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[feralferret]

Is there a way to safely pit caged enemies who escape easily?

I wanted to have a pit full of enemies that I can drop the odd savage beast into for my amusement, but everything escapes the moment I try to toss them in. I tried having the stockpile right next to the hatch-covered hole to no avail. I'd rather not use levers unless I have to due to the potential volume of critters being pitted.

[Farmerbob]

Is there a way to safely pit caged enemies who escape easily?

I wanted to have a pit full of enemies that I can drop the odd savage beast into for my amusement, but everything escapes the moment I try to toss them in. I tried having the stockpile right next to the hatch-covered hole to no avail. I'd rather not use levers unless I have to due to the potential volume of critters being pitted.

Do do it reliably and safely, I think you will be stuck with mechanisms, but there's a better way than levers, I think

1) Water pressure plates linked to the cages.
2) Cistern of pressurized water with floodgate lever-controlled.
3) Pressure plates release the caged critters when water level gets to 7/7
4) One pressure plate also releases the set of multiple floodgates that allow the cages and the critters to get swept down 1 level into the combat pit.
5) Combat pit should be set to drain to map border, but blockable in case you decide to just kill off everything in the pit too (at least the things that can drown.

Water pressure is awful hard to resist, for pretty much anything.  Not sure about clowns and megabeasts.  Never attempted this myself.

[Yaotzin]

How do trappers work? They trap vermin and let them be trained or something, right? What's the point of that?

[Garath]

How do trappers work? They trap vermin and let them be trained or something, right? What's the point of that?

no point

[Yaotzin]

Aw

re: farming, if I make an "outdoor" farm that's underground with like 5 levels of open air above it, it'll count as outside and also be safe from everything but flyers, right? Any way to make a 100% safe outdoor farm?

[Garath]

Wall and roof. Build the roof by setting up stairs from outside the wall and floor it over. Even if you have now completely blocked out the sun, your outdoor crops will thrive

[Yaotzin]

What happens to bolts that miss the target? Do I have to go looking for them and claim them or do they vanish into the ether/end up on the corpse somehow?

[Tirion]

What happens to bolts that miss the target? Do I have to go looking for them and claim them or do they vanish into the ether/end up on the corpse somehow?

AFAIK, if they land on the ground they can be collected, if they hit a wall/tree they are destroyed, unless they fall a z-level after that in which case they can be collected. It's worth to melt them too.

[Yaotzin]

Huh why would I melt bolts instead of using them?

I really need to get into magma so I can melt stuff easily...so much fuel...

[Tiruin]

What happens to bolts that miss the target?

Dwarves are smart enough to look for them themselves, but those are marked as forbidden.

'o' for orders > 'F' > 'p' to make all ammunition unforbidden. Your dwarves will then collect if they have a stockpile or lack ammunition in the military screen.

Edit: That was quick.

Melting bolts (single) adds up to making a whole metal bar. Any metal bar that is made into bolts makes a whole stack of 25 bolts of said metal.

[Yaotzin]

stack of # arrows, bolts    # /100, rounded up*
(* Round up to nearest 1/10th. A stack of 1-10 bolts or arrows produces .1 bars, 11-20 produces .2, 21-30 = .3, and 31+ = .4. A weaponsmith can produce a stack of 25 metal bolts, which produces 0.3 bars. You could "create" metal this way, if you could reliably collect individual metal bolts after they were shot (and unbroken).)

Wiki says that. Doesn't that mean I'd need to smelt a single bolt 10 times to make one bar? So a trick only for magma forges?

[Tiruin]

Magma forges are just forges that do not need a solid source of fuel (coal or coke) but are fueled by the blood of the very land-- Magma.

The trick can work for any forge, provided it is fueled. You'll have to micromanage a bit though.

[Yaotzin]

Aye, I just can't see it being worth effectively turning 10 bolts + 10 coke into 25 bolts :p

[kardwill]

How do trappers work? They trap vermin and let them be trained or something, right? What's the point of that?

You can make pets out of them for your dwarves to adopt, or to put in cages in their rooms, if you want.

[Yaotzin]

Pets just make dwarfs happier, right? Is the "pet value" thing in the wiki how much happier that pet makes them?

If I got a dragon for a pet for all my dwarves, they would be over the moon?