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[Magnus]

Do your crabs actually hit or do they just set the ground on fire? My fort is on a glacier...

I'm not exactly sure why I seem to be seeing better results than others. I am shooting with more than one crab into huge masses of enemies. This siege was over 200 invaders. I'm in a rocky wasteland so there's nothing to set on fire unless dried vomit burns. A few possibilities I can think of again.

1) Something has changed in magma crabs or goblins and dodging.
2) Shooting from multiple directions > goblins ability to dodge.
3) Having a target rich environment dramatically increases the possibility that one gobbo in the magma's trajectory is going to be hit. I'm not totally sure about how that works. Can the flying magma hit anyone beyond the original intended target?
4) Having a target rich environment means that there are always going to be some gobbos who are bad at dodging and therefore they are eventually getting hit (I somewhat doubt this because the first enemy to make it through to my waiting melee dwarfs was a recruit, but who knows).
5) It could be that the crabs are making magma puddles that are inadvertently being stepped in by gobbos, but this would also surprise me.

I have a feeling that 2 is the operative factor here, because enemies do have a facing and a cone of vision. If you are shooting them from behind it should impact their ability to dodge, they don't see it coming. Also, once one of them gets burnt the smoke will make everyone much easier to hit because they will be stunned.

I have an idea. Build a tunnel, and 1 z-level under it have an everburning lignite bin. Separate the bin and the tunnel with a drawbridge, and put a crab turret in the tunnel. When the invaders come you open the bin bridge, so the tunnel fills with smoke and stuns them. The turret should then make quick work of them.

[Bakaridjan]

With that design you might run into the problem of smoke blocking pathing. With the bridge cutting off the smoke you would get one wave, but once it filled with smoke invaders would stop coming and once something is burning in the hallway you would have to wait for them to burn out for the next group to come in. So it would be slow at best.

What we really need are dwarven wind turbines to clear out the smoke after it's served its purpose.

[Detros]

What we really need are dwarven wind turbines to clear out the smoke after it's served its purpose.

Can't we just put windmills in there and get them power via some watterwheels or so?

[PatrikLundell]

@Detros: Yes, you an put wind mills in there and power them by water wheels, but that won't move the air (or the smoke)...

[Bakaridjan]

Second major siege at around 250 goblins and the turrets continue to be capable killers. I put in a few more banks below, but forgot to lock the hatches on one, so trolls jump up on top and ripped my little crabbies out of the bottom left battery. Whoops. I'm going to have to start some more breeding here because supplies are running low. Besides those ones, I lost two more to archers. I may experiment with trenches around them. We even repulsed the siege in time for the human caravan to show up, huzzah!

We really need some rain...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A few more observations are that.

1) The invaders have to get very close to the crabs to provoke them. Like good cowboys, they like to wait until they can see the whites of them gobbos eyes.
2) Beakdogs seem particularly susceptible to the turrets. I probably had twenty of them on fire at a time. Initially it doesn't seem like their fire will spread to their riders though, but this probably needs more !Science!. I'm really not sure where all the gobbos went, except that a lot of them died in my front courtyard to my melee and overwatching xbow squads.
3) Trolls also seem easier to hit than goblins, but there were a fair numbers of gobbos who got tagged as well.

[kingu]

Second major siege at around 250 goblins and the turrets continue to be capable killers. I put in a few more banks below, but forgot to lock the hatches on one, so trolls jump up on top and ripped my little crabbies out of the bottom left battery. Whoops. I'm going to have to start some more breeding here because supplies are running low. Besides those ones, I lost two more to archers. I may experiment with trenches around them. We even repulsed the siege in time for the human caravan to show up, huzzah!

We really need some rain...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A few more observations are that.

1) The invaders have to get very close to the crabs to provoke them. Like good cowboys, they like to wait until they can see the whites of them gobbos eyes.
2) Beakdogs seem particularly susceptible to the turrets. I probably had twenty of them on fire at a time. Initially it doesn't seem like their fire will spread to their riders though, but this probably needs more !Science!. I'm really not sure where all the gobbos went, except that a lot of them died in my front courtyard to my melee and overwatching xbow squads.
3) Trolls also seem easier to hit than goblins, but there were a fair numbers of gobbos who got tagged as well.

Trenches might work. i have used them in earlier versions.

I just caught 4 magma crabs! I also have a GSP. I am going for a No-Soldiers-no-traps defence using magmacrabs, ballistas and webs. I would also like a Dragon and/or a couple of FBs to handle undead sieges but basic defences should be up in time for the second Goblin siege.
The first one I need for catching a few test-goblins. So the no-traps handicap will have to wait.

Will crabs/imp/dragon fire melt my glacier? if so I might also go with a drowning trap

[Nagidal]

So how do you actually catch them? Magma-safe cages in a channel which you flood with magma and hope that the crabs will get caught?

[Bwint]

So how do you actually catch them? Magma-safe cages in a channel which you flood with magma and hope that the crabs will get caught?

That's an option, although the mechanisms used in the cage trap would also need to be magma-safe. I have had magma crabs path out of my volcano and into my fort, so you could also have an unflooded path lined with cage traps, but it sounds like the crabs prefer to stay in the magma pools. Your yield might be lower with that method.

[Bakaridjan]

So how do you actually catch them? Magma-safe cages in a channel which you flood with magma and hope that the crabs will get caught?

I mostly caught mine by accident. I was draining a volcano and once the crabs went into the drain the flow kept them from escaping. I didn't have mine set up with cages initially, but if you're doing it to trap them it would go something like.

- Get crabs caught in your drain.
- Close drain and let the magma drain off and dry.
- Open side gate (not installed below) to your trap hallway and be careful to keep your dwarves from rushing in to reset traps until all the crabs are caught.

Here's a pic of the drain. Presumably something similar could work even in the magma sea.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

I went for years, through dozens of forts, all breaching the magma sea, without a single magma creature leaving the sea, until my last fort, (sadly lost to windows breaking while using fastboot), where magma crabs became a regular occurrence.

[Nagidal]

So how do you actually catch them? Magma-safe cages in a channel which you flood with magma and hope that the crabs will get caught?

- Get crabs caught in your drain.
- Close drain and let the magma drain off and dry.
- Open side gate (not installed below) to your trap hallway and be careful to keep your dwarves from rushing in to reset traps until all the crabs are caught.

Thanks, a drain combined with cages should work best. I only have a magma sea, but I can use the edge of the map as drain. Will try, if my fortress will live long enough.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

Do magma creatures path specifically towards anything? (bait, etc.)

[PatrikLundell]

Nope

[Bakaridjan]

Thanks, a drain combined with cages should work best. I only have a magma sea, but I can use the edge of the map as drain. Will try, if my fortress will live long enough.

I was just thinking this through a little. You'll probably want to install the drain on the lowest possible level of the magma sea, if it's going to work. Since it relies on flow to keep the crabs in, the more magma you have above, creating flow, the better. I wouldn't expect it to work to the top level of magma because it just flows too slowly. Still it could take awhile for the crabs to wander in there.

[kingu]

So how do you actually catch them? Magma-safe cages in a channel which you flood with magma and hope that the crabs will get caught?

I got mine by creating a ramp down into the magma sea hoping they eventually path up towards my fortress and for some reason it worked twise so far. In other fortresses it has been nigh impossible though. I have no Idea what it takes for them to path anywhere.