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[Urist Da Vinci]

Weapon traps are currently 1 order of magnitude faster than melee attacks.
Default crossbows/bows are currently 2 orders of magnitude faster than melee attacks.
Falling on upright spears is something like 3+ orders of magnitude faster.

So we could try a slightly less exploity arrangement: station the trainee on a weapon trap (constructed with training swords, or something equally worthless, and possibly a high-quality mechanism) and cause a cave-in nearby to knock the trainee unconscious. That should provide experience roughly equivalent to 100 standard melee attacks.

Using a weapon trap filled with crossbows could theoretically provide much more experience, but at increased risk since even wooden bolts can prove deadly. Surviving trainees might gain experience roughly equivalent to 1000 standard melee attacks.

One could also replace the cave-in with a web-spewing beastie to automate the training.

Can't gain skills while unconscious, soulless, or as a baby.

[wierd]

I would* suggest removing the tags allowing dwarves to avoid traps, but they don't have any defined that I can see. This must be hard coded somehow.

Sounds like some source of doging needs to be engaged.

Perhaps a 2x2 room, paved with traps, into which several animals have also been pastured.
That would force the dodging dwarf to land on a trap, and get poked, and do so reasonably reliably.

[shali8]

Someone should do a fortress, set up a shaft of enlightenment, and then use it on an adventurer.
I predict that the epic adventure of the aforementioned adventurer could make it into the hall of legends if sufficiently epic

Imagine the story, a fortress that discovers the secrets of the shaft
it tragically (inevitably dies)
a lone adventurer finds this abandoned fortress
this dwarf accidentally falls into the shaft
and out pops instant epic just add megabeasts and goblins

[Crazy Cow]

I would* suggest removing the tags allowing dwarves to avoid traps, but they don't have any defined that I can see. This must be hard coded somehow.

It's hardcoded that you can't trigger your own traps.

[wierd]

Yes. That appears the case.

However, they do still set them off when they dodge into them. So, setting up something like "childcare" with adult dwarves in a 2x2 room with 4 upright spear traps, and say, 14 peahens, should cause the dwarf to dodge to avoid the angry birds, and result in a 100% chance of dodging to a trap, and then setting it off.

[Tomsod]

Has anyone measured relative speed of digging by Legendary+5/Legendary+70/Legendary+2500 dwarves? Does it at some point become faster than walking?

[Hans Lemurson]

Ok, so I was away for a while before the proper analysis of this bug was done, and this is quite the conclusion we've come to.

Are we saying that Integer Overflow Errors are the fountain of infinite knowledge?

[wierd]

No, integer overflow does not seem to be the culprit, if I am reading HmH and Davinci right.

More, "DF calculates the velocity information from the spear and the ground tile "very very strangely"."

Basically, imagine this happeing:

A dwarf is dropped from the highdive.

As he is falling, the ground tile undeneath him accellerates upward at him at a certain rate. On top of that ground tile, the upright spear shoots up out of the ground like a spring-loaded kabab scewering machine.

The higher up the dwarf is, the faster those objects travel before they collide.

There comes a point where the spear moves so fast that it actually misses the dwarf.

The experience given to the dwarf is awarded relative to the "skill" difference between the attacker and the attacked. Because a speartrap has no "skill" exactly, it gets an experience calc done relating to the velocity of the spear, and the energy it delivers when it strikes.

The spear in the speartrap is moving orders of magnitude faster than a dwarf could *ever* use it. As such, the experience awarded is astronomical.

[Zanthra]

...

There comes a point where the spear moves so fast that it actually misses the dwarf.

...

This does sound like it could be an overflow, although at this point it is responsible for not granting experience, rather than granting.  None of the other characteristics of this bug ever struck me as being due to an overflow.  Overflow causes very large numbers by subtracting, or very small/negative numbers by adding, in this case it was just very very large additions.

[Ravendarksky]

So according to another current thread if you make the ground tile out of feather wood or candy your dwarfs are much less likely to get badly maimed by the ground when falling.

[HmH]

So according to another current thread if you make the ground tile out of feather wood or candy your dwarfs are much less likely to get badly maimed by the ground when falling.

What thread? Care to link?

[BoredVirulence]

So according to another current thread if you make the ground tile out of feather wood or candy your dwarfs are much less likely to get badly maimed by the ground when falling.

