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[Miek]

Hi! I've had a few suprising events in my last fort and I couldn't find answers to all of them here and in the wiki, hence this post (and my registration on the forum). Here goes:

1. Can a forgotten beast spawn anywhere above the first cavern? I have a mining level (with `digexp diag5` in *dfhack*) which covers the whole level, and is located 1Z above the cavern. I'm positive that there was no open connection to the cavern; there used to be one (and up/down stair breaching into it) but I've since destroyed it and placed a floor on this spot. Yet it seems like a FB spawned in the mining level and got killed by the nearby dwarves. It also didn't generate any pausing announcement; I noticed the corpse and blood after receiving a bunch of "horrified" messages;

2. Can moss prevent passage on a ramp dug in soil? I have a drowning corridor which lead to a trash compacter (and then to my bait, i.e. dwarves), and nothing (i.e.: neither dwarves and invaders) went inside. I had to check with dfhack's pathable utility to find that the obstacle was a fine looking ramp, only dirty I guess (mossy). I built stairs next to it and all's good now;

3. If 2 is a YES, can the same thing happen on stairs dug in soil?

4. Is there a delay after a mayor ends an export ban for which you have to continue respecting it? My mayor had a ban on figurine exports, and the ban was dropped while the traders were present, but before I moved the banned goods to the trade depot. A dwarf still ended up in jail because he had violated a trade ban. I'm sure there was no other active trade ban. Was my mayor just being a douche?

5. How can I see what made a now deceased dwarf suddenly lose it in my fort? My legendary hammer lord was happy, with a very stable personality (can handle stress, not afraid of fights, love people, etc.), but after a tiny fight with some elves she completely lost it and started killing everyone in my fort (actually around 7~8 dwarves, but these things escalade). I went into legends (thanks dfhack) but it lacks details. I guess she could've been carrying a child in the fight with the elves, or maybe she lost someone important, but I can't see any details in the Dead/Missing menu.

That's it for now!

BTW this game is completely insane and fantastic! The other day I was explaining to my wife that I had built a big underground "swimming pool" to git rid of unhappy dwarves (40 or so), because I couldn't expell children. It actually worked really well! Everyone left was much more happy afterwards!

[Fleeting Frames]

1. Not in my experience, but in old versions of game there had been reports+demonstrations of pathing diagonally upwards through wall-floor |floor-wall connection.

2. Cave moss is just grass and can't block passage. Newbies often screw up their ramps though, being that they require four correct tiles: downramp, floor | upramp, wall. It's possible to dig ramps in a way that you can get down but not back up.

In both cases, screenshots would help catching errors.

4. Might be that your mayor made an export ban after you were done trading but before caravan left the map.

5. If you view the relationships of anybody who knew them, you can see their thoughts through that screen.

[anewaname]

Is the violation of the export ban decided when the items are traded, or when the items leave the map?

[Jundavr]

In the case of export ban, as soon as the caravan leaves (not sure if as soon as the unit containing the item) a punishment is issued to the dwarf who hauled the item to the depot. Since the game stores the data of who hauled what to the depot, it wouldn't be surprising if the game also determined at the time of the hauling wether the dwarf will commit a crime if the item leaves the map. I think this calls for some testing.

Figuring out these things might help understand how punishments regarding export bans works:
what happens when the caravan leaves, but an export ban occured/expired while banned item
1- was being hauled to the depot, then traded
2- was already at the depot, then traded
3- was already being taken away by the caravan

Testing for bans that occurs mid trade is a pain because you can't predict when Urist McMayor will want all the figurines for himself, but testing for bans expiring is easy, due to the inability of dead dwarves to sustain mandates.

[Miek]

Indeed it would be hard to reproduce, but I got "lucky"; the mayor cancelled the ban just before the trade, and did in fact ban the same item after the trade, but before the caravan left. Hard to mitigate...

Re Fleeting Flames' replies:

1. Thanks, I'm playing on 0.44.12, but I guess that could be it. Still surprised that it didn't bring up a big announcement but maybe I simply closed it by mistake.

2. I'll try to drain the tunnel of its water and perfectly fine titan and post screenshots.

4. Thanks.

5. I gave up after about 30 dwarves who didn't know her, but thanks a lot for the trick!

Edit: typo x3

[PatrikLundell]

1. The diagonal upwards/downwards passage bug was reported fixed sometime in the latest arc. Since you had discovered the cavern, I suspect you received an FB appearance message earlier, quite possibly while you were trying to pause the game manually (and then actually resumed it). I'd scour the tunnels near the cavern for holes despite being certain there aren't any: How can you be sure you're at the level above the cavern? In particular, of your embark covers embark tiles with different elevation, the cavern may reach higher under the higher elevation tile than the other.

4. Export bans are a pain. I replace mayors after each election with one that doesn't have any annoying preferences for mandates or export bans (and I also make sure not to enable the injustice system, although that probably will have to change when the next version is released).

5. I suspect it wasn't the dorf that lost it, but rather a minor loyalty cascade resulting from a "non lethal" lethal brawl (in particular if it happened in a booze serving tavern, but can probably happen anywhere).

[Jundavr]

If the item was indeed banned at the moment the caravan left, then that's probably it and there weren't any bugs involved. Unless you want to consider the fact that mandate spewers can ban stuff while caravan is leaving a bug, but I'd call that a feature. Having things go unfairly wrong is !FUN!

[Miek]

1. The diagonal upwards/downwards passage bug was reported fixed sometime in the latest arc. Since you had discovered the cavern, I suspect you received an FB appearance message earlier, quite possibly while you were trying to pause the game manually (and then actually resumed it). I'd scour the tunnels near the cavern for holes despite being certain there aren't any: How can you be sure you're at the level above the cavern? In particular, of your embark covers embark tiles with different elevation, the cavern may reach higher under the higher elevation tile than the other.

I dug out the entire level above the cavern with dfhack's digexp diag5 command, so every tile is revealed. I guess there might be an open space tile I didn't notice somewhere in there... That's troubling. I'll try to designate channels everywhere to find open spaces, unless there's a better trick?

5. I suspect it wasn't the dorf that lost it, but rather a minor loyalty cascade resulting from a "non lethal" lethal brawl (in particular if it happened in a booze serving tavern, but can probably happen anywhere).

Ah that makes sense, it started either in the tavern or the gym which was right next to it. Overall that would make taverns (or at least mine) pretty inefficient at raising morale.... I think I'll remove it, it occupied too much of my workforce anyways.

[Fleeting Frames]

Open spaces can be partially detected via farmplots or zones (needs at least some floor around though so unreliable) as well as viewing the location from 1z above (very obvious outside with tree holes making bright cyan colours, but underground open spaces are less easily distinguished floors.)

[Miek]

I checked the whole floor by designating channels and found no open space. But since the bug has already been fixed (the old bug mentioned above), i must've changed something I forgot about since then. I don't have backups to check, but wanted to confirm if FB could spawn above the cavern levels.

Thank you all for the help!