Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Skullsploder]

Ok guys. I thought of a brilliant FB trap. And built it. And it doesn't work. Basically it's a 2z high chamber filed with cage traps. In the centre is a support holding up a single floor tile. When the building destroyer enters, he should aggro on the support, break it, and get knocked into the cage traps. HOWEVER, they completely ignore the supports, pathing instead directly past them to break down the door to the fortress. What is going on? Supports are definitely not on the list of buildings left alone by building destroyers on the wiki, and yet the Forgotten Beasts are ignoring them!

Would switching to wooden supports help? Does anyone have experience with this? Will I have to build a different system using floodgates and water to set off pressure plates?

[Uggh]

I don't know about supports being buildings, but you could try replacing the door with a drawbridge so it doesn't attract building destroyers. Or just seal it off with a wall, temporarily. Or hide it behind a second wall.

[Skullsploder]

I don't know about supports being buildings, but you could try replacing the door with a drawbridge so it doesn't attract building destroyers. Or just seal it off with a wall, temporarily. Or hide it behind a second wall.

That is something I should do. At the moment I'm replacing the stone supports with wooden ones. When I'm done with that I'll seal off the fort side and open the cavern side and see if the web spewer bites.

On a related note, anyone got any advice on how to get a GCS to web my traps for me? I got lucky and caught one alive.

[Loud Whispers]

Use a modified silk farm, essentially having a GCS behind fortifications and a raisable drawbridge (or similar substitute). When the drawbridge is lowered, lay down your cage traps. When the mechanics are clear, raise it. When spooky FB comes along, it spooks the GCS, causing it to spray webs (while the FB is standing on your cage traps!).

In regards to support, wooden supports are good for this. Personally I prefere linking stone supports to levers, to act as on-command detonation devices. It's just more fun when you get to pull the lever!
Another method that is more convoluted but guarantees the death of big beasties just involves surrounding an unfortunate animal in a winding pathway, with a pressure plate linked to its weight and the support. Great big beast comes to eat unfortunate animal, unfortunate animal triggers pressure plate by fleeing, roof falls on their heads.

[Quietust]

From what I recall, only "undead" (which now includes "non-living") building destroyers go after supports, and only if those supports are made of wood.

[Qrox]

And FBs are no-stun, which means they will not fall unconscious and be caught in a cage trap.

[Skullsploder]

And FBs are no-stun, which means they will not fall unconscious and be caught in a cage trap.

That is inconvenient. So that would mean that it is impossible to cage-trap webbers? How do people move them around for silk farms and things then? Specially carved tunnels, miners who run fast, and bait?

[Qrox]

Impossible to cage-trap no-stun web-spinners, yes. I guess you'll need to use an animal and/or a building* as a bait. Or use a water-trap you mentioned. Or get lucky and catch it inside a bridge sealed room or under a hatch cover. I once made a water-trap and caught a web spinning FB composed of sand but my fort was overrun by silk collected from cave spiders so I never put it into real use...

* And since buildings made from artifacts are virtually indestructible, and most creatures, including FBs, tend to suffer from myopia, it's totally possible to attract one to an artifact building and wall it in.

[Skullsploder]

Ok so since I'd rather use my GCS for breeding and silk production, will a webbing FB shoot its webs at other FBs through fortifications? Because I could quite easily lure the one currently romping around in the first caves into my trap corridor with a sacrificial kitten and make it immobile with bridges. But I need it to attack other FBs when it see them with its webs, through the fortifications, otherwise the whole exercise is pointless.

[NJW2000]

I *THINK* FBs are neutral w/ each other.... but really likely to be provocative and fight. Have seen combat reports from other people of them fighting. And other cavern creatures will of course be shot at.

[NW_Kohaku]

In general, use GCS for your webs.  They're much more easily captured, transported, coaxed, and they are both breedable and tamable.  Plus FB webs are worth less than pig tails for fabric, anyway, if you're actually spinning webs for silk. 

You can pre-emptively web a trap hall with a GCS, then move it back for breeding purposes if you so wish (use a pastured kitten on the only spot not cage trapped if not tamed, and use a chained goblin/elf prisoner if tamed).  Alternately, set up a GCS containment area that has two drawbridge shutters on either side - one for webbing a silk farm, and another for webbing a trap hall. 

[Skullsploder]

Alternately, set up a GCS containment area that has two drawbridge shutters on either side - one for webbing a silk farm, and another for webbing a trap hall.

I like this. But I just had a slightly different idea: do webs dropped down a z-level still have the webbing effect? Because then I could make a web collection hall above my trap hall and just make the floor a bridge the retracts.

At the same time I also quite like the idea of having something watch the trap hall that will only shoot a web when it sees an enemy actually standing on a cage trap. Will a tame GCS shoot at hostiles (i.e. forgotten beasts and gremlins) through fortifications? That way I could just leave it there without closing off the fortifications all the time with a bridge, and still have cavern access through the hall because it won't always be webbed.

Alternatively, there's the option of setting up the web-slinger FB in that position. I quite like that option because it's unlikely that the FB will ever need replacement, but of course I will have to micro slightly more by ordering the bridge to be opened/closed all the time. I know FBs are hostile to each other and at least some are VERY hostile to other cavern creatures.

Will any of those three ideas work?

[NW_Kohaku]

You probably still want to put a drawbridge shutter in between a GCS and an FB if you care about preserving your GCS, because some FBs spit projectiles, and a !!GCS!! isn't good for breeding.  Hence, for spider safety, I'd put a goblin across the hall (also across a fortification) from the traps, and lower the shutters just to get some webs sprayed. 

I don't think that GCS webs fall.  In fact, I know that clown webs can fly. I think GCS webs stick to walls, but I haven't tested them on non-level surfaces often. 

The trick to getting a webbing FB into position is that you have to plan for it extensively.  Basically, you never control the webbing FB directly, you just coax it into a box and drop the lid on it.  (Not unlike those traps where you put candy or something in a basket held up by a stick with a string attached you see in cartoons...)  If you put an buildingable artifact in an alcove with a 1-tile drawbridge to cut off view, then the next tile back is where the FB will stand to try to knock over your statue/door/whatever artifact.  Set up fortifications along the walls of this dead-end, and have a drawbridge behind the FB to come up when the FB is trapped by the lure.  You'll need to selectively open up the lure trap only when a webber comes by. 

An alternative method to this is to go the Loud Whispers route, and kill the webber however you can, put its corpse into position, and then let a necromancer see it.  Undead FBs are guaranteed to hate and try to web everything as a bonus. Make sure it's totally sealed, and you probably want shutters to keep it from webbing your workers when they collect the caged FBs.

[Loud Whispers]

I can confirm that webs do not fall, they will stay wherever they're sprayed - even in open air

[Skullsploder]

I can confirm that webs do not fall, they will stay wherever they're sprayed - even in open air

Hmm... then the wiki article on silk farming needs to be updated.
Look at "high volume silk farming"

I quite like the idea of the Loud Whispers route. So you guys are certain that webbers will always web hostile creatures through fortifications? I seem to remember a lot of complaint threads when 40.xx was released saying that web farms no longer work.

EDIT: Idea for the incredible lazy (and those concerned about whether spiders still shoot webs through fortifications): How about a GCS on a chain at the end of a shortish corridor filled with cage traps? Normal cavern access would be from a point just out of the spider's line of sight, so that webbed traps are not in the way of dwarves. Thus the spider acts as bait and webs the traps when necessary. There would be a raising bridge with one space between the bridge and the restraint to block off the spider when a webber FB shows up. It would be non-hostile to the dwarves, and should instantly trap stuff that rounds the corner.

Also there is another mention of dropping webs on the wiki page "DF2014: Web". Perhaps it's a mechanic that only works if the webs are on a retracting bridge? I just quite like the idea because it means I could build a web farm directly above the trap hall and just occasionally open the floor to re-web the corridor.