What thread? Care to link?

Spoiler: If i'm not mistaken, hes referring to the this: (click to show/hide)

I've been ordering dwarves to wrestle without gauntlets over a 2-level drop onto a cobaltite floor.

Is there something special about Cobaltite?

Cobalt is fairly dense.

So does falling on adamantine floors negate most damage ?

I am also interested to hear the answer to this

I did some minor testing in Arena Mode. Miniscule sample size, not very scientific, but I made two floors and dropped five dwarves from one z-level onto each to see what damage they took. One was made of slade, the heaviest material in the game, and another of feather wood, the lightest material.

Slade always broke bones, while the worst I had seen with feather wood was bruised fat. Even after dropping 20 dwarves 8z I couldn't seem to get bones to break with feather wood. Though the dwarves did get seriously injured in most drops, suffering nausea and lung failure.

Though slade is incredibly dense, almost ten times as dense as platinum, the second densest material.

Feather wood is half as dense as adamantine, so adamantine will hurt more to fall on. I couldn't get any broken bones from adamantine drops either, but I was able to bruise bones, so it was likely due to my small sample size (20 dwarves falling 8z again).

[Erils]

No, integer overflow does not seem to be the culprit, if I am reading HmH and Davinci right.

More, "DF calculates the velocity information from the spear and the ground tile "very very strangely"."

Basically, imagine this happeing:

A dwarf is dropped from the highdive.

As he is falling, the ground tile undeneath him accellerates upward at him at a certain rate. On top of that ground tile, the upright spear shoots up out of the ground like a spring-loaded kabab scewering machine.

The higher up the dwarf is, the faster those objects travel before they collide.

There comes a point where the spear moves so fast that it actually misses the dwarf.

The experience given to the dwarf is awarded relative to the "skill" difference between the attacker and the attacked. Because a speartrap has no "skill" exactly, it gets an experience calc done relating to the velocity of the spear, and the energy it delivers when it strikes.

The spear in the speartrap is moving orders of magnitude faster than a dwarf could *ever* use it. As such, the experience awarded is astronomical.

So this is like the equation regarding how socks can break skulls right?

When a sock nears a dwarf, the mass and hardness of the sock increases. This is relative to the exact distance from the dwarf.

S_{mass/hardness}=D*3.14
Where D is distance, and S is sock mass.

Dwarf Fortress has some odd laws of physics.

[BoredVirulence]

No, integer overflow does not seem to be the culprit, if I am reading HmH and Davinci right.

More, "DF calculates the velocity information from the spear and the ground tile "very very strangely"."

Basically, imagine this happeing:

A dwarf is dropped from the highdive.

As he is falling, the ground tile undeneath him accellerates upward at him at a certain rate. On top of that ground tile, the upright spear shoots up out of the ground like a spring-loaded kabab scewering machine.

The higher up the dwarf is, the faster those objects travel before they collide.

There comes a point where the spear moves so fast that it actually misses the dwarf.

The experience given to the dwarf is awarded relative to the "skill" difference between the attacker and the attacked. Because a speartrap has no "skill" exactly, it gets an experience calc done relating to the velocity of the spear, and the energy it delivers when it strikes.

The spear in the speartrap is moving orders of magnitude faster than a dwarf could *ever* use it. As such, the experience awarded is astronomical.

So this is like the equation regarding how socks can break skulls right?

When a sock nears a dwarf, the mass and hardness of the sock increases. This is relative to the exact distance from the dwarf.

S_{mass/hardness}=D*3.14
Where D is distance, and S is sock mass.

Dwarf Fortress has some odd laws of physics.

I picture it more like a god of earth invokes the ground as an avatar, animating it, and the now-living rock thrusts upward to strike the dwarf (with the spear). The very quick skirmish between the dwarf and the god is very enlightening. I just wish the reward weighted appropriately with the risk. I could get behind the game spontaneously creating avatars of gods battling dwarves that entered into a suicidal pact if it meant death most of the time, with a very rare occurrence of badassness.

[Sutremaine]

So according to another current thread if you make the ground tile out of feather wood or candy your dwarfs are much less likely to get badly maimed by the ground when falling.

What thread? Care to link?

See also here, which is here.