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[Treefingers]

My 0.40 mass pits seem next to useless. Invaders keep escaping. I can set war animals and military in the cage areas, but that means my defense has become a thing I have to defend against, or that a caged invader is only a half-defended-from invader. I do admit, they are much less of a threat after I've stripped them naked.

Looking for alternatives, I thought I might just sell the caged goblins. But the goblins also keep escaping whenever I try moving them to the depot (though moving them between stockpiles has been safe so far). I now remember this being a thing for untrained creatures, so a bit of facepalm there.

Next I'm gonna try transitioning to mass drowning or maybe iron cages in a lava room. If that doesn't work, then something involving mechanized cages. I know that will work fine, it's just a lot of work compared to a standard mass pit. I also haven't tested to see if things escape when you actually build a cage.

I'm hoping for an end result that requires about as little micromanaging as previous mass pit methods.

Maybe lets make this a !!SCIENCE!! thread to find out how to limit/prevent escapes while pitting. Are some dwarves less likely to allow an escape? If so, why? If it's skill-related, what's an effective way to train that skill and how does one limit pitting activities to only appropriately-skilled dwarves? A second avenue of research could be to find a new best method for dealing with bulk captures.

This is, for me so far, one of the bigger gameplay changes. The wiki, in its just-migrated state, could greatly benefit from our findings.

[khearn]

I just had good luck today getting some goblins separated from their weapons and shields by having an axedwarf lop their arms off. He also separated them from their helmets in a similar fashion. Then my haulers had no problem harvesting the armors and everything else.

So that method still works. It was somewhat problematic until Toady fixed the morale issues in the last release (or was it the one before?)

   Keith

[Duuvian]

I just attach them to a lever and station a burly military dwarf near the cage. I dump the prisoner's weapon but let him keep his clothes and armor. I give the dwarf a wooden training weapon if there is one for that type, or a crossbow and no bolts for a hammerdwarf.

Then I pull the lever.

[than402]

Looking for alternatives, I thought I might just sell the caged goblins. But the goblins also keep escaping whenever I try moving them to the depot (though moving them between stockpiles has been safe so far). I now remember this being a thing for untrained creatures, so a bit of facepalm there.

just so you know,just add them PET_EXOTIC and a PETVALUE:X,and you're good to go

[martinuzz]

I doubt that. AFAIK, a cage will always be emptied when brought to the depot, no matter what is in it. I even managed to get a dwarf corpse out of a cage, so it became available for burial, by using this method.

[than402]

are you sure?because i've tried it,and selling invaders was my main source of income for some of my forts in 34.11.maybe the cage with the dwarven corpse was emptied because the dwarf did not have these tags.

however,this only works if you move it from the pets option from the menu where you choose which item to bring too the depot.if you just choose the cage option,the cage will indeed be emptied.

[Aslandus]

I just build a hatch over the pit and forbid the trapdoor, the dorfs can still dump prisoners through it, but apparently the prisoners can't escape while being brought there if the hatch if forbidden...

[silverskull39]

can you put full cages in minecarts? Shooting your prisoners with a dwarven shotgun seems like a fun and potentially !!FUN!! way to deal with the problem.

[Dorf and Dumb]

Taking for_ever_ to wall around the level with the glowing pit.  And I've been neglecting the intrepid group of goblin siegers that keeps visiting.  But I really hope nothing bad happens to them before they come back, because they've already been promised to it.

[Saiko Kila]

But the goblins also keep escaping whenever I try moving them to the depot (though moving them between stockpiles has been safe so far).

Similarly, I've never seen goblin escaping when a craftsdwarf takes the cage to his workshop for encrusting/decorating. Also animal hauler taking the cage back seem to be safe (and sometimes delighted).

[pisskop]

ptw for solutions.  I do quite a bit of dumping critters myself, and while I'm still on 34.11 forts I am concerned.

[Boss Fist]

I have been doing some save scumming to try and define what happens here. My methods have been unscientific but may be relevant to a more robust investigation.

Each of my attempts have been done with multiple nothing-special Dwarves.

I have tried a normal method, as described in the wiki. The drop is directly into lava, originally intended to filter out iron equipment.

Prisoner escape rate for goblins is at about 70%.

I just build a hatch over the pit and forbid the trapdoor, the dorfs can still dump prisoners through it, but apparently the prisoners can't escape while being brought there if the hatch if forbidden...

I tried this and found no difference in escape rate.

I have then stripped the prisoners naked and attempted forbidden and unforbidden trapdoors, and even with no trapdoors, to no avail, but at least the dwarf wasn't shanked by the prisoners.

This then revealed far more serious problems frivolity and amusement:

The dwarf who accidentally released the prisoner is now attacked by military dwarves and appears to cause a loyalty cascade.


The dwarf who played the failed jailer did not appear as an @ as an insane or non-fort dwarf seems to. Anyone with more knowledge of dwarven sociology may wish to comment.


EDIT: Jacko13 seems to have found an answer almost 2 weeks ago in http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=141361.30, in which the issue of jailers being enemies is also discussed.

I've tried ensuring that only one enemy is alive in the pit at a time (easy with the lava) and can confirm I've had no escapees and no riots.

I suggest dropping them from a significant height to ensure that the dwarves don't get upset by previous victims being too close.

[Treefingers]

I just build a hatch over the pit and forbid the trapdoor, the dorfs can still dump prisoners through it, but apparently the prisoners can't escape while being brought there if the hatch if forbidden...

My successful pittings seem to work exactly as they did before. All of my escapes are happening topside. Once they're under the hatch, they're stuck, thanks to the precautions you've mentioned, and many of the other techniques that have been developed. The change in 0.40 affects something between removing the creature and the creature being in the pit.

The dwarf who accidentally released the prisoner is now attacked by military dwarves and appears to cause a loyalty cascade.

The dwarf who played the failed jailer did not appear as an @ as an insane or non-fort dwarf seems to. Anyone with more knowledge of dwarven sociology may wish to comment.

AFAIK, this has been identified as a bug. I was having this problem too, and it's actually the reason I first stopped pitting. The odd scuffle in the cage room wouldn't have been a dealbreaker, but months of fort-wide chaos and terror after every escape definitely is. I think the terror (but not the initial in-fighting) might now be mitigated by the recent courage changes.

I suggest dropping them from a significant height to ensure that the dwarves don't get upset by previous victims being too close.

Never even occurred to me that dwarves might now be disturbed by the violent goings-on of my death pit. Makes sense, at least, that they can see inside while the hatch is in use. You might only need one extra level to hide this, though. Pit things into an empty room with a retracting bridge as floor. Then when no one's using the hatches, open it into whatever you would normally have had directly under the hatches. e.g. Your three layers could be (top to bottom) cages/hatches, retractable floor, lava (instead of just cages, lava). It doesn't even matter much if you leave them in the bridge room for a while. Heck you can toss aggressive animals in there with them for a little show before offing the whole lot.

[Aslandus]

I doubt that. AFAIK, a cage will always be emptied when brought to the depot, no matter what is in it. I even managed to get a dwarf corpse out of a cage, so it became available for burial, by using this method.

If the thing is actually sellable they'll take it, but they dump out things that can't be sold, including but not limited to enraged goblins with whips...

[dwarf_reform]

I sadly don't mess with cages much, due to uninformed laziness :> Just wish cage use was cleaner, and you could easily select 'Put Creature in Cage', 'Dump Creature from Cage' (which would give you a target arrow), 'Feed Creature in Cage' to force a feeding, 'Clean Cage' for a guaranteed empty cage, and any other useful stuff I don't even know about..

And honestly I can't even talk since I don't know exactly how to orchestrate cages being dumped into a pit (very undwarvenly!) :> But it'd be simpler, I think..