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[Sky-Streamer]

Here are a few ideas for extra things to add to how Forgotten Beasts act.

Diet: 4 Categories.
Non-Dietary: The animal does not eat anything.
Omnivorous: The animal eats both Meat and Flora.
Carnivorous: The animal only eats meat.
Herbivorous: The animal only eats flora.

Violence: 3 Categories
Passive: Does not attack anything.
Selective: Only attacks certain creatures (Troglodytes, GCS, etc)
Neutral: Only attacks when threatened.
Violent: Attacks anything on sight.

New Abilities: 2 Categories
Powerful Psychic Abilities: If it encounters any loose items, they can be launched at high speeds towards any incoming targets.
Hypnotic Glare: If a dwarf stares into its eyes directly (which can happen easily without high Concentration), it is taken over by the beast. Unless the beast is killed, that dwarf is permanently under its control.

Please tell me how you think these ideas are!

[Pillbo]

Looks cool, I'm sure there are plans for the megabeasts to change but I've not seen them. It would be nice if they were more varied than just being murder machines. 

Benevolent but dangerous megabeasts would be really interesting. Greedy could be fun, like FB living in a cavern that collects all the gems available into a horde but is non-violent until someone tries to take them. Something like this elephant stealing bananas from a bus, but it's a FB in your gem stockpile, terrifying the masses.

[crundle_bone_earring]

The problem with the "diet" part is that eating in dwarf fortress is a bit complicated. We can only eat meat when the prey has been already carefully butchered in all it's components, and we can only eat plants after they were gathered. So any update that added new diet to forgotten beasts would also have to add mechanics for animal to eat (besides grazing). Outside of that, I'm always down for more forgotten beast variety.

[Iä! RIAKTOR!]

The problem with the "diet" part is that eating in dwarf fortress is a bit complicated. We can only eat meat when the prey has been already carefully butchered in all it's components, and we can only eat plants after they were gathered. So any update that added new diet to forgotten beasts would also have to add mechanics for animal to eat (besides grazing). Outside of that, I'm always down for more forgotten beast variety.

In current game, elven invaders can eat full corpses of killed dwarves. And do it very fast, just like will be suitable for great-sized beast. So, man-eating-chiken shall be good and simple to add. Herbivores can pasture. And omnivores can steal your food or booze.

[NW_Kohaku]

Outside of letting adventurers recreate Shadow of the Colossus, however, what exactly is the point of a passive or neutral Forgotten Beast?  Titans being more varied would be fine, but Forgotten Beasts in particular are basically just meant to be "boss fights" for fortresses against powerful enemies when your fortress gets large and rich enough to be presumed to be ready for a big battle.  Adventurers rarely find Forgotten Beasts, as the caverns are a nightmare to navigate and they're not as prominent in rumors as the Titans, as well.  You basically only run into FBs because they want to kill you, so having FBs that don't want to kill you might as well be an invisible teapot in far orbit around the sun.

Also, currently, FBs don't eat at all.  I mean, it would be too easy if you could just starve a FB out.  Even if they are like goblins, and don't need to eat, but do it anyway "for funsies", how would this be relevant to the game?  What stories would be created from FBs randomly eating different types of things?  Players need to have a way to interact with the eating of an FB to make it relevant.  Even if FBs like eating dwarves, unless they have to actually stop fighting to chew when they get a kill, it's not likely to change too much about the game if they eat dwarves.  Maybe if they ate metal or something, and they're invading the fortress to get to metal deposits or can eat axes right from the hands of dwarves, like a rust monster does, that would be an interesting change, and explain why it's coming after your metal-collecting fortress.

[Pillbo]

I don't care what they are called- megabeasts, forgotten beasts, titans, whatever. Giant weird monsters that have more varied behavior are more interesting than giant weird monsters that have one behavior.

They should eat because being killed and eaten by a monster makes sense and is more interesting than being killed by a monster that then just stands around until there's something else to kill. If you don't think that a FB picking through the corpses of your army and munching away has any story relevance then we just don't enjoy the game the same way.

[Iä! RIAKTOR!]

Outside of letting adventurers recreate Shadow of the Colossus, however, what exactly is the point of a passive or neutral Forgotten Beast?  Titans being more varied would be fine, but Forgotten Beasts in particular are basically just meant to be "boss fights" for fortresses against powerful enemies when your fortress gets large and rich enough to be presumed to be ready for a big battle.  Adventurers rarely find Forgotten Beasts, as the caverns are a nightmare to navigate and they're not as prominent in rumors as the Titans, as well.  You basically only run into FBs because they want to kill you, so having FBs that don't want to kill you might as well be an invisible teapot in far orbit around the sun.

Also, currently, FBs don't eat at all.  I mean, it would be too easy if you could just starve a FB out.  Even if they are like goblins, and don't need to eat, but do it anyway "for funsies", how would this be relevant to the game?  What stories would be created from FBs randomly eating different types of things?  Players need to have a way to interact with the eating of an FB to make it relevant.  Even if FBs like eating dwarves, unless they have to actually stop fighting to chew when they get a kill, it's not likely to change too much about the game if they eat dwarves.  Maybe if they ate metal or something, and they're invading the fortress to get to metal deposits or can eat axes right from the hands of dwarves, like a rust monster does, that would be an interesting change, and explain why it's coming after your metal-collecting fortress.

Passive beasts may go into your fortress and steal your food or destroy your buildings.

[Bumber]

They should eat because being killed and eaten by a monster makes sense and is more interesting than being killed by a monster that then just stands around until there's something else to kill.

Pretty sure megabeasts already do in world gen. There are entries about rocs eating livestock, etc.