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[Aloriel]

I have a megabeast that has arrived in the cave I draw water from. I have already stationed my military there to protect the fort. However, if they aren't needed there, I would like to move them off.

Is it safe to do so, or should I be preparing for the fight of my life?

Military:
10 xbow armed with mix of iron bolts and wood bolts (for training) - some are "great" or higher, most are novice to moderate
5 iron equipped melee types - most are fairly untrained, one is "great"

Megabeast:
Caddisfly - knobby shell, bloated body, deadly spittle

[khearn]

Yeah, they can fly up through a well. How is your booze supply? Anyone in the hospital? If the answers are "plenty of booze, no patients that will need water", then you might consider walling off the well. Either that or leave your troops there and hope they can handle the bug.

   Keith

[pisskop]

Yes.  Things can also climb up them and swim, if applicable.

[Aloriel]

Booze supply is outstanding (4 booze per dwarf), no one in hospital.

Also, no active surface siege. I have access to a brook on the surface.

I think I will take your advice and wall it off.

It's been a while since I played... do megabeasts go away eventually?

EDIT:
Officially walled off, but my question above still stands. Do megabeasts go away eventually?

[khearn]

I suspect they'll stick around until killed, rather than leave the map, but I'm really not 100% sure.  If they wander into an unexplored area they'll disappear from the 'u'nit listing. And they will get into fights with other wildlife in the caverns, or other FBs. If they get killed while in an unexplored area, you won't hear about it. So I've had plenty of FBs that disappeared down there and I don't know if they got killed or left the map. Depending on the FB, a elk bird or a troglodyte could be enough to kill it, or it might take a stronger FB to come along.

   Keith

[Tacomagic]

I suspect they'll stick around until killed, rather than leave the map, but I'm really not 100% sure.  If they wander into an unexplored area they'll disappear from the 'u'nit listing. And they will get into fights with other wildlife in the caverns, or other FBs. If they get killed while in an unexplored area, you won't hear about it. So I've had plenty of FBs that disappeared down there and I don't know if they got killed or left the map. Depending on the FB, a elk bird or a troglodyte could be enough to kill it, or it might take a stronger FB to come along.

   Keith

I'm pretty sure they never leave (at least FBs don't seem to).  Mostly they just keep building up until they either kill each other off, or you finally get annoyed with all the troglodyte and crundle corpses and take care of them yourself.

In my current fort I've got an FB thunderdome goign down in my caverns.  So far the hairy crocodile web-shooter has been winning all the matches, but the acid-spitting mud blob put up a good fight and heavily damaged HC's legs before going down.  Just waiting for the fire-spitting giant snake to make its way over.

[Aloriel]

Yep, that settles it. It's time to put fortifications that open into that cave, and station some archers down there. I can't have my primary underground water source cut off until something finally wins against this thing.

Plus, it'll be good training for the dwarves in red.

At least this time they won't be able to jump into the pit WITH the dang thing, as happened with the last megabeast that came from the surface.

[Tacomagic]

Yep, that settles it. It's time to put fortifications that open into that cave, and station some archers down there. I can't have my primary underground water source cut off until something finally wins against this thing.

Plus, it'll be good training for the dwarves in red.

At least this time they won't be able to jump into the pit WITH the dang thing, as happened with the last megabeast that came from the surface.

Just be aware that there are some bugs with fortifications right now that occasionally allow things to phase though them.  Having a secondary bridge walling off the fortified area is a really good idea.

If you just want to protect your water-source, your best bet is to create a pressurized bend that upwells through a floor-grate into a cistern.  Currently floor grates cannot be destroyed from below (at least, I think that's still the case).

[khearn]

Yeah, just waiting isn't really a great option. If you wait until something nastier comes along and kills your current FB, you will then have something nastier to deal with instead. You might get lucky and have something about the same strength show up and they kill each other, or the victor is so weakened that a crundle will come along and kill it. But you might not.

Shooting through fortifications is a decent way to handle some FBs, but those with attacks like flame or deadly dust will be able to do significant damage through the fortifications. I'm not sure if your FB with deadly spittle will be able to spit through it, but I suspect he might be able to. It also relies on having the FB wander into the field of fire, which can be frustrating at times.

An option is to build a nice trap to catch it. Rochelimit posted a nice one recently that I've tired out and found to work. Although I did end up with a FB stuck in the bottom level of one of the cells and I haven't figured out a safe way to extract him. But at least he's safely contained.

   Keith

[Dorf and Dumb]

That automated trap is waaay too complicated.  All you need is a short tunnel with some doors in it and no sightline to the middle, with one end to the "wild" space and one end to the "tame" space.  If you're bold, just let the critter start coming in.  If it stops to destroy a door, great: you dig/let your dorfs have access to the wild end of the space and wall that in, then wall in the near end, and finally the critter triumphantly destroys the door... finding walls around it.  This works even on (some?) 'HFS' critters.  If the critter doesn't destroy doors, of course, you just let it go through one and lock it between that and the next, then wall it in just to avoid uncertainty.

Oh, and if you're not bold, a retracting bridge at the "wild" end and a partially-constructed wall at the near end in advance.  (To be able to build/link the bridge safely you need to make then wall a connection to outside it, and then ramp/dig through from it to the wild space)  This also has the advantage you can easily let the critter loose the way it came, if something else comes in you want to get rid of.  I had a web-throwing forest titan saved up that way -- he was mourned when the goblins finally took him out.

[Max™]

I had to stop my "brilliant" plan of putting fortification surrounded waterfalls in my barracks to compliment the one going through the meeting area.

I had my first hint that this could happen when I saw some dorfs training in a fortification lined barracks like so:

########
#++++++#
#+++D D#
########

Turned into:


########
#++++++#
#+++ D+# D <~confused dorf on a section of roof with no access who I had to rescue
########

Later I had the problem of a legendary swordmaster disappearing along with a mace lord, and checking the missing lists with dfhack and using gm-editor to read the pos for them, it said they should be in the barracks, I finally narrowed it down that they must have gotten tossed through the fortifications, down the waterfall, and oh goody, I thought I'd be clever by smoothing a section of wall at the edge of the map and putting fortifications so it could drain, yay!

I began adding grates and so forth so I can catch them standing in the waterfall and release them/keep things coming up from below.

[Mentalpatient87]

This is why I always try to tap into water sources through a wall, via fortifications.

[Quietust]

Booze supply is outstanding (4 booze per dwarf), no one in hospital.

Er, 4 booze per dwarf is alarmingly low, barely enough to last a single season (and probably split between so few barrels that some of your dwarves will be drinking water because all of the barrels are in use) - an "outstanding" booze supply would be at least 16-20 per dwarf, enough to last a year or more.

[pisskop]

 Abuse all the fruits and plants.  Hundreds of booze in a season with rich amounts of plants, and a dedicated brewer/plant gatherers.

[Aslandus]

That brook would be enough if you have it walled in with grates/bars covering it, but assuming you're not me and aren't willing to build a secondary outpost within the region to get water safely, you will need to get back your well if you want to have water during a surface siege (or in winter, if you're not in a hot area like a desert where the water never freezes)...

That said, if the mega/forgotten beast (it seems to be going back and forth, yes they are different things, megabeasts being dragons and such, forgotten beasts being randomly generated) isn't too deadly you could just send your melee dwarves out to fight it, and it will probably drop down to face them (assuming it doesn't have a ranged attack) and get its face bashed in, just be sure to give them decent equipment and at least minimal training before sending them, otherwise you will fill a few coffins as well as freeing your water source...