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[xeluc]

I'm very excited to see how this !!SCIENCE!! differentiates from .34. Just having thicker skulls increases success, although I forget what caused most of the child deaths in the other thread.

[McDonald]

Bleeding and infections IIRC.

[wierd]

it would be great if the newly expanded plant lists allowed for actual uses for plant extracts, and the alchemy workshop.

Couple that with actually useful products for treating infections, and you have a winner.

Sadly, I dont think Toady has herb lore in his bag of tricks, and probably feels uncomfortable adding such things.
(but I would happily give him a mod to look at, if he put the mechanism underneath for me to hang it on!)

[Broseph Stalin]

Years of being attacked by dogs and turkeys led to the children dying of infected fingernails before they could be given weapons.

Favorite sentence of the day.

[ImagoDeo]

it would be great if the newly expanded plant lists allowed for actual uses for plant extracts, and the alchemy workshop.

Couple that with actually useful products for treating infections, and you have a winner.

Sadly, I dont think Toady has herb lore in his bag of tricks, and probably feels uncomfortable adding such things.
(but I would happily give him a mod to look at, if he put the mechanism underneath for me to hang it on!)

I've never lost a dwarf to infection that I can remember. So maybe I'm biased. But I just don't see it as a real issue here.

If Toady has fixed the fingernail issue, then diverting children into a separate hospital area for a short period of time may make sense in the long run. All things considered, I doubt a small fatality rate will be entirely avoidable, and I'm definitely not going to make this more complicated than necessary, even though that would be dorfier.

[TheOnlySolitaire]

I want to add more to this thread seeing as I did my own experiments in the old version, and found a different method to be more effective, with a little more management.

Define 'more effective.' Did it accomplish the goals listed above, or do you think a different set of goals is more achievable/useful?

Well I don't want to go into too much length, but basically, the aims of my project were to test and tweak the method the rest of the board used, and more than a few of my own theories.
The end goal was give or take the same as everyone elses - the perfect military recruits.
Although I didn't necessarily care if they were suited for military, i was happy to just have a new breed of tough little b***ards who would contribute to the fort by being given the often risky jobs, such as woodcutters, miners, hunters etc, because with their new skills they would survive longer, and thus keep the fort stable for longer.

My most effective method involved pitting live wild animals of certain sizes into the pit = i had dived the raws to find some creatures with a reasonably similar creature size to the children. I found that anything under 30000 (i think) was only somewhat risky, but tended to yield great results, but also a reasonably high body count.

I remember using mandrills a fair amount, but after the kids had beaten a few easy safe creatures. I also used a few imported creatures like lynx and coyotes, and disarmed kobold captives and the like.

I was using Masterwork at the time though, which may have had a modded skeleton/BP network. Will be testing the new version with vanilla, but I didn't use anything non-standard, other than DFhack to make female Dorfs have babies en-masse.


The conclusion after prematurely aborting the test was that it trained the kids skills at an impressive rate, but it took a lot more management than the really convenient 'passive dogs/turkeys' method used by other people.
So i started working on an automation system, which I didn't finish, but had some good leads with.

I'll try to work it up in a new fort and see if it works out ok still, and post up my findings and everything else then.

[ImagoDeo]

I'll try to work it up in a new fort and see if it works out ok still, and post up my findings and everything else then.

Sounds good. I'm planning several projects, one of which involves a light danger room-type setup as Staalo tried. I'll post again here when I have some more information, screenshots, and maybe preliminary results.

[TheOnlySolitaire]

I'll try to work it up in a new fort and see if it works out ok still, and post up my findings and everything else then.

Sounds good. I'm planning several projects, one of which involves a light danger room-type setup as Staalo tried. I'll post again here when I have some more information, screenshots, and maybe preliminary results.

Yeah I like Staalo's method, I tried that previously but it killed all the kids because the lack of armour - I didn't think at the time of mass producing hoods and cloaks; that was the missing link maybe lol


I really miss DFHack though - made things so much more convenient;
I literally cannot wait for the team to update that...

[McDonald]

I'm starting research! I'll post details in a second.
Okay, my fort currently has one cell for one unfortunate victim patient. Instead of animals, I'm using retractable training spears. The patient's cell looks like this:

WWDWW
WUBUW
WSSSW
WSSSW
WU_UW
W_WW
WWWWW

W: Wall
D: Door
U: Statue
S: Spears
_: Empty space (The bottommost one is because the construction was inactive for a few months and I gave up)

The spears are hooked to a lever on repeat. The patient has a bedroom, statue garden and a meeting area to maximize the exposure to training facilities.

The patient is a three year old male with the name "Cilob Asizmomuz" (Cilob Flashcrypts). He is remarkable for is strength and focus, but lacks stamina, willpower and is slow to heal. On a side note, he is utterly humorless and does not trust others. His dream is to raise a family, but I'm sure it won't happen.

Attributes:
-Strong
-Quick to tire
-Slow to heal
-Deficit of willpower
-Ability to focus
Skills:
-None
----------------------
[25th Obsidian, Year 6]
I started the experiment an turned on the spears. Within a few pokes his statistics visibly improved (OK, just one, whatever).

Attributes:
-Very strong
-Quick to tire
-Slow to heal
-Deficit of willpower
-Ability to focus
Skills:
-Dabbling Fighter
-Dabbling Armor user
-Dabbling Dodger
--------------
See you soon!

[TheOnlySolitaire]

-snip-

I would guess that the new version won't have changed in on respect:

tight chambers (ahem!), specifically 1x1 chambers with spear traps on the square train armor(if they have clothing) and blocker (if they have a weapon) faster than other chambers, but will NOT train dodge at all, as there is no room to dodge.

a 3x3 with statues all around the outside and a locked door will promote dodge, and the space seems to encourage the dwarf to dodge more often.

That may be obvious, but it can be used to focus training of certain skills - ie for children you plan on making civilians, dodge is the more important skill.

I make a run through the dodge chamber mandatory for all dwarves in my forts - its great for when a poor fisherdwarf gets ambushed by goblins but is able to dodge the majority of their attacks.

[Arcvasti]

PTW

[McDonald]

Yes, yes, maximum child desecration...
My patient is now mighty and tough, competent in all skills and speaks about horrifying death.

[Reelya]

What happens when you put a kid into one of those coinstar machines? That could be better than animals. Add periodic flooding as well to train swiming and skills.

[McDonald]

What about using children instead of coins in coinstar machines?

[Reelya]

yeah ... though the new climbing thing is really interesting. force the kid to have to swim through 7/7/ water and climb a wall to get the food, have what else he/she needs on the other side of the little moat,  perhaps passing through a coinstar as well (does underwater coinstar work ?).

12 years of climbing and swimming and/or dodging coins has got to build up something.