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[Sanctume]

You know, I'm thinking that if embarked in an evil biome, one could butcher a small animal, like chicken.
But build the butcher with cage traps around it and into choke point exit.
Toggle off auto tanner / render, and capture a bunch of animated chicken skins.
If chicken don't provide skins, maybe test ducks, peahen.
Turkeys definitely provide constant leather for me, but I have to test animated turkey skin.

[Skullsploder]

Skin can be very lethal. It seems that it retains the original creature's mass without taking into account all the missing bits when it wrestles. Water buffalo bull skins are particularly lethal. Best just to animate some horse hair or something.

[Staalo]

Or, you could do as I did: embark near a few necro towers and litter the area with cage traps. With any luck you'll catch a necromancer who'll reanimate anything for you. I now have two that I hope to put to good use reanimating hair for my students.

One downside for this approach are constant undead sieges. When one bunch of bacon leaves another soon follows to continue the Thriller act on the surface. They keep my dwarves from harvesting wood for the training spears and are generally a nuisance since my three-dwarf militia can't yet match forty zombies in battle.

I was eventually so frustrated I resorted to dfhack liquids and dumped a sheet of magma over one undead army. That took care of them but the resulting wildfire burned down most of the trees and left the surface a wasteland of ash striped with trails of elf grease.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

Was the grease from elf zombies or just elves?

[Sanctume]

Or, you could do as I did: embark near a few necro towers and litter the area with cage traps. With any luck you'll catch a necromancer who'll reanimate anything for you. I now have two that I hope to put to good use reanimating hair for my students.

One downside for this approach are constant undead sieges. When one bunch of bacon leaves another soon follows to continue the Thriller act on the surface. They keep my dwarves from harvesting wood for the training spears and are generally a nuisance since my three-dwarf militia can't yet match forty zombies in battle.

I was eventually so frustrated I resorted to dfhack liquids and dumped a sheet of magma over one undead army. That took care of them but the resulting wildfire burned down most of the trees and left the surface a wasteland of ash striped with trails of elf grease.

Yeah, too much undead, that even using cage traps becomes a full time job for haulers / mechanics.   

I've successfully create an "air-lock bridge-pit cage-trap hallway" of sorts with some success.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

z+0              z-1              z-2
################ ################ ################
B.#cbbbb........ #####   ######## #####ccc########
B.dcbbbb.....j.. #####   ######x# ...bbccccccccbu#
B.#cbbbb........ #####   ######## #####ccc########
################ ################ ################

#=wall; d=door; b=bridge; c=cagetraps; jxu=stairs; .=floor
B=main bridge to shut out this area.
Left side is fortress, Right side is outside.
This is not the main entrance bridge to my fortress, but just one of many.

Invaders usually have a leader that once they get stuck by cage traps, just mill around behind.
In this case, the 1 column of cage trap in z+0 is enough to capture leaders, leaving some on the bridge.
Raise that bridge, and those fall down to z-2 cage traps.
On z-2, when the far right bridge is open, it lets a path out to z+0 again, specially when bridge is down in z+0 again.

So, to reset the captures during the siege: raise up main bridge B on z+0.
Lower the right bridge on z+0. Raise right bridge on z-2, and lower left
bridge on z-2 for your mechanics and haulers to take the filled cages and reset them. 
And then, reset the top 3 cages by raising the right bridge on z+0.

This is expandable to 5 wide hallways, or just create a similar setup in another area.

I caught 2 necro and a were-something in a different test set, I may look into that.

[Staalo]

Was the grease from elf zombies or just elves?

That siege was mostly elf corpses, with few zombie dwarves thrown in. For some reason there was one live elf spearman among them; I can't even imagine what motivated him to hang out in that company. Anyway, magma doesn't discriminate; it loves everyone equally.

I've sent my dwarves to assault the remaining trees while there's still time before the next siege. The basic training classroom is still missing few hundred training spears.

