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[Loctavus]

Is there some mechanical way I can alert myself to the presence of ambushes and snatchers, without nessicarily hurting them until I'm ready to deal with them, I.E. at the beginning of my long tunnel rather than at the end of it. Or in the middle while my guys are running passed.

Cage traps alert me but then I have to stop people running into the ambush to refill the trap. Animals generally just get slaughtered in an ambush. Rock traps seem to kill things without an alert and again call boys in to refill them. I'm presuming other lethal traps do much the same?

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Well weapon traps do not call dwarves unless one of two conditions is met:

The trap gets jammed. Then a dwarf who has the cleaning job activated will go there to clean the trap.

The dead invader has items that are not forbidden. If you forbid all other drops in the orders->Forbid menu, that shouldn't happen.

As for your cage trap dilemma, how about forbidding the cage traps for most of the time and only lifting it when they are full and you are fairly sure that there is no more danger around (for example, by having two weapon trap layers after the cage trap layer(s) ). At least theoretically, your dwarves should not mess around with a forbidden trap.

Deathworks

[Loctavus]

Thanks, that's cool. I have the auto-forbid set, but what I'm wondering is if you'll get 'Curse them it's an ambush' and the gobbos will become visible or if it'll just dice them up and presumably let any survivors go by unnoticed once it jams.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

You will not get an ambush or snatcher announcement if they are dealt with by weapon traps. I had several cases of goblin thieves I only noticed because suddenly my dwarves were hauling clothes to my stockpiles.

With ambushes, you need to be somewhat careful. It seems that weapon traps do make ambush parties hesitate sometimes. I occasionally have dwarves killed as they go to clean a weapon trap jammed by the first goblin ambusher - and then get ambushed by the remaining goblins standing on the other side of my defenses! So it seems that getting hit by a trap might delay invisible ambush groups (my dwarf had to walk a bit to reach that trap, after all). However, in general weapon traps are reliable when dealing with ambushes - at least the visible ones will walk through them nicely, and if they don't jam up, they seem to be able to take care of invisible ambushes as well.

Deathworks

[Ivefan]

I belive a collapse reveals them, or atleast the game gets paused and zooms on the collapse.
might be too much work though

[LegacyCWAL]

You can also chain up some animals.  They'll get killed, but a warning is a warning.

[Skorpion]

I've found a cage trap reliably gives me an alert for goblin thieves.

Stonefall traps do not, however. I only discovered that by accident; I found a baby snatcher dead under a chunk of limestone.

[Jay]

Since cage traps don't kill their targets, they do provide an announcement.
Since all other automated traps generally do, they will not.

I always chain animals up in my entrance.
Sure, there's the possibility of them getting killed, but that's why I keep one male from each litter of non-cat animals (that's not required due to the whole spore reproduction system) - I chain him up and use him for defense!

Kittens get slaughtered on birth though.  Don't need that catsplosion.

[Jim Groovester]

Apparently animals in cages can spot ambushers, though I haven't done this myself. Put some cats or camels or whatever in some cages where you need to spot goblins.

[Martin]

Kittens. They don't get adopted when chained up.

So what if they get slaughtered, isn't that what you do with kittens anyway?

[kefkakrazy]

I always liked my Armok's Mallets. Constructed floors of various sizes (generally 3x3 or 5x5) held up by a single support linked to a pressure plate which is itself under the Mallet. The shockwave of cavein dust slows down the ambushers, the cavein is probably lethal in itself, and you're alerted.

[Zulaf]

Armok's Mallet.... i love it!
I'm goina use that in my next fort, thanks.

[kefkakrazy]

Just one thing. Make damn sure that the Mallet is built over solid rock-if the z-level below the mallet is tunneled out, the cave-in KEEPS GOING.

I got the name from the stupid dwarf tricks page of the wiki, I think-it suggests building a huge block of rare metals and such to drop on invaders.

[Yanlin]

Armok's mallet is no match for Armok's bathroom break.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Magama. Duh.

[knightedskull]

I remember someone saying something about some magma nuke thing (sorry I cant remember your name or where I read it), but he would fill some carrier with magma and have it drop via pressure plate I assume.
Make ya want to try one out lol.