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[PatrikLundell]

I chained a captured necro in a tunnel, hooked a cage with a captured ogre at the end of the tunnel to a lever, and installed an array of serrated glass disc weapon tracks inside of the cage. A bunch of cage traps were then placed inside of that to capture what wasn't minced. I pulled the lever, the ogre was killed (with a couple of parts lopped off) and the blasted necro was just "overcome with terror", but did nothing necro-y. I then sent my dorfs in to collect the remains, and still nothing. Was the bugger too scared or not sufficiently scared? I.e. what should I do to further my investigations into sapient bone crafting (I've already confirmed the undead former dwarves the necro was associated with are fully usable for bone crafting, provided they're butchered "naturally")?

[Urist McVoyager]

Drop your fortress's dead in that tunnel, then chain up something hostile. Your problem is that necros don't raise the dead outside of combat situations. If you only had the one ogre and no other bodies to raise until the ogre was dead, there's no chance to trigger him.

ETA: I know about this because there was a thread involving it when people started being able to read and found necromancy texts.

Further ETA: Not sure what to tell you if your own dwarves didn't trigger him. Might try goblins next time?

[FantasticDorf]

In theory, unless the necromancer is hellbent to jump through the fortifications to attack, or there is a flaw as to how close that is needed to be required (or another fault) to reanimate a creature this design should work.

Apply a reverse giant cave spider silk web collection room by pitting the necro after stripping them of their possessions (to remove any weapons) into this fortified bolthole, drop non-flying bodies in front of them onto a raised equal height (the ditch is there to put another barrier to creatures climbing up the walls to the fortifications) floor to reanimate when they aggro at the soldiers behind fortifications at the opposite side of the room.

On top of a smoothed out wall infront and one z level below of the fortifications (the ditch is actually 2 wide, if you knock out that wall, smooth natural stone works best because it is poor for climbing) at either side of the room, place a retracting bridge and hook it up to a lever to queue up a lever pull-job to break the line of sight, because it is raised and obstructing the fortifications, it shouldn't atom smash anybody and if done quickly, allows the corpse to rise, get caught in a surrounding cage trap, allow technicians to reset the traps and be ready to use again when a new corpse is ready and squad in position without aggroing the necro further or causing anybody to freak out.

WWB>+++<BF
NFB>+C+<BF
WWB>+++<BF

Walls (W), floor (+), fortification (F), upward slopes (</>), corpses (C), bridge (B)

I would recommend putting doors or a small retracting bridge somewhere so that technicians can get inside safely, keep in mind that animals carry traits in animation so don't pit anything that isn't melee or can't be caught

[Fleeting Frames]

Necros can reanimate dead through windows, so if you're worried about jumping or atomsmashing using one before the necro would work.

[PatrikLundell]

Hm, I'm not too successful. Attempt one was to chain a gobbo in the same corridor as the necro, but that scared off the dorfs even though they're not scared of the necro (this also seems to mean once chained you can't unchain the gobbo: I save scummed...).

I then tried to apply FantasticDorf's logic, but while the gobbo chained behind fortifications and a lowered drawbridge scares off dorfs and seems to scare the necro as well, the necro isn't raising the ogre. Can it be that the necro cannot be chained, but has to be "free"? Next attempt will be to move the necro to a fortification room.

[FantasticDorf]

Yes it has to be free. I should have been clearer in my instruction and perhaps design, the foritifications are there to hold the necromancer still in the 1x1 elevated pit. Chained creatures cannot engage in combat with their holders (they can fight other entities close enough on chains though if memory is correct) so they wont aggro. Aggrovation is nessecary for necromancy

You can deposit the necromancer in that room using a pit hatch above the fortifications (on the left hand side of the diagram), if you want to reclaim him later, build a retracting floor onto a little room below with a cage trap directly underneath so he'll fall into it. The dwarves that are meant to be patrolling (on the bigger right hand side) are melee militia patrolling the room, obviously they have to be reasonably close to the fortifications because unlike a GCS silk farm its at the edge of aggro range and in a line of sight of the zombies, there needs to be no conventional pathway to the target and the access to the zombie room needs to be forbidden until they are all caught in pre-prepared cage traps (could use a bridge) to stop militia men running in and forcing combat/zombie overflow.

You could also use a statue in front of the necromancer to block them with certainty the necromancer can't squeeze through the fortification, keeping in mind that it might be a building destroyer target, creating a risk that the necromancer could get loose if its not looked after properly.