[taptap]

Skin can be very lethal. It seems that it retains the original creature's mass without taking into account all the missing bits when it wrestles. Water buffalo bull skins are particularly lethal. Best just to animate some horse hair or something.

Can't you cut the zombies to pieces with discs (bonus points if it is a pig tail)? And does it currently work? I remember people posted about dwarves ignoring vital needs such as drinking while locked in eternal combat with zombies.

[Sanctume]

Skin can be very lethal. It seems that it retains the original creature's mass without taking into account all the missing bits when it wrestles. Water buffalo bull skins are particularly lethal. Best just to animate some horse hair or something.

Can't you cut the zombies to pieces with discs (bonus points if it is a pig tail)? And does it currently work? I remember people posted about dwarves ignoring vital needs such as drinking while locked in eternal combat with zombies.

Hair can re-animate, and sheep wool can be harvested to re-animate via Farmer's Workshop + cage traps all around.

[Bumber]

Hair can re-animate, and sheep wool can be harvested to re-animate via Farmer's Workshop + cage traps all around.

I don't think animated hair can even be hit/killed. Everything passes through.

[utunnels]

It is possible to kill hair zombie but that is when they have a head.
Something like alpaca [body_part_name_here ] wool is almost impossible to kill though.

[TheHossofMoss]

Hair can re-animate, and sheep wool can be harvested to re-animate via Farmer's Workshop + cage traps all around.

I don't think animated hair can even be hit/killed. Everything passes through.

Pretty much. But the hair has no problem passing through your dwarfs, killing them fairly quickly.

[Eddlm]

I have finished reading this thread, and it amazes me. Its great to see you people finally proved that you can use these useless kids for something, to have an investment on them that you can benefit from in the long run.

Sadly I have little to contribute, as I don't know much about DF. I've only played a few hours.

But count with my support in this project!

[Staalo]

While the seventeen children of Moonpalace are getting their Observer grades out of the way in the militia barracks, hundreds of training spears are slowly getting installed into the latest edition of Basic Training Room.

I'm again using the same basic layout: a large cross-shaped room with a swimming pool in the middle. This time I'm trying out a minecart repeater for the spear trap automation. The traps will be triggered in twin checkerboard patterns by two pressure plates; in theory this should increase training speed by ensuring more hits over time.

There will of course be an emergency shutdown lever but I'm still unsure about speed when I have to rely on lazy dwarves to walk over the lever and pull it to stop the bloodshed. That's why I'm planning to build an in-school hospital again, just in case.

[Sanctume]

While the seventeen children of Moonpalace are getting their Observer grades out of the way in the militia barracks, hundreds of training spears are slowly getting installed into the latest edition of Basic Training Room.

I'm again using the same basic layout: a large cross-shaped room with a swimming pool in the middle. This time I'm trying out a minecart repeater for the spear trap automation. The traps will be triggered in twin checkerboard patterns by two pressure plates; in theory this should increase training speed by ensuring more hits over time.

There will of course be an emergency shutdown lever but I'm still unsure about speed when I have to rely on lazy dwarves to walk over the lever and pull it to stop the bloodshed. That's why I'm planning to build an in-school hospital again, just in case.

I know that I can do a: Lever -> link -> Upright Spear, and manually repeat pull. 

But for minecart repeater, do you use Pressure Plate -> link - Upright Spear?

I am wondering if it can be linked to a screw pump or gear.

So my theory (at work), either:
Waterwheel -> Screw Pump -> Gear1 -> Upright Spear, so it's possible to stop it by attaching Lever -> Gear1.
or
Waterwheel -> Gear2 -> Gear1 -> Upright Spear, so it's possible to stop it by attaching Lever -> Gear1.

[Staalo]

As far as I know only levers and pressure plates can be used to control upright spear traps. You could, however, use mechanical power indirectly to pump water over a pressure plate to trigger it. I wouldn't bother though; a simple repeater is more practical if there aren't any specific needs.

Here's a link to the minecart repeater I used:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=114695.0