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[Zuglarkun]

I've been testing out the designs for my old death arena/ live archer training area, due to fears that with the new jumping, climbing mechanics, my old designs are going to be rendered obsolete.

Spoiler: GOBLIN DEATH ARENA (click to show/hide)

 

The arena is constructed by channeling out dikes to create a winding path, then channeling out the entire floor beneath it to create a massive pit (10+ z-levels) that I can fill with lava or the alligators/ saltwater crocodiles/ Giant anacondas that I've been breeding in my fort. The three rectangular pillars allow for retracting bridges to be built that cut a direct path through the arena, allowing the caravans to cross safely. Whereas the z-level above this arena is a crossbow dwarf shooting gallery.

The winding pathway allows sufficient time for a full siege to get stranded whilst navigating it, after which I can conveniently clamp down the bridges at the two ends of the death pit and commence live firing exercises. The only fear of retaliation regrettably, would be elite crossbow/bow goblins. Goblins that dodge off the pathway fall into the pit of lava/war animals/angry melee dwarves to their doom.

Results of SCIENCE (two separate siege tests) show that unless Goblins/Dwarves have a clear line of sight to an enemy target, they won't attempt to jump over the dikes but will instead path around the winding road. (currently using 40.13 LNP for testing.)

See the dwarf on the right standing on the bridge? Did not engage the goblins when the goblins walked nearby. Nor did the goblins engage him.

However, once an enemy is in clear line of sight AND within engaging distance, they WILL RUN AND JUMP ACROSS the 1 block wide dikes to engage the enemy.

So, my fears that the enemy will just jump across the dikes if a clear path to the fortress exists were blown out of proportion. Normal path finding calculations don't seem to take into account jumping. But combat path finding calculations WILL take jumping into account to find the shortest path to engage the enemy. Yay SCIENCE!

Still, it is a satisfactory outcome, and works as was intended - to delay the siege arriving, gather all of them into one spot and slaughter them without the use of traps.

[SOLDIER First]

Do bodies slide down ramps, I wonder? If so, with lots of additional effort, you can have a giant funnel that sends goblins through a small area, possibly passing populated areas, before landing on spikes.

[Tacomagic]

Do bodies slide down ramps, I wonder? If so, with lots of additional effort, you can have a giant funnel that sends goblins through a small area, possibly passing populated areas, before landing on spikes.

Sadly, they do not.  They just sit at the bottom of the ramp on the ramp tile.

[SOLDIER First]

Oh.
Clever use of water, then, but my point stands.

[Sus]

Yes! The giant sparrow eggs were fertile. We have three live Giant Sparrow Hatchlings (-Trained-), two females and a male. She also just laid another batch of six eggs, and with the wild male still on the map, there's hope they will be fertile, too. Oh, serendipity! 

♪ I'm making a note here:
huge success!
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction... ♫

The pair of Giant Hyenas are in the process of being trained, but have not yet produced any offspring. My civilization now has "general familiarity" with them, too.
The rhinoceros farming experiment was something of a disappointment; rhinos require huge... tracts o' land, lest they starve to death.
Ostriches, however? Holy Birdsplosion, Batman!  Looks like there's going to be a lot of *ostrich gizzard roast* for everybody for the foreseeable future...

My cave-in bomb assembly is nearing completion. Once it's complete, I'll punch a hole in a passage connecting two cavern layers and inviting the Fun creatures of the underground to take a tour of my trap corridor. Unfortunately, the Forgotten Beasts have a habit of kicking any other interesting creatures, such as Voracious Cave Crawlers, into lumps of mangled flesh. Hopefully, after I squash the FB:s, there will still be underground fauna to catch... (Crundle farm? Crundle farm!)

One of the FBs keeps starting fires in the middle cavern layer.

[seaturtlehorsesnake]

almost my entire fort died to a coral sand titan.

but one dared to stand up to it



imagine this message 99 more times, and he is still alive. fight on, brave weasel. fight on.

