by the undead alone will cause "Doesn't care about anything anymore." traits.  A question however is whether or not having a once friendly dwarf zombie die and revive in front of a dwarf over and over again will rack up the trauma until they get that trait.  I'm not sure what all bugs remain for zombies, but there was that one bug where undead cats would still attempt to adopt owners, so who knows?

If killing or seeing anything die is enough to get the trait then it should work.  I'm fairly sure that dwarves don't get the "witnessed death" thought unless it's a dwarf from their civ that dies in LOS.  Whether that's needed or just seeing something die is enough for the trait I don't know.

It does. http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:List_of_Dwarven_Thoughts
And not only killing pets and family members/friends does, but letting them rot too! Two for the prize of one!

[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

It's too bad the medical dwarves can't find ways of medically removing a dwarve's ability to give a shit...

[Seraphim342]

For military dwarves, just have them slaughter unarmed prisoners.  For civilians, kitten/puppy chutes into the dining hall work well over time. 

Just build a chamber 10-20z above your dining hall and chain up some female cats there. Have hatches over chutes leading to areas of your dining hall behind glass windows, but make sure the chained cats can't go far enough to stand on them, but still close, so 2 tiles from the chains.  Tie the hatches to pressure plates in well-traveled areas of your dining hall, seal the room off, and then when your dwarves come in to eat or have a party it rains kittens who wandered onto the plates.   More cats = more kittens = faster desensitization. 

If you don't have a glass industry or enough gems for windows, you can use bars or fortifications, but you'll need either an atom smasher or a dump hatch for the kitten corpses to keep your dining hall free of miasma.  I'd recommend having a disposal mechanism anyway, because hundreds of exploding kittens ends up producing a LOT of parts which can hurt your frames. 

[Cobbler89]

Don't most players go out of their way to raise morale in a fort?

[Seraphim342]

Don't most players go out of their way to raise morale in a fort?

The "doesn't really care about anything anymore" tag is useful for preventing big mood swings.  Basically, it makes a dwarf who just watched his wife get zombified, kill his kids and his pets, then get her head smashed in say "meh" and move on instead of starting a tantrum spiral.  Ironically, traumatizing the hell out of your dwarves makes them MORE mentally stable. 

[Loud Whispers]

Don't most players go out of their way to raise morale in a fort?

You can do both :3