Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Pyrophoricity]

Well...Having finally started to make some headway I reach the realisation that, in fact Sandy Loam does not count as sand, so much for Green glass..

[Labs]

Wow, nice bunch of fish you got there. One thing confuses me, how can skates and sharks be skeletal when they have no bones to speak of?

[Toady Two]

I embarked on a nice site where a major river flows into the saltwater ocean. I already have some Bluefish swimming around. I wonder if I'll get Carp and other river fish aswell. That would be awesome. Now... how will I catch those Bluefish...

[Byakugan01]

First, watch them and see where the fish enter the map from. I've noticed that animals *always* have several distinct points from which they will enter the map.  If you have magma, then i would plop down some obsidian in the water a bit in front of it, about 5 tiles wide (I have skeletal fish, so this isn't a worry, but keeping them from wandering in and getting killed by my war dire wolves is-make sure you actually have a sealed fort if you're angling for undead I lost a hammerhead that way) Mine-don't channel-the center set of tiles on each z-level. Put stairways to the sides. then, dig out the sides and hookup floodgates. You'll have to find a way to do it and keep the building side dry while placing floodgates, but what this effectively gives you is a cage trap driftnet that's anchored in placed. If you don't have magma, well, your masons and pump operators just got a new paycheck. (since you'd need to keep the floodgate are dry while you work, the later might be getting paychecks anyway),

Oh, and the area they enter from is never very large-no more than 10 squares for each point of entry, I'd say.

Labs: Actually, cartilaginous fins such as rays, sharks and the real-life chimera do have a skeleton-as their name implies, however, this skeleton is made out of cartilage. Which is why complete shark fossils can be hard to find-the skeleton often rots away, leaving jaws and/or teeth (which, as a matter of fact are VERY abundant as fossils). That being said, we do know of many sharks from the fossil record-the basking shark, for instance, is known to have been around for about 34 million years. Incidentally, in case you were wondering what one of these beasties would look like in the badly decomposed zombie state, basking sharks in particular have been confused as the possible remains of living plesiosaurs; see the Zuriyo Maru case for one of the more spectacular examples. (Incidentally, if someone gets one of these in a zombie state, I think they should be awarded extra points if most of its internal organs are missing or badly decomposed-I'm not eligible, but kudos to whoever catches one!). A Skeletal basking shark would probably look *very* different if we assume an intact skeleton, however. Incidentally, it turns out my cage traps caught one of the skeletal ones-which is rather like catching a titan in a glass terrarium.
So, in all probability a skeletal shark should actually be stronger in terms of its resistance to blunt force, given the ability of cartilage to deform compared to bone. This would also allow it to squeeze through far tighter spaces than a skeletal elephant or carp would ever be able to. In practice, the flesh might just rot off the cartilage without the cartilage decomposing.

BTW, tip for catching skeletals: when one important things (like a shark) appears, order you dorfs indoors and make one a recruit to go and act as bait. Trust me, you life will be infinitely easier without your shark chasing your dwarves everywhere.
Edit: if you can get some kind of amphibious critter, you might be able to use it as bait-using peasants has some, ah, "drawbacks".

Edit: Just looked at the raws-anyone joining now should really go for a tropical ocean-the basking shark is one of few species that are temperate exclusive, and most species of shark are, in fact, tropical only. An as a trade off for the basking shark, you get the whale shark instead, along with all the other sharks (as far as I can see). Additionally, you can get the coelocanth and manta rays, and more that I probably missed. I, however, will stick with this fort-partly because \the tantrum spiral will make the sunken ship epic when it gets engraved. Great whites can be found anywhere though.
Edit: Any way to deliberately cause a cave in under the feet of some orcs? They're camping by where the fish spawn. Turns out another basking shark is present, so I'm not too worried about loosing a white to them, but I would like to be safe. I'd do it with marksdwarves-but they refuse to path to the fort, and and baiting them hasn't worked so well. Plus, one of them is a champion archer.

Edit: Just looked at the legends for this world. There are at least two sets of living male and female dragons. Whoa. One of the males had had his tail torn off by an orc, so I hope for an easy capture. This calls for me to skyrocket my wealth. There shall soon never again be a food problem in my fort after I tame and teach the things manners...though given my track record for dwarf survival, all four will likely become blooded the instant they step onto the map.

Edit: The orcs killed two skeletal lampreys-which I didn't have ANY of. So to sum it up: I was sieged two seasons in a row by orcs, then goblins came and abushed (they got killed by skeletal whales), managing to kill the human diplomat. Which is going to bring me LOTS of fun, I'm sure.

Edit: Indeed it has! Almost as if the two lampreys were an orcish sacrifice on my behalf to the capturing god, I aquired a SECOND skeletal sea serpent with no casualties, and a dragon appeared right infront of an orcish siege, pathing to my fort in the process. Amusingly, the orcs pathed for IT. Now I have a dragon stuck under my well, who has never tasted dwarf blood (and an orc siege right nearby). Extraction procedures are being attempted. The first simply is the removal of the well. The second which will be attempted is mining out a ramp with a locked cover right on top. The third is to wait until the orcs are gone, find out who it pathed to, use a different dwarf to build cage traps *All* around my pumped water supply (I have to desalinate SOMEhow-turns out that's how a mystery hammerhead got in). And the previous season? A titan who helped lift an orc siege (of course, he got obliterated because these were ORCS, but still injured a bunch).

 Maybe instead of a sunkenship in an aquarium...I'll have an obsidian sunken ship AS the aquarium. And instead of a crow's nest, there will be a dragon's nest.

Edit: Sucess! One dragon down, hopefully just one more fire breathing attack on my fortress to go. Then I breed them. I just need a male now...either way, the dragon crow nest for the sunken ship has been approved,

Edit: You know, other people should feel free to post their tales of "fun" as well...after all, updates are good. Especially when they involve "fun". Or am I really the only one to suffer such a spectacular blowout?

[Labs]

I have to say, I absolutely LOVE the idea of a sunken ship in the aquarium.

[Cogmeister]

I'd try the sunken ship thing, but I'm afraid it's beyond my skill. IF I manage to pull off the whole ocean-straining aquarium without it blowing up in my face, I'll put a couple statues and such there as decoration. Also a fish mural on the floor.

[Pyrophoricity]

Personally I'm thinking onlong the lines of wooden (treasure) chests lining the tank maybe with some gold coins scattered about for good measure.

Also, since my discovery that I am infact with out sand and hence my only hope of glass relys on rock crystal my tank may end up either mostly gem windows of constructed stone walls 

[Byakugan01]

Have you tried checking the squares your dwarves have trampled? Sometimes there is a surface layer of sand that you can't acess from underground.

[Zorgn]

Thinking of joining in on this if I can get a map with fish that also meets my terrain needs. Anyway, I need to know if there's a point where the aquarium stops being dwarven and just becomes absurdly huge.

[Flashzom]

I would guess so long as you keep it designed interestingly, there wouldn't be a problem with size. I've always thought underwater tunnels would be sweet, but I haven't had the time to try building some myself.

[Byakugan01]

Remember, there's no such thing as too big or complex for dwarves. Or unreasonable, for that matter. I'll probably end up making the temperature system cry with my aquarium...In a word, burning ligin-oh wait, can't order any more stone now. Trade liasion went nuts, and can't get another. Still, I do have some bauxite.

[Labs]

Im going to narrow the due date. All fotresses are due by june 18th.

[Byakugan01]

Ah, then I probably won't be able to meet the due date...been getting pretty busy with an organic chem summer class. I'll still post the fort when it's done though, and you can judge if you like-I'll try and get it done under the due date.

[Labs]

I wont be an ass about the date, thats just around the time I want it in by. 

[Cogmeister]

Progress report: Finding a map with ocean tiles, magma, trees and sand is far harder than it should be. Far, far harder.