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[Lozzymandias]

Allow me to narrate my first run-in with an elemental beast:

"The Forgotten Beast Snaznob has come! An enormous ululating blob composed entirely of fire, beware its noxious secretions!"

Cue trembling and fear, half the cavern catches on fire. He charges for my fortress and then explodes when the first bolt hits him. Since then i've had identical experiences with all forgotten beasts made of salt or black silt or hail or vomit, we've all been there.

Until now, in 43.xx. Vafice the vomit humanoid took 3 bolts in three limbs and not a single one broke away. Have elemental beasts and titans been buffed?

[bloop_bleep]

Perhaps the reason the first forgotten beast died so easily in comparison with the second is that the first was just a blob, and so didn't have any extraneous body parts to hit -- all bolts that hit their mark would hit the most vulnerable body part, unlike in the second beast.

[Lozzymandias]

This is, I don't think, a sufficient explanation, if you'll pardon the forthrightness. I have had inorganic liquid/non-solid beasts in humanoid forms and none of them stood up to this much punishment. The silt one was humanoid I do believe.

[Derpy Dev]

Recently, a forgotten beast made of mud came to one of my forts. I just walled off the entrance to the fort and waited for it to die, as I thought that it would just get itself killed by attacking the local troglodytes. I was wrong. It killed about twenty troglodytes, giant olms, cave crocodiles, and all manner of other beasts. I assumed it was weak enough at this point so that my squad could take it out. Nope, it killed seven dwarves before a lucky pickaxe strike finally cut apart its upper body. In the end, almost all of its limbs were either smashed apart or gone, and yet its rampage continued.

Now, it did have a gas attack and I never found out what it did. I think it did something to the lungs, as most of the civilians it attacked managed to run away because of its missing legs but died soon afterwards. At the same time, I think the fact that it got as far as it did is a testament to the new found strength of elemental beasts.

[Bradders]

Because your FB was made of fire, he was made of a non-solid material, and therefore dies to basically the first hit.  I had a similar FB, a flame quadruped, that died when it rounded a corner and found some animal men adjacent to it before it could breathe its fire at them all.  All it takes is one hit to disperse a gas cloud, don't know about liquid beasts or whatnot.

[GhostDwemer]

Because your FB was made of fire, he was made of a non-solid material, and therefore dies to basically the first hit.  I had a similar FB, a flame quadruped, that died when it rounded a corner and found some animal men adjacent to it before it could breathe its fire at them all.  All it takes is one hit to disperse a gas cloud, don't know about liquid beasts or whatnot.

it pays to read the entire post. The OP said this was the expected behavior in previous versions, but in the latest version has had non-solid/organic FBs that were quite tough. Thus the thread title, "Elemental beasts been buffed?"

[Shonai_Dweller]

Never mind.

[duckman]

Ranged weapons aren't railguns anymore. SHOOT_MAXVEL used to be 1000 but it was dropped down to 200. Something, possibly hard coded, seems to have been changed that make giant creatures stronger and tougher relative to small creatures than they used to be as well.

[newtonsolo313]

Allow me to narrate my first run-in with an elemental beast:

"The Forgotten Beast Snaznob has come! An enormous ululating blob composed entirely of fire, beware its noxious secretions!"

Cue trembling and fear, half the cavern catches on fire. He charges for my fortress and then explodes when the first bolt hits him. Since then i've had identical experiences with all forgotten beasts made of salt or black silt or hail or vomit, we've all been there.

Until now, in 43.xx. Vafice the vomit humanoid took 3 bolts in three limbs and not a single one broke away. Have elemental beasts and titans been buffed?

I think vomit is different from sediment because I know I can use vomit in adv mode reactions but not sand blood or water

[Snafu]

Ranged weapons aren't railguns anymore. SHOOT_MAXVEL used to be 1000 but it was dropped down to 200.

D'you know if this affects z-level shooting too?

Something, possibly hard coded, seems to have been changed that make giant creatures stronger and tougher relative to small creatures than they used to be as well.

From reading the forums it appears that hide thickness (& weight/mass, & therefore armour protection) for <large>beast_size scales up disproportionately, but I may well be reading things wrong..

[duckman]

Ranged weapons aren't railguns anymore. SHOOT_MAXVEL used to be 1000 but it was dropped down to 200.

D'you know if this affects z-level shooting too?

Something, possibly hard coded, seems to have been changed that make giant creatures stronger and tougher relative to small creatures than they used to be as well.

From reading the forums it appears that hide thickness (& weight/mass, & therefore armour protection) for <large>beast_size scales up disproportionately, but I may well be reading things wrong..

I don't think it actually affects the speed of the shot, just the final calculation for force when it hits.

[Melting Sky]

The nerf to projectile weapons has been around for ages now. This appears to be newer behavior. Toady recently dove into the combat damage and armor mechanics so my guess is that this new apparent toughness for big elemental critters is most likely related to something he did there.

Some other notable impacts of this tinkering have been falls being way less dangerous, particularly for armored foes, creatures falling unconscious from bone chips happens less, torsion forces and damage are now transmitted to joints which is now one of the primary means by which heavy blunt weapons inflict serious wounds. I haven't had a chance to test it myself but there seem to be some reports of edged weapons interacting with armor a little bit differently. Depending on what Toady altered to make these changes they could be what's behind soft inorganic creatures being tougher or he may have intentionally buffed them directly since I doubt he ever intended for the hulking eldritch horrors that crawl up from beneath bones of the world to be taken out by one of the fortress's wandering kittens.

[Naryar]

I've had a steam forgotten beast resist a few hits now.

Well it was still very fragile, but it didn't died on the first scratch.

So that's a possibility.

[Merthyn]

I had a similar experience earlier today.
A quadruped made out of water with deadly dust. Queue relief when I saw it was made out of water, I figured some cave critters would take care of it and ordered the marksdwarves to their positions. Much to my surprise the FB took out a giant toad and cave croc without sustaining any damage. Eventually he got hit by two bolts before my captain of the guard clove him asunder with a single melee hit. The captain died to the effects of the dust but seeing as there were no further casualties I'm chalking it up as a win.

So yeah, in my experience these kind of beasts have become somewhat less pathetic.