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[Kaos]

How does climbing works in Fortress Mode?

Share your experiences...

My last fort [40.02] I had a perimeter wall made of stone blocks, I even cut any trees that were too close to the walls, I closed it completely and a herb gatherer was left stranded outside, so I thought creatures can't path in or out! great!

I was mistaken... whenever a creature (flyers or from a hill nearby) was spotted all my animals would be panicking and doing some sweet dwarven parkour over my walls (apparently they can't run inside >.< )

When I got a Goblin Siege, I closed my retractable bridge entrance and I though I was safe until I was able to dig a proper trap entrance tunnel to lock the goblins... but again, I was mistaken... a goblin archer climbed on a nearby tree and started shooting one of my horses creating panic... and more animal parkour... the sight of blood/combat also scared some of my dwarves that would climb on a tree inside my walls and then I realized what was going on... the panicking dwarves on the tree would make a 2 tile jump from the tree to the top of my wall and then would try to climb down the wall (I got the message that they lose the grip from the block wall) and lose their grip because stone block walls are supposed to be unclimbable...

Then for extra confirmation on the opposite side of my perimeter wall a goblin maceman climbed a tree outside the walls, I stationed one of my marksdwarves inside the wall thinking they would get easy shoots at the idiot... then the goblin did the same: jumped 2 tiles from the tree to the top of my wall and then climbed (and lost his grip) down the wall into my fort... -_-

Whenever creatures climb trees, it seems a little bugged, they don't seem to path correctly or consistently... at least I haven't noticed a pattern, one of my dwarves panicked and got stuck on top of a tree, even giving him station order would do nothing... he only got down when some goblins made him panic even more...

Seeing this new behaviour a few new security design strategies are needed:

* Leap preventing:
Assuming block walls can't be climbed, safe distance from trees to prevent leaps? 3 tiles?
If they can leap 2 tiles from a branch  to a the top of a wall, can they also leap throw a 2-tile dry moat?

* Preventing Climbing Down Outside:
How can we prevent dwarves and animals that get on top of the walls (be by parkour or using a staircase) to climb down the wrong side?
would they still attempt to climb down the wall if it's 2z levels high?
a moat? to rise height outside
fortifications?

* Tree Growth Prevention:
Preventing trees from growing next to the walls?
-do trees need hard undigged tiles bellow them to root? how close? digging bellow could pose other problems with the cave-in branches/grenades puncturing holes on floors and subterranean trees puncturing holes through ceilings/hard wall tiles
-paving some tiles around the wall, how wide can trees grow from the tile the trunk spawns? I'm thinking that quick soil roads may have a good use now to make a buffer to prevent trees from growing close to walls...

[Wumpi]

My previous fort had 3 high stone block walls, 1 wide moat, cleared trees. I never had a proper seige, so I'm not sure how they worked. Various werecavies and minotaurs made no attempt to climb, nor did my dwarves. The wall design itself was 2 stone block walls separated by a 1 block gap, and floor at the top. Somewhat like the generated castles/fortresses.
When I get around to building defenses on my new map, I'll do some tests.

[Agent_Irons]

Trees I think are capped at 7x7 or 13x13? There are some people over in Modding that are playing with the tree definitions.

How high are your walls? From personal experience in adventure mode corroborated by fortress mode, 1 level is not enough. You can reach up and pull yourself onto a 1z wall made of anything.

[Loud Whispers]

For trees, why not just use a paved road?

[silverskull39]

Curious to see how this pans out. Personally my plan for a new design is to have an overhang and clear a wide berth.

X=wall
.=ground
+=floor
^=ramp

z1

Code: [Select]

..XX..
..XX..
..XX..

z2

Code: [Select]

.X^+..
.X^+..
.X^+..


[Rum]

I think that making a little ledge on your wall will make it unclimable (nothing can climb on ceilings iirc).

But i love the new climbing, my dwarves can do battle on underground ramparts now.  Sieges tend to be a lot more interesting.  I had a goblin lose his head on my ramparts and his falling skull knocked another goblin climbing up 3 levels down into a pit of spikes.  Fun.

[Iamblichos]

Yes, especially now in the Deadly Tree Update(tm), anything you don't want to be tree-overrun should be paved.

For the tree you mention, clearcutting a ring (and paving) around your fort and/or digging a defensive ditch will prevent that sort of tomfoolery.

Animals panic constantly, as far as I can tell; even things flying at the top of the sky level will trigger the panic reaction.  There's no point in defining above-ground pen zones any more, as the animals spend more time running out of them and being brought back than they do staying in them.

[Urist McVoyager]

You need seven or more tiles of empty space to prevent a successful jump. If a tree branch is big enough for a running start, a jump can clear five or six tiles max. So you need to clear out more space than that. Seven is the safe minimum for preventing jumps.

[Crinkles]

If you are going to dig a moat, consider filling it with upright spear traps. Anyone who tries to climb up your wall and fails will be taught a lesson. No resetting required, plus you can instill horror in the next siege with no extra effort.

[Rosanna Foxfire]

Standard castle defense maintenance.  Cut down all the trees in your courtyard, and within, say, shooting range of your walls.  Keeps those nasty gobbos on the ground, and your ignorant citizenry safe inside.

From adventure mode, jumps can only be two tiles in any direction.  So moats two or three tiles wide should be large enough.  Though that won't prevent the enemy from just climbing back out, or grabbing on to a wall as they fall.  Overhangs/lips on the outer edge of your wall will surely prevent climbing, though I know that smoothed stone can't be climbed, and I'm fairly certain that stone block walls can't be climbed as well.

Gotta make sure to keep the verge trimmed, though.

[WJLIII3]

Standard castle defense maintenance.  Cut down all the trees in your courtyard, and within, say, shooting range of your walls.  Keeps those nasty gobbos on the ground, and your ignorant citizenry safe inside.

From adventure mode, jumps can only be two tiles in any direction.  So moats two or three tiles wide should be large enough.  Though that won't prevent the enemy from just climbing back out, or grabbing on to a wall as they fall.  Overhangs/lips on the outer edge of your wall will surely prevent climbing, though I know that smoothed stone can't be climbed, and I'm fairly certain that stone block walls can't be climbed as well.

Gotta make sure to keep the verge trimmed, though.

Try using the new Gait mechanic, accessed by (S), Sprinting, you can jump much further. Thats for adv. mode.

[MaskedMiner]

From adventure mode, jumps can only be two tiles in any direction.

Actuaaaallyy... It depends on what your speed is. If you sprint and get to speed 3.5(orwhatever) then you can jump wider and longer range, at cost of only being able to jump into direction your character is facing.

[Loud Whispers]

Actuaaaallyy... It depends on what your speed is. If you sprint and get to speed 3.5(orwhatever) then you can jump wider and longer range, at cost of only being able to jump into direction your character is facing.

I'm not sure if Fortress mode creatures are smart enough for that yet though.

[palu]

IIRC Toady said they were only smart enough to do 1-tile jumps.
EDIT: Devlog quote:

I mentioned in the last FotF reply that non-player climbing and jumping were still open questions and that I'd have to try them out before I knew how much we'd have this time around. That was today's project, and it looks we'll be having them both. This includes dwarf mode, so you might have to rethink certain defensive decisions you've been making. I haven't done anything with the strategic thinking of critters, but if they get within about 20 tiles of a target, they can formulate paths that include climbs and horizontal jumps through one air tile to a walkable tile, and they'll also use these forms of movement in limited non-combat situations. Longer jumps aren't yet possible for them, since it is harder to code running starts into the pathing routine, and they don't understand how to jump and then hang onto surface. It's a weakness you can exploit, but they still hop around and cause trouble enough to delight and entertain.

[GavJ]

Trees I think are capped at 7x7 or 13x13? There are some people over in Modding that are playing with the tree definitions.

How high are your walls? From personal experience in adventure mode corroborated by fortress mode, 1 level is not enough. You can reach up and pull yourself onto a 1z wall made of anything.

Tree width is capped at 7x7 yes. Trunks and branches and anything can go all the way out to that limit, it's not only twigs or whatever (if that's relevant to climbing).  And it's actually a square that it's capped at. They will prefer circle shapes, but will get clipped to that square if they get big enough.  Height I believe is uncapped (if you're trusting the height of a cliff to save you from trees). Although there is some largest height of actual existing species in the raws that you could look up, of course.