What i mean by giant cave spider farm is that a wild non chained cave giant spider becomes aggrovated at soldiers behind a bridge and afortification at the opposite side of a room where it's being kept, it'll shoot out its web at them . Infuriated but unable to move, it shoots its webs out at the soldiers, and the bridge is raised and lowered to give both the soldiers and the spider some rest while silk collectors work through what was spun. (giant cave spider silk is very valuable, and GCS spit out lots of it, though it can be obnoxious to have the spider spitting and the soldiers spamming *unable to reach target all the time, so lowering the bridge is recommended)

Here is the wiki provided diagram of the basic original setup of a spider farm

╔    ═    ═    ═    ═    ═    ═    ═    ═    ═    ╗
║    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    ║
║    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    ╠    ═    ╗
║    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    ┼    +    ║
┼    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    ╥    ║    ^    ║
║    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    ║    ╬    ┼    ╣
║    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    ║    ╬    S    ║
║    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    ║    ╬    ═    ╝
┼    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    ╨    ║
║    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    ║
║    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    ║
║    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    +    ║
╚    ═    ═    ═    ═    ═    ═    ═    ═    ═    ╝ 

If you are familiar with ascii graphics, then you can probably distinguish that the spider is kept in a forbidden - pet 1 door access room with a cage trap on the opposite side. Though im uncertain whether necromancers can lock pick, that design could work too if you dont like the idea of pitting the necromancer into a room directly from above. The bridge covers directly infront and the sides of the 1x1 room.

You can release creatures via placing a cage attached to a lever, which will cause the creatures inside to pop out, which is also handy if you need to reset.

There are more precised details of a giant cave spider silk farm on the wiki  DFWIKI - Silk farm

[PatrikLundell]

Thanks FantasticDorf.

I know how to make a silk farm (my standard usage is to have an undead as bait, both because it works both with tame and untamed, and because a tamed GCS won't block creature waves in the cavern it came from). My problem is mainly with the necro raising logic, as I think I've seen usage of a chain as an example.
It'll take a while to set things up, because I'm trying to clear out the stone before hosting the necro (and I think I'll move the gobbo as well). It doesn't exactly speed up things to have a dead civ, and thus a limited number of dorfs.

Edit:
Nope. It still doesn't work. Since I didn't design it that way from the start, the layout is a bit odd:

wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Bbbbbbbbbb.C.....cccccccsssjw
wwwwwwwwwwFFFwwwwwwwwwwwFFFFw
wwwwwwwwwwbbbwwwww...BbFWWWWw
wwwwwwwwwwBBBwwwww.C.BbF....w
........d...wwwwww.C.BbF....w
wwwwwww.w...wwwwww...BbF....w
wwwwwww.wwwwwwwwwwdwwwwww...w
wwwwwww................cd...w
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
where:
w = wall
B = raising bridge hinge
b = raising bridge non hinge
. = open floor
C = chain
c = cage trap
s = Serrated disc weapon trap
j = built cage with test subject
F = fortification
W = glass window
d = (locked) door

The topmost chain contains my first, non functional, necro. I couldn't find it in the list to put it back in a cage. The other two chains contain goblins, with the leftmost one intended to scare the first necro and the rightmost one should scare the "free" necro in the room to the right (it was released from a lever connected cage).
The topmost bridge is an emergency atom smasher, while the other two are shutters for necro scaring on/off.

Basically, the test subject is released from a cage, immediately killed by a weapon trap in front of the necro(s) (and they both see it, as both are horrified). However, neither of them revives the test subject in reaction to the gobbo threat, regardless of whether the threat is presented before or after the killing of the test subject. They won't raise the corpses in the presence of dorfs either (although the dorfs get scared off by the gobbos when the shutters are lowered).

I WANTED the test subject to be raised only to be butchered further by the next trap(s) to see if that would yield craftable bone from dismemberment of the reraised subject (as well as rekilled raised arms).

[Sanctume]

This is how I setup my last necro arena.


######FFFFF#
###gFB.....B
cdNgFB..+..B
###gFB.....B
######FFFFF#


# = wall, F = Fortification, B = raising bridge, g=gem window, N = necro caged linked lever released, d = door,
. = arena / pit floor, + weapon trap with serrated discs.

1 = to a necro recapture cage, or path to a room. I had a library room to with a door+cage trap recapture.  Prisoner / Hostile necro do not write books

My pit is 5z down to arena and weapon trap.  5z is enough for Urist pitting "not see" what's on the bottom and become scared and let the prisoner escape during mass pitting.

Tip re: Raising Bridges that is 1 wide.  build a table on the bridge tile. 
If is says it is "blocked", it means that bridge is raised.
If is says a building is already there, it means that bridge is down and passable.

[PatrikLundell]

Thanks Sanctume,

I assume the necro won't raise anything if a single subject is pitted (unless the trap manages to take of a bit that can be reanimated while the subject is still alive), but will if there are two (or more) of them?
I still fail to understand where my setup fails, though. Maybe it's because my gobbos are chained?
(And I see I managed to screw up the "picture": one of the gobbos is chained in the leftmost room, with the other one in the rightmost one).

[FantasticDorf]

Probably so. If they are chained then they can't react aggressively in response either, if the room is secure then it shouldn't be a problem, gobbos are functionally immortal anyway.

[PatrikLundell]

Nope. Still doesn't work. Oddly enough, a "free" necro has sometimes scared off haulers of remains from failed tests, and sometimes not (when they were scared, I let the necro out into a cage trap, then "rereleased" it in the room).
In my last attempt there definitely was a free arm to reanimate, if the test subject's body being inside the serrated disc trap would block reanimation. On the other hand, the haulers were scared by the gobbos, but not by the necro (when the blinds were closed so the gobbos were not visible).

I guess it's back to the drawing board, rather than messing with my current mess. I think I'll try a variant of Sanctume's arena:


########B########
########C########
########B########
###vBF.....######
cdNvBF..+..FBvGdc
###vBF.....######
########B########
########c########
# = wall
B = raising bridge
C = test subject cage
v = glass window
F = fortification
. = open floor
c = capture cage trap
d = door
N = necro
+ = serrated disc trap
G = aggro gobbo

There'd be more than one capture cage to the south.

[FantasticDorf]

You are meant to raise the bridges to obscure the line of sight before letting haulers into the room for that reason of them being scared. Also the 'test subject' is outside the 'line of sight' of the necromancer, since they do not have extravision by default unlike zombies (in most cases).

In all the other designs we have suggested, the corpses are usually dropped from above onto the raised surface a few tiles directly infront rather than in a room to the side. I seriously recommend ditching the weapon trap, it just makes more trouble when a cage trap could suffice and the captured corpse can be thrown into a specialist trap hall setup to disembowel them with no risk of necro's raising the body parts too.

[PatrikLundell]

The test subject is still alive, as opposed to the designs where you dump body parts. Thus, the test subject is intended to be let out of the cage, amble around, get killed by the weapon trap, and then, hopefully, be raised by the necro. That's also the reason I have an aggro gobbo; to give the necro a reason to raise the test subject parts when (hopefully) dismembered. The test subject (parts) is then intended to be let out to the south into the cage trap corridor for further processing.

I'm aware gobbos scare haulers, but since things didn't work as intended, I experimented with getting them to try to haul both with both blinds down, the necro one only down, and both up, but that didn't help getting the necro to raise the parts.

If this doesn't work (I'm still building), the next attempt will be to raid the corpse stockpile for parts. I can't drop things from above because of an aquifer, although nothing would prevent me from building a new device further down.

Edit: No. It's still not working. Instead of hauling new part to the arena, I let the remains of the previous troll stay there as I sent another one in. That didn't help, though (apart from the troll body, there was at least one hand). A fair bit of miasma, though, as it's started rotting.

Mostly unrelated is that a gobbo chained as a result of my previous failed attempts is "haggard" and seemed to be bonkers for a while (rushing around with a blue exclamation mark [Phoebus tile set]). It's still haggard, but has calmed down. I didn't think that could happen to prisoners.

[Sanctume]

Setup portable drains and breach the aquifer, it's fairly fast from below with a drain. 

I would also breach all the way to the surface, making the arena floor outside/light to at least prevent miasma.

5z pit onto serrated disc pretty much guarantees body part.

It's interesting a goblin becomes haggard, maybe from fear or just unable to escape the room while line of sight of hostiles. 

I think Staalo's day care, had a necro viewing room, and a military in a separate viewing room makes the kids fight the zombies, which then makes the necro raise the body part.  And instead of the arena floor, it is a retracting bridge that leads to cage traps for faster recaptures.

edit: So perhaps something like this:

########B########
########C########
########B########
###vBF11111######
cdNvBF22+33FBvDdc
###vBF44444######
########B########
########c########
# = wall
B = raising bridge
C = test subject cage
v = glass window
F = fortification
. = open floor
c = capture cage trap
d = door
N = necro
+ = serrated disc trap x10, 5z pit drop off.
D = 1 military on defend burrow
1,2,3,4 = retracting bridges down to cage trap room.


Note that D will start accumulating revenge thoughts.

[PatrikLundell]

Hm, so you suggest replacing the aggro gobbo with a militia dorf? I'm rather short dorfed (18), but a quick experiment should be possible, and it's worth a try. It will take some time, though, as I've had gobbo and undead sieges the last two seasons, and thus have a processing backlog. I might also try a ready made undead in the arena to aggro the test subject (the undead siege provided a fresh batch of those).