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[Girlinhat]

So, I've got a plan.  It requires live animals during and around abandoning.  In a quick test, dogs in cages die, every time.  A constructed cage will stay in place, but a loose cage (at least a wooden one, lead probably doesn't move due to weight) the dog inside dies, and the cage is thrown somewhere.  Building an enclosure, allowing a 3x3 interior space with a stairway on the outside but not the inside, thus making the cage inaccessible, the cages were still scattered as if there were no blockage.  It seems, from previous experiment, that invaders in cages will remain alive, but outside the cage.  Didn't try it with built cages, but with loose cages the invader is released.

Basically, I want to place animals where I see fit, and have them there when I reclaim or visit in adventure mode.  I'm open to hacks as well, and one idea was to have a cage made of a special material, and to then mod that material to evaporate.  If it works, then as soon as you reclaim/visit, the cages should disintegrate and whatever is inside them pops out, right?  Or does cage destruction mean animal death as well?

[Urist Da Vinci]

I've seen a (unverified) claim in the past that creatures, in cages that were linked to levers, stayed there and could be released by an adventurer. This needs to be tested/proven again.

EDIT: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=54136.msg1162002#msg1162002
I still consider this "not proven".

[Girlinhat]

This isn't true of dogs.  In my experiment, I made a fort, with 4 different enclosed walls (no ceiling).  Each one had a dog cage in it.  2 of them were built, 2 were loose.  2 had stairs inside and out, 2 had just outside, so that my adventurer could look inside.  Both of the built cages contained a dead dog, but both were linked to a pressure plate (with adveenturer traps turned on) and both popped open as soon as triggered.  The dog corpses did not pop out, but instead left two loose cages with dog corpses.

Invaders/wild animals seem to behave differently though...

[Psieye]

Quick question: what happens to pasture-zoned animals?

[Girlinhat]

They seem to be treated as regular animals.  That is, killed and their body strewn wherever it happens to end up.

[Funburns]

Is it still true that a magma proof cage, frozen in obsidian, will remain both safe and recoverable via digging, and protect its captive? If so, you may want to try that. The game might not have a provision in its reclaim algorithm for obsidianized cage inhabitants.

[Girlinhat]

Hmm, that has potential, but not for this -exact- situation.  I mostly want an adventurer to be able to explore and find live and dangerous animals lurking in the bowels of the fort.  If they need to be fug out, built, and released, then it defeats the purpose.  Good thinking though, I may have to try that just for the fun of trying it out.

[darkflagrance]

Tame animals will always die on abandon.

If you give a wild animal a name and then abandon the fort, it will stick around as an ambusher. If it was in a cage, it will automatically be released.

I don't know if normal wild animals survive the fall of a fort, but I suspect that they do. Otherwise, why were the elephants on the borders of the map when I abandoned my last fort in my throne room when I went back in adventure mode?

[Langdon]

The only method I used to keep tame animals alive after abandoning (back in 40d) was to use Companion to remove the Tame flag from the creatures (turning them into wild animals) before abandon.

I suspect you can accomplish the same thing in the newer versions using Runesmith.

[Baron Baconeer]

Tamed megabeasts however, not only survive abandoning, but also act in really freaky ways, being both part of the abandoning migrant group AND still living in the fortress. The one with the migrant wave will start attacking the dwarves, and the one in the old fort will still be friendly.

[Rumrusher]

Tamed megabeasts however, not only survive abandoning, but also act in really freaky ways, being both part of the abandoning migrant group AND still living in the fortress. The one with the migrant wave will start attacking the dwarves, and the one in the old fort will still be friendly.

So cage them then remove the tame tags? I wonder if this works with caged sentient beings?

[Cheshire Cat]

the way i recall it working in 40d was -

* tamed animals allways died (except perhaps tamed megabeasts? never tried that...)

* mundane wild animals without names would dissapear aparently no matter what, but seemed to be respawned when you reclaim or arrive as an adventurer.

* named wild animals that have been killing your dwarves would stay as an ambusher

* invaders would stay

* in 40d, the hfs would hang around.

* invaders, megabeasts, and named animals in cages without a lever would be released to hang around the map

* invaders, megabeasts and named wild animals in cages WITH a lever would stay where they were put, as would your own dwarves. i tested this in 40d with goblins, giant cave spiders, hostile camels and a titan. also adamantium clad champions who could be hidden as rewards for exploration, as they seem happy to join your adventurer.

dwarves seemed to survive fine in cages with a lever after fortress abandon, but before abandon they are are risk of starving to death. getting champions or similarly tough dwarves into a cage normally requres cavein dust contraptions, unless things have changed enough in recent releases. highly skilled military dwarves just dont go to sleep or pass out or anything when you try and force them, unlike normal dwarves. dwarves not in cages who could not path out of the map on abandon wound up dead every time i checked.

i made a few forts as entertaining adventurer traps back in 40d and before. you could do things like have some caged dwarves and goblins hidden behind floodgates in the sides of a big room with a lever in the middle, and when you came in as an adventurer pulling the lever would normally unleash all sorts of interesting hell. back in 40d pressure plates did not work in any shape or form in adventure mode, no matter what you did, althoug that was regarded as a bug back then, and may be fixed.

[Girlinhat]

Pressure plates work in adventure mode, if you enable adventurer traps.  For that matter, so do weapon traps and stonefalls, which means a lot of lethality, but I'm not going to use weapon traps so that's ok.  I might also try and get some [NO_EAT][NO_DRINK] dwarves in cages, simply by locking them in a 1x1 room on a cage trap.  Now the only thing might be to figure out how to get dangerously named beasts into cages, and get them placed in specific places.  I think I will cheat.

Theory: Get a material, named "poofstone" or whatever.  Maybe metal instead.  Build a cage from Poofmetal, place it somewhere, place a named creature inside it.  Enter adventure mode, pull a "master level" to release the cages.  Save game, edit raws, make the Poofmetal evaporate at room temperature.  Re-enter game, and you'll see creatures standing around where their former cages were, with no loose cages or mechanisms remaining.  Using that method, you can rather easily place a minotaur in a locked room with a treasure chest, to make a "boss fight" for the treasure, or make a specific room full of dangerous beasts without having them spread around randomly.

The only issue is, how to keep them there?  They'll path through doors freely, unless you do something like linking the doors to pressure plates just outside the door, so the adventurer will walk to the door to open it.  I'm not sure.

[darkflagrance]

Pressure plates work in adventure mode, if you enable adventurer traps.  For that matter, so do weapon traps and stonefalls, which means a lot of lethality, but I'm not going to use weapon traps so that's ok.  I might also try and get some [NO_EAT][NO_DRINK] dwarves in cages, simply by locking them in a 1x1 room on a cage trap.  Now the only thing might be to figure out how to get dangerously named beasts into cages, and get them placed in specific places.  I think I will cheat.

Theory: Get a material, named "poofstone" or whatever.  Maybe metal instead.  Build a cage from Poofmetal, place it somewhere, place a named creature inside it.  Enter adventure mode, pull a "master level" to release the cages.  Save game, edit raws, make the Poofmetal evaporate at room temperature.  Re-enter game, and you'll see creatures standing around where their former cages were, with no loose cages or mechanisms remaining.  Using that method, you can rather easily place a minotaur in a locked room with a treasure chest, to make a "boss fight" for the treasure, or make a specific room full of dangerous beasts without having them spread around randomly.

The only issue is, how to keep them there?  They'll path through doors freely, unless you do something like linking the doors to pressure plates just outside the door, so the adventurer will walk to the door to open it.  I'm not sure.

There is a tag called [CAN_OPEN_DOORS] or something. I think if you remove it, the animals will not be able to pass through closed doors.

[Girlinhat]

Oh yeah.  The wiki is unspecific on what this allows, but it seems to be any door.  I would at first assume that the creature cannot open pet-impassable, but the tag looks like the creature can't open any door.

Looking at raws, GCS lacks this tag, yet I know it can move through an un-forbidden door because it was part of my original cage-webbing setup.  The wiki lists a GCS silk farm that uses pet-tight doors to restrain the GCS, so I'm guessing this only applies to pet doors.  I've also seen macaque and raccoons get into my fort via pet-allowed doors that were closed, but never tried with non-pet doors.

Still, this will work!