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[FantasticDorf]

I know it, Toady knows it, monster hunters kind of aimlessly wander when they actually do things and get splatted as a unfortunate fact of life for their profession. At the end of the day they're self-employed wildlife exterminators/bed hoggers who crave just the tiniest smidgeon of glory facing down whatever creature passes their path but they still arrive in their droves with whatever petty tools they can muster together.

Though the equally convoluted and bug riddled patrol system is infact a super-opaque part of the game, it exists nontheless and could be used a lot more effectively to shepard monster hunters towards routes to travel by tagging their occupations on, or just have them running circuits until they become effectively tired and take a break temporarily to recover back to their usual seditary bragging about kills that may or may not have happened to raise their fame (*ill get back to this point in a bit) and cohorting.

• If you want to send help to your monster hunter along the circuit, you could assign groups of them to the same one or a number of your militia dwarves doing thier own exercises as a cohort

To give some more pupose; having a monster hunter earn their fame much a similar way to adventurers by telling everyone about it and gradually earn application either through skill in battle or skillful lies for petitionship would incentivise taking more of them on and guiding them through artificial dungeons in order to test their mettle against creatures with difficulty ratings when the local surroundings become a little bit more safe, to keep the pits busy and fresh-blood flowing.

• Not all wildlife is qualifiable, people aren't impressed with crundle kills -with quest worthy monsters being good targets and FB's and other varieties of monsters being instant stardom for potentially the sheer amount of monster hunters you have to drive as a group towards them like a hit-squad.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Never had patrol dwarves collapse and have to be saved, so not sure if that bug is still a thing. I only have them patrol a month at a time so maybe their rations are enough to last that long. Thought I'd seen them grabbing more rations during patrol months though.

--
Oh, I see, you deliberately didn't give them anything to eat or drink. Well, yeah. Opaque maybe, requires a warning or something so you can fix your mistake, but not a bug. Rations exist for a reason.

[FantasticDorf]

I meant opaque as in any reasonable guess that even i had initially assumed it was hauling routes, but instead was a subsystem of identically named routes accessed by 'N' notes which has very little documentation on how to use it, also we have the other thread for discussing that directly, i was just making a point it was kind of rubbish in this thread but would be improved by tagging monster hunters along it since they can't be in squads..

What would you think about the OP topic?

[Uthimienure]

I like your idea for monster hunter patrols, with one caveat:  the overseer shouldn't have 100% control over what they do, maybe the MH's should obey your patrol routes 25-50% of the time.  They're not sheep like our citizens, they're wild souls seeking danger, fame, and glorious death.  Those kinds of people often don't follow the rules ;-)

[Starver]

Maybe an extended 'curiosity' sightline[1] that has a chance (similar to military rushing to attack someone they can see close to their Stationed point/last moved position) of overriding 'mere' pathing with a possible opportunity. It shouldn't necessarily stack (having looked behind a pillar, they don't just keep looking behind or beyond any new obstacles) but gives them a 'hairy path' with unforseen (even to Overseer) opprtunities for 'excitement' apropos to their personal mission in life.

There should effectively be some (if not quite so much) Random Walk, even if they are now handily given a small map on arrival and told "Yeah, we got loads of monsters you'd enjoy hunting... See this short corridor here between the food stockpile and the dining room? Loads there. I tell you. I'd stick there if I were you. Wily things, but someone as clever as you will spot them. The utterly stupid haulers pass them by without even noticing, but I'm sure you're not as dumb as my haulers. You're a very smart person, I can tell, much smarter than all the others we had come here. Have fun! See you in six months!"



[1] Or even "my sightline ends <here>,  maybe I'll deviate to just beyond it", to see what lies in the shadows.

[FantasticDorf]

There should effectively be some (if not quite so much) Random Walk, even if they are now handily given a small map on arrival and told "Yeah, we got loads of monsters you'd enjoy hunting... See this short corridor here between the food stockpile and the dining room? Loads there. I tell you. I'd stick there if I were you. Wily things, but someone as clever as you will spot them. The utterly stupid haulers pass them by without even noticing, but I'm sure you're not as dumb as my haulers. You're a very smart person, I can tell, much smarter than all the others we had come here. Have fun! See you in six months!"

No time to brag and accrue fame from not having anything to brag about without creative lying equals no traction of building proof towards wanting to live inside the fortress, which if they're simply too good can be postponed indefinitely by the player on the other hand.

Impromptu guards, totally a feature because the fortress is scamming them and probably the monster hunter is accruing thoughts all the while about not being in engaged with enough 'work'. And they're disposable for dealing with hostile outside surface wildlife as long as it brings the thrill of battle & fame, they practically guard your tavern religiously at the moment when not dying in droves.

Thinking of it another way, you can gather a large amount of monster hunters to a given place, make them arbitarily patrol around a large pit while dwarves finish securing and setting it up then release all sorts of monsters at your leisure with a win-win either-any such way and a cool show to boot in your personal arena as they fight it out and scoop up the aftermath later.

I like your idea for monster hunter patrols, with one caveat:  the overseer shouldn't have 100% control over what they do, maybe the MH's should obey your patrol routes 25-50% of the time.  They're not sheep like our citizens, they're wild souls seeking danger, fame, and glorious death.  Those kinds of people often don't follow the rules ;-)

Of course, again its just their work-route and they'd still come home to their tavern rooms to sleep, and fort dining halls to eat with a set amount of time off like in my reply above mandated. If military controls would stretch to them it'd be helpful to given rationing equipment to keep them healthy also.