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[MrWiggles]

So...

How do you get a kennel to work?

I thought I could use an activity zone for animals to keep them close by, but each time an animal gets moved there it says the area is inappriote. The first was with donkeys (They started breeding like crazy, and I heard a great recipe for Donkey BBQ), and now with dogs.

How do pits for animals work is my main question then.

The other question is, is it possible to make an elevator? I was thinking of having my siege weapons, either lower down or raise up when in use. So they can stay in a practice area, or just stay out of the way.

I was also thinking of making it so if the front gates get overrun, the siege crew and siege weapon could go into a lower level via a lift, so that my high level crafted siege doesn't get razed.

I figure I can do the later via a trap door maybe offset by a pressure plate if the attacker come to close. But I'm unsure of how fall damage works. (Made my spike pit in my front hall 6 z levels deep.)

[Raz]

1) Kennels can at the moment only be used to tame tameable animals, or to train hunting or war dogs. For training dogs, a non-pet (somebody please confirm this) dog needs to be walking around freely, so not within a cage. If they are assigned to a cage or chain, you will get a message that there are no trainable dogs around.

2) Your donkeys are most likely already tamed, so the kennel has no use. Just go to [z]>[animals] and designate them for [.s]laughter.

3) I'm pretty positive that it's not possible at the moment. All constructed buildings have the tendency to fall apart when dropping z-levels anyways, so a workaround would probably just destroy your siege engine. Nice idea though.

4) Your siege weaponry won't get destroyed as far as I know. Even if building destroyers like trolls could destroy such buildings, my experience tells me they would not target a building unless it forms an obstacle (confirm?).

5) You wouldn't be able to build a siege engine on other than either natural floor or a constructed floor. Even if you managed to build it on trap doors, it'd be destroyed, unfortunately.

I wouldn't worry about your siege engine getting destroyed though, because if it would be 'destroyed', it would just fall apart into the 3 catapult/ballista parts.

Edit: Your best bet would be having a pressure plate trigger blocking the short entrance past the siege engine, and opening up a longer path, which would still be in line of fire for siege engines but not accessible to attackers due to channels and other fancy blockades.

[sweitx]

The other question is, is it possible to make an elevator? I was thinking of having my siege weapons, either lower down or raise up when in use. So they can stay in a practice area, or just stay out of the way.

I was also thinking of making it so if the front gates get overrun, the siege crew and siege weapon could go into a lower level via a lift, so that my high level crafted siege doesn't get razed.

You can design about 2~3 spaces in front of the ballista a draw bridge as so.

Code: [Select]

==>__BBF
##### ##
==> is ballista
# is solid ground (a wall)
__ empty floorspace
B is a bridge raises to the right.

Make sure the only access point to the ballista is from inside the fortress.  Or a sky bridge near the entrance (so you can have another set of bridge in case enemy somehow get inside the ballista firing alcove.  When you're practicing, raise the bridge and the bolt will fall into the channel below for recovery.  When the enemy arrives, lower the bridge to fire at them.  And when the enemy gets near, raise the bridge again to block their ranged weapons from hitting you.

[MrWiggles]

Edit: Your best bet would be having a pressure plate trigger blocking the short entrance past the siege engine, and opening up a longer path, which would still be in line of fire for siege engines but not accessible to attackers due to channels and other fancy blockades.

Something akin to Tower Defense?

[zchris13]

The wiki has some great articles on ballista defense.  Namely, use fortifications, the bridge trick, and some other goodies.

[Raz]

Edit: Your best bet would be having a pressure plate trigger blocking the short entrance past the siege engine, and opening up a longer path, which would still be in line of fire for siege engines but not accessible to attackers due to channels and other fancy blockades.

Something akin to Tower Defense?

Exactly. I know a guy who made a series of very long walkways with very deep chasms on the side, and ballistas firing straight down the walkways.

Just make sure that the path actually enters your fortress, and that it is the only path available.

[MrWiggles]

But yea. Thanks for the reply, what does Large Animal: Inappropriate building.

What is an appropriate building?

[Raz]

Do you happen to have the stone in the building forbidden? [t] > go over building and see if the stone in it has {} surrounding them.

[AncientEnemy]

animal pit zones are used for -dropping- animals into an area of open space to the level below. (designate the pit over a tile of open space, and dwarves will push the animal in, where they'll fall down to the next z level) using a pit zone on a regular floor won't do anything. this is problematic because as soon as you open a door to the room under the pit, all the animals will make a mad dash for freedom (to your meeting hall), unless you use several doors as a kind of 'airlock'.

right now there's not many uses for a pit. the general method for keeping animals where you want them is to either put them in a cage or attach them to a restraint (chain or rope that you build with b - v). animals on chains will breed (regardless of ability to reach other animals), caged animals wont.

[MrWiggles]

animal pit zones are used for -dropping- animals into an area of open space to the level below. using a pit zone on a regular floor won't do anything. right now there's not alot of uses for a pit. the general method for keeping animals where you want them is to either put them in a cage or attach them to a restraint (chain or rope that you build with b - v). animals on chains will breed (regardless of ability to reach other animals), caged animals wont.

I read that in the wiki, and when I did try to drop them in I got the same message. But alright, I'll be making ropes now for my animals.

Thanks everyone.

[AncientEnemy]

editted the post above, hopefully it's clearer. basically the pit zone needs to be -only- over the open space tile and not any surrounding floors to work.