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Author Topic: Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?  (Read 1140 times)

mangelo

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Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?
« on: October 17, 2010, 04:58:04 am »

Hi !  :)


At the time I have about 83 dwarves in my fortress. (It should have been about 200 already, but many died to sieges, and now the 'disease'..)
When the last immigration wave came, there were 88 of them.
Five have already died to something I can't trace.
They are typically suffocating or bleeding to death in hospital, before that they are numb and paralyzed for some time.
There is nothing in the annoucements, nor in the reports.

What may concern You:
-I had some venoms in barrels, forbidden them to make sure dwarves ain't drinking them;
-Long ago a forgotten beast came that had a breath attack, some coatings still stay in the fortress;
-I have a wall by the edges of the map, no one can come in to the fortress;
-The entrance to caverns is sealed, only a well goes down to the second level;
-There is a tribe of Serpentmen in the second level of cavern, they had some blowgunners;
-Military dwarves die too (but not the trained ones I believe).

What is this thing ?! I can't manage to figure this one out.
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drvoke

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Re: Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?
« Reply #1 on: October 17, 2010, 05:14:33 am »

-Long ago a forgotten beast came that had a breath attack, some coatings still stay in the fortress;

Probably this.
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mangelo

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Re: Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?
« Reply #2 on: October 17, 2010, 05:22:38 am »

What can I do about it ?
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drvoke

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Re: Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?
« Reply #3 on: October 17, 2010, 06:25:41 am »

Nothing to do, really.  You have a hospital, so you've got soap.  If you haven't already, dig some up/down stairs into a water source so your dwarfs have a place to wash the grime off themselves (I think this works, anyway, I always see my dwarfs bathing in my fountains).  Since the syndromes caused by FB attacks are random, it's hard to know what to do.  Just hope that even if they get really sick, most of the infected dwarfs will survive until the syndrome passes.

This page from the wiki for more info, though it's not super-helpful.
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ArcaneSaint

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Re: Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?
« Reply #4 on: October 17, 2010, 06:26:15 am »

If it's FB dust make sure all of your dwarves are wearing shoes/socks. This might also explain why your trained military isn't dying, they are probably wearing boots as part of their armor.

I don't know if it is possible to clear the dust, maybe by flushing the fortress with water. Here's an idea: evacuate all non-infected dwarves and have them gather somewhere outside your fort (using burrows). Then flush the fortress with water/magma to remove as much traces of infection as possible (probably it will just push them around, hopefully into the lowest level), and dig a new fortress next to the old one. Only let specially trained (replaceable!) dwarves enter the old fortress to reclaim supplies. Bonus points if you can find a way to only infect goblins elves anything that isn't a dwarf or (useful) pet.
Alternatively, use a carefully guided stream of water to push some deadly dust into the Serpentmen tribe.
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Chocolatemilkgod

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Re: Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?
« Reply #5 on: October 17, 2010, 06:27:08 am »

Well I'm new to this so I'd just seal the area off, but theres probably a more elegant solution that's more...Dwarfy.

I'll give you a hint. It begins with MA and ends with GMA.

And if you don't have a well add one since dwaves will wash themselves there to prevent them from dying in too great a number...
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mangelo

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Re: Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?
« Reply #6 on: October 17, 2010, 06:36:35 am »

I believe the "frozen extract coating" is only on items, not on the floor, at least I haven't seen any.
So right now I'm mass producing shoes and socks, forbidden every item I found that had the coating on it (it seems that the dwarves were dying when I ordered them to bring some items to depot - these items could have the coating on them, dwarves pick them up and caught the disease), and in the close future I'll try to wipe everything with water or magma (that'll be easy since I have a volcano).

And I have a well.

EDIT: whoa, it must be the items with the coating on them ! The hospital is literally litered with various things, all of them contaminated.
The hospital is being sealed now. I'll post the outcome later.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2010, 06:39:14 am by mangelo »
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Erotic Bootlace

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Re: Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?
« Reply #7 on: October 17, 2010, 08:55:26 am »

Anyone feel that rather than a bug, this is an absolutely awesome feature? It reminds me of the WoW Corrupted Blood plague. The only problem is, with cleaning bugs as they are, Dwarves can't seem to stop the plague without resorting to flooding the fortress with magma (ala Ardentdikes). Hopefully when soap gets debugged we'll be able to handle these outbreaks a little better - but I'd like to see them a perminent worry in game.

When I get a new PC capable of running DF (my old computer caught fire a few days ago - writing this on my laptop :o) I'm seriously going to have a quarentine system set up - anyone who has fought a forgotten beast gets a lovely decontamination magma shower.

TC, you might want to know that apparently, pets and tame animals within the fortress can accidently spread the syndrome too. Slaughter and quarentine seem to be effective solutions. Sealing off your hospital as you've indicated with these inside sounds like the most viable solution.
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nifboy

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Re: Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?
« Reply #8 on: October 17, 2010, 11:19:44 am »

Having the same problem with a liver-destroying FB poison, which has a habit of killing kittens in droves and the occasional dog or dwarven child about a year after being infected. Somehow a kobold managed to contract it by the time he reached my front door.

edit: Oh hey, a pool of forgotten beast extract right in the middle of a pool of like eighty different things' bloods, not far from my front door. How the hell did that get there?
« Last Edit: October 17, 2010, 11:21:58 am by nifboy »
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BurnedToast

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Re: Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?
« Reply #9 on: October 17, 2010, 12:17:21 pm »

you can also download df hack and use the clean map function to clear it off floor tiles. This won't get it off items, unfortunately, but it will at least help with the problem a little bit and stop it from spreading to new items.

Normally I would not recommend cheating, but the cleaning job is not really working very well right now and the stuff never evaporates/dries or otherwise clears on it's own (unless it gets hit by rain outside).
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drvoke

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Re: Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?
« Reply #10 on: October 17, 2010, 02:46:15 pm »

Anyone feel that rather than a bug, this is an absolutely awesome feature?

It's an okay placeholder until we get truly communicable diseases.  But I have to admit, the first time my fortress got almost totally wiped out by an FB syndrome, it felt VERY dwarfy.  I just wish there were some real in-game solution to syndromes, like medicine and a better functioning hospital system.

I believe the "frozen extract coating" is only on items, not on the floor, at least I haven't seen any.
So right now I'm mass producing shoes and socks, forbidden every item I found that had the coating on it (it seems that the dwarves were dying when I ordered them to bring some items to depot - these items could have the coating on them, dwarves pick them up and caught the disease), and in the close future I'll try to wipe everything with water or magma (that'll be easy since I have a volcano).

Good luck!
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personofshadow

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Re: Dwarves dying to some mysterious disease ?
« Reply #11 on: October 17, 2010, 03:11:14 pm »

Gloves for handling of contaminated items?
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