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[Chevaleresse]

In my current fort, lacking other things to do, I've decided to make a zoo with as many nasty, dangerous creatures as I can possibly fit into it. What's the best way to capture [TRAPAVOID] beasties to put on display? My plan was to bait one into a trap using a bit of artifact furniture, surround it with cage traps, then render it unconscious somehow. Problem is, I don't know how to do this without maiming the critter and killing it, ruining the whole point of capture.

[Insanegame27]

I'm currently working on a way to do this, it involves webs. also: MWDF, manilla or vanilla? Version?

                                   _
                                  [S.]
                          _                 _
                         [S.]     B      [S.]
                                   _
                                  [S.]

where [S.] respresents a spider surrounded by fortifications
B stands for bait surrounded by cage traps
note: best to lure the beast inside into an arena and then raise bridges

[Cptn Kaladin Anrizlokum]

Get a giant cave spider, and build some cage traps in a room with furniture. Then get the GCS to spray webs over the cage traps, because webbed creatures can get hit by traps. I'm not sure of the exact details, but that's up to you.

[Chevaleresse]

That's all well and good, but GCS aren't exactly easily acquired resources themselves. Also leaves the problem of webslinging FBs. Any ideas for them?

[wierd]

I am partial to capturing them without using traps of that nature.  Bridges are not destroyable, so I prefer something like this:



O----O
|****O-O
|*++rR++
|****O-O
O----O

Where * is open space
O | - are walls,
rR is a raising bridge with R as the anchored side
+ is a floor.

The floor inside surrounded by open space is really the top of a constructed wall pillar, that goes up from a walled in room below with a constructed floor just beside it near the bridge. (no where to go if they climb down.)

Basically, you install an adorable kitten on a chain at the pillar top, leaving a place for the FB to stand to beat on it. Once it is there beating away, you raise the bridge behind it, trapping it inside. Then you install a fortification at the extended wall area, then lower the bridge again. The distance over the bridge and the 2 floor tiles is well within the FB's line of site, so anything that goes past the fortification will get the FB's attention. Useful for installing webber FBs for flame proof silk undergarments.

[PDF urist master]

okay. this is my area of expertise. Though I prefer containment to display, seeing how many FBs can oneshot web spewing giant cave spiders from a distance.

FBs and titans are building destroyers, but I noticed that they'll only path into your fort if there's an open entrance, such as an open door. For FBs, My strategy is to have a corridor full of 4x1 room leading to the cavern entrance, each room seal able by a raising drawbridge. This corridor will turn to a separate hallway, leading to my fort with three doors guarding my ramps. I place furniture in all of these rooms so that when the beast approaches my fort, they'll be distracted by the furniture. One lever pull and they're neutralized, never to bother the fort again.

to trap them, I have an alternate idea in mind. create two alternate hallways. One will be your trap hallway. Both have access to the caverns below. assign GCSs in room with fortifications along the trap hallway and fill the hallway with cage traps. for extra dwarfness, place bait in front of the GCS so they're always spewing webs.
When the FB comes, seal the real hallway so the only way in is the fake hallway. once the beast is trapped, prepare for a lot of job cancellations as there will be dwarves who get trapped in your webbed cages.

[RocheLimit]

My method is very similar to PDF urist master's.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's a very simple titan trap.  Easy to set up early and can catch as many titans (or FB's) as you have room for.
It is simply a long hallway from your fort parallel to a long hallway from outside.  Connect the two hallways with smaller, perpendicular hallways, and place a drawbridge at each end.  Then place 1 or more doors inside the connecting hallway closest to the outside, remembering that building destroyers destroy buildings from 1 tile away (so 1 empty tile between the destroyer and the object).  Link both bridges to a single lever, and you're good to go.  In the above image, I use constructed walls to further limit which hall the titan goes to.  Add a drawbridge (not shown in image) to the outside exit of the hall so you can seal the trap completely to do maintenance, reset some halls, or deal with a web titan.

If you catch a web titan:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

     

Using the spacing between each hall to dig a down-stair to a silk farm is probably the simplest way to make use of your new asset.  You may also use a similar setup for webbed traps, and dispense with using the individual halls (plus an idle dwarf) for catching your undesirable uncatchables.  Be sure to completely block fort/outside access before releasing the webber.  Understand, I have not vetted out the silk farm design shown here; last time I was able to do this was before DF2014 came out, and a simple cat-on-a-string would work.  I took a look at the new wiki page for silk farms, and it seems you need a military dwarf to play bait and patrol in front of the web-slinger.  So take my silk farm with a grain of salt.  But this design will allow you to isolate a web titan in a silk/web-cage farm of your own design.

And if you want to remove the dwarf part out of the entire Titan/FB catching experience?  My comment has an automatic design.

**Edit**
As for trapping web-slinging titans or FB's (immune to webs), the only thing I can think of is a cave-in cage trap.  It works by using the dust thrown about during a cave in to knock the creature unconscious, which will cause them to be caught by a trap.  No idea if it would work with a webbing FB or Titan, though I would think it would.  So, 7x7 room full of cage traps, single block suspended by a Support in corner, web titan wanders in from one corner, destroys support in opposite corner, causes cave-in, gets knocked out on top of cage trap.

[celem]

I walled off an approach lane on the surface and littered it with cage traps.  I then cut a long corridor just inside a nearby hill overlooking the lane through fortifications. 

Lure a webber FB from the caverns through the indoor corridor (by opening a path) and then caved it in once he was inside to seal him in the run.

Anything that gets directed through the surface approach lane gets caged regardless of trap_immune.

I'll try and dig up a picture later, but it looks a little like:

----------------------------------
c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c
 c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
#                   FB                    #
-----------------------------------

where:
- is wall
c is cage
F is fortification
# is caved-in
FB is webslinger (gcs, whatever, thats the fun bit)

The corridor containing the cages is actually properly outdoors so that i can easily direct invaders through it by setting a burrow for the dwarves and opening a path.  The checkerboard pattern of cage-traps I find more effective as it reduces their inclination to all stop behind the first guy to fall in.  The webslinger engages everything it can see and the traps should stay pretty much constantly webbed, I tend to leave it open most of the time and designate it restricted, plus forbid webs occasionally if my loom is spamming.

[Dorf and Dumb]

This is really pretty anticlimactic.  It takes a long time for anything, even HFS, to destroy a door.  So make a corridor with a few doors, let the critter in, lock the doors to either side of it, wall in from the ends.  For extra credit set up a retractable bridge at the end of the corridor from which you will allow it entrance to your fort (i.e. before digging to connect it to the FB) - that way you can easily release your prize later on to fight for you.