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[Erkki]

After playing DF for over a year, the very first Dragon ever came to meet my Fortress. Of course, she was overcome by Dwarven Intelligence (a cage trap) quick, and is now the latest addition to my dining hall zoo.

However, knowing that Dragons are probably pretty powerful and breath fire, I'd like to weaponize her... What I have been thinking about so far:


A) building a separate air-lock type(raising bridges) entrance, where all walls and floor tiles are (rock) constructions so that the fire doesnt spread
B) getting her in a room with no way out, fortifications inside the entrance hall, to make her actually use the fire breath attack instead of meleéing the Goblins/Elves/Humies
C) a 3rd bridge to cover the fortifications to allow salvaging/dumping, safe passage, and to protect her from Goblin Elite bow/xbowmen.

Of course, she'll be moved in in the cage she now sits in, and released only once the entrance is ready and safety drawbridge raised.

Shouldnt the above plan work, am I missing something... Suggestions?

[Greiger]

Last I heard a creature like a dragon won't use a breath attack or webbing on a creature unless they can path to the creature. If that is still true, B is still possible, but it will require a bit of dwarven mechanical engineering to do.

EDIT: The wiki page for Giant Cave Spiders has a silk farming design that could probably be weaponized for your needs.

Also, constructions don't burn.  The walls could be wood and no harm would come to it.  I think only grass spreads fire in the way you are thinking.  However, your target goblins' corpses and gear WILL burn, and do so for some time.  If a dwarf picks up any of it they will also catch fire and can spread the fire that way.

c sounds foolproof, I see nothing that could go wrong with that, other than the usual stuff.  Just make sure the bridge is fire safe (or to be sure magma safe) because unlike walls bridges can catch fire/melt.  There's also a chance for trolls to destroy that bridge, so be careful with them around and have a backup method to get into the room without pissing off Ms. Dragon so you could rebuild the bridge if needed.

[Erkki]

Last I heard a creature like a dragon won't use a breath attack or webbing on a creature unless they can path to the creature. If that is still true, B is still possible, but it will require a bit of dwarven mechanical engineering to do.

EDIT: The wiki page for Giant Cave Spiders has a silk farming design that could probably be weaponized for your needs.

Also, constructions don't burn.  The walls could be wood and no harm would come to it.  I think only grass spreads fire in the way you are thinking.  However, your target goblins' corpses and gear WILL burn, and do so for some time.  If a dwarf picks up any of it they will also catch fire and can spread the fire that way.

c sounds foolproof, I see nothing that could go wrong with that, other than the usual stuff.  Just make sure the bridge is fire safe (or to be sure magma safe) because unlike walls bridges can catch fire/melt.  There's also a chance for trolls to destroy that bridge, so be careful with them around and have a backup method to get into the room without pissing off Ms. Dragon so you could rebuild the bridge if needed.

RGR. Regarding path to target creature... Would having a path through a closed floor hatch(on a higher z level to prevent dragon from destroying it) work?

And on the bridge protecting the dragon: I'll probably have 1-tile moat before it so the trolls cant reach it, and all the targets will be minimum 3 hex away. Diorite bridge should work(right?), as my embark has no iron but my 34 strong military now wears all bronze & steel so after the next ambush/siege I should have the reserves. In the case of a burning goblin dying over a bridge, I'll build all 3 bridges out of iron...

The opposite wall will possibly have a 4th bridge covering a crossbow bunker in the case she needs backup... I dont like using weapon or cage traps. 

[Greiger]

The floor hatch I'm not sure, it will probably have to be a try it and see thing unless somebody can come in with more specific experience.  I'm afraid I don't know.

*checks diorite raws* Diorite should do nicely for resisting heat damage. Should be able to resist heat from a burning corpse too. Just make sure your mechanisms are heat safe as well as the bridge.  The mechanisms melting is just as bad as the bridge itself doing so.

[DgnBiscuit]

A few builds ago (back before the magma sea / tripple underground update) I weaponized fire imps in pretty much the way you suggested: I built a room that was only one square, on one side there was fortifications and the others were solid rock (construction). There was a ledge in front of the fortifications with a raising bridge (to seal the little firey devil when he wasn't defending the entrance). Directly behind the cage was a locked door (since imps aren't building destroyers) and a set cage trap, just in case I needed to move him. The whole structure was one z up from the ground at the same level as my elevated path into my fortress and about three squares away.

With the flip of the lever four of the little bastards (they're easy to catch and every volcano used to had several) would rain firey hell down on helpless gobbos, leaving nothing but charred goblinite, which, with another flip of the lever, could be gathered safely by my dwarves.

You could probably do the same with a dragon using the floor hatch above idea you already mentioned.

Have fun melting!

-DB

[thegoatgod_pan]

Aspects to consider are:
1. keeping dragon alive--make sure you can reseal the chamber it is held in, esp. if elite bowgoblins are around

2. Using the inevitable grass fire.  Fires follow a z-level, and clever us of ramps can make certain goblins always path through the areas to be lit on fire.

[Girlinhat]

Wood stockpiles catch on fire nicely.  So do finished good stockpiles that only accept wood, since you can turn 1 log into 3 tiles of fodder by not allowing bins in that pile.  Lignite is always a good choice, but you may be using that for other things since it's become relatively rare.  I would highly suggest ordering a lot of wood crafts from your manager, and making a large stockpile that takes no bins and only takes wooden finished goods (perