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[Shade-o]

After finding underground rivers sadly lacking in terror, I have modded in a few more denizens. Specifically, Giant Crabs, Giant Crayfish and Giant Lobsters. Now breaching the river in the wrong way results in a horde of pincer-snapping beasts taking my miners apart in bloody ways.

In this instance, I have a problem. I misaimed my breaching tunnel, which actually hit the river directly from below, flooding the tunnel. Fortunately the miners all escaped, and the beasties were all far enough away to not notice.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of breeding going on. Not just with my decapods, but the giant olms and toads. While this is reassuring since I know my goblin-pit-o-doom will be self-cleaning, it is making my attempts to harness the river... difficult. I have dropped a dam in near the source of the river, but the rest remains muddy and deadly.

Behold the waves of beasts in this two-level composite of the last two levels of the river. The one-level drop is marked with the red line. The lucky/unlucky breaching shaft is at the northern end.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(it uses the Mayday tileset, with custom adult and child models for the new creatures)

The issue is this: How the Pit can I clear this out?
-The critters are deadly enough to tear apart a tank, and crossbow bolts barely faze them.
-I have tried barraging them from a balcony, it does not work.
-I have an untapped magma pipe, but it is directly on the other side of the map, across two mountains and a valley.
-I would prefer to be able to harvest their hides and meat.
-I don't need any of these alive for breeding, as there is more than enough of each type in the dammed section, and in an underground pool.


How can I get out of this problem?

PS: They are still breeding.

[A Dwarven Smokeologist]

I suggest a long hall wall of cage / weapon traps, running parallel to the tunnel there.

When ready penetrate with one brave miner and a bridge that raises with pressure plates incase any make it through.

Pray to Armok none do.

[ungulateman]

Just keep shooting bolts at them - eventually you'll hit them somewhere vital. Or, install a big corridor of weapon traps, and use a bait dwarf to draw them into the crabgrinder.

EDIT: Damn you.

[gerkinzola]

make a path through there from the outside into ur fort, so long as u kee a drawbridge up between the river and ur fort just wait for a siege and sic them on each other

[Shade-o]

Do animals really attack other civilisations like that? That idea has some wicked merit...

[wagawaga]

Hope they don't have [trAPAVOID], cage them and sell unleash them on the elves.

[gtmattz]

I say engineer a cave-in over the whole channel, then dig out the rocks to retreive your leftover body parts.  That is if you have enough free z levels above to pull it off...

[Calenth]

I can think of three workable tactics:

1) train legendary ballistae operators with ballistae made from masterwork parts, dig an incredibly long tunnel, set up the ballistae at one end (in an appropriate defensive setup), connect the other end to the river, fire away as they come at you.

2) Build a "repeater" circuit as per here ( http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Repeater ). Connect it to spike traps. Lure the monsters onto the spike traps and keep them there. If you built a creature-based repeater with spike traps inside, it'd probably kill almost any non building destroyer creature imaginable, eventually.

3) bite the bullet and channel that lava in there.

[Derakon]

If you do decide to use magma, you can get it to the river quickly by using a pump to push it down your access tunnel. The distance from the pipe to the river would be much less of an issue that way.

For ballistae, remember fortifications. You just need the ballistae far enough away that their operators don't run in terror at the sight of the enemy.

[Canadark]

This is a golden opportunity to train up your marksdwarfs. Have your miners dig up to it then smooth and fortify the wall. It may take a while and use lots of bolts, but by the end you will have some real elite crossbow wielders.

[SkyRender]

You coded in giant enemy crabs and you don't know how to handle them?  Come on, we've known what to do since E3 2006: attack its weak point for massive damage!

(ProTip: the weak point is their undersides, and the best way to cause massive damage to it is magma.)

[Karnewarrior]

"The Chamber of Bones"

dig out a large chamber next to the river, and fill it with weapon traps. then, place all of your military in there. thats right, all your military. when everything's in position, have an elite miner dig out the wall. prepare =Giant Crab Roast=. Enjoy

Hell, if it passes out, it don't deserve to live.

[Zifnab]

This is a golden opportunity to train up your marksdwarfs. Have your miners dig up to it then smooth and fortify the wall. It may take a while and use lots of bolts, but by the end you will have some real elite crossbow wielders.

Exactly this.  Though you should definately catch some for an arena.  If they breed fast enough you could even get some maxed out marksdwarves if you shuffle your marksdwarves between a couple of "training pens".

[MC Dirty]

You coded in giant enemy crabs and you don't know how to handle them?  Come on, we've known what to do since E3 2006: attack its weak point for massive damage!

(ProTip: the weak point is their undersides, and the best way to cause massive damage to it is magma.)

God, I just waited for someone to post this. That was so predictable.

[Shrike]

Dig out a tunnel to the river, do not breach. Build drawbridges (atom smashers) in tunnel, triggered by plate or lever. Raise bridge, then mine out the end to the river.
Why?
(b)Rrrrridge Racerrr!

Bonus points if you can get them to slam down in sequence just as the miner clears them.