[Max™]

Coral titans are dangerous?

Crap, glad I went with Option M (for Magma) instead of Option M (...for uh... Military, note to self, fire the guy who names my contingency plans... wait, is that me? Ok then, I'm fired! Did it work? Am I still here? Is anyone still reading this?) though I must admit I was curious to see what it means when they "emanate an aura of giving and kindness"...

[Larix]

It's a really cool dude who just loves giving everyone high fives. Shame it has a bit of trouble with co-ordination, splattering most of the recipients.

Pointless engineering trick of the day:
a cart in the optimum compact cyclotron

Code: [Select]

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takes five steps for a full cyle once fully accelerated. Which of course means it should be possible to cram more than one cart in there. I've only tried it with two, but yes, it works. Two carts going at maximum ramp speed, no collisions. You have to pre-accelerate them in separate cyclotrons before releasing them (simultaneously) into the main loop. More than two might still be possible, with the correct build order; theoretical maximum should be four: carts' actions within a turn are ordered by their "age", oldest first, youngest last; for a five-step closed loop, you always need an unoccupied position for the oldest cart to move into.

EDIT: i tried it out and couldn't get three or four carts to work. It looks like entering/leaving ramps messes up the in-step turn order of carts. Thus, two carts per cyclotron may be the actual maximum. Now if we had pressure plates that instantly turned off when the condition ceased, this'd be a really speedy repeater...

[the1337doofus]

There's a Giant Sponge inside my fishing area, right next to the shore. How worried should I be about my fisherdwarves safety? I feel as though they're gonna have some Fun....

[Chevaleresse]

There's a Giant Sponge inside my fishing area, right next to the shore. How worried should I be about my fisherdwarves safety? I feel as though they're gonna have some Fun....

Giant Sponges collapse after a couple of punches now iirc, so if you're that concerned you could shoo it away with a hammerdorf.

[muxecoid]

One of the new migrants, a novice hunter hauler was hauling some bones outdoors. She had a steel crossbow equipped, but no ammo. She was a bit tired, by dwarven standards she was rather quick to tire. A unicorn crossed her way. With a powerful blow she knocked the unicorn unconscious. She then continued taking joy in violence.  It's rather hard to kill an unconscious unicorn by hammering his legs, apparently. At the end she was too exhausted and lost consciousness. A farmer passed by to add a few kicks and punches. Finally master marksdwarf arrived and ended the suffering.

Still tired, as soon as she regained consciousness she picked some bolts from nearby stockpile and killed the second unicorn. Only with one unicorn kill in her profile she could rest.

I can't let her remain a mere hauler anymore. I may assign her to squad as hammer dwarf, she is rather skilled now. Alternatively I can give her artifact lead crossbow to make her even more dangerous in close combat. What do you think?

[pisskop]

Can BDs destroy from below now, or did I forget to forbid/lock my floorhatches?

Ive got two GCOs inbound and enraged after roflstomping some voracious cave crawlers, and I have only two military members.


---

Also have a volcano and no water, and apparently no first or second cavern.  As in, muddy cavern, no water period.  Sigh.

Spoiler: Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaa! (click to show/hide)

Crazy dude ambushed the ogre by the exit hatch

[Sirbug]

My experience says that titan material doesn't contribute much in his lethality, except if it's really fragile kind. It's attack that makes a difference. I would fight him in the open and see if anyone burst into blood splatter or start rotting.

But then, I just love infantry actions. Magma is for nerds.

[Eric Blank]

Accidentally flooded my fort's food production area. All the farms, workshops, seed stockpile. Animal stockpile... Fuck.

I can fix this!

I just have no idea how...

[Tacomagic]

Accidentally flooded my fort's food production area. All the farms, workshops, seed stockpile. Animal stockpile... Fuck.

I can fix this!

I just have no idea how...

Sounds like a job for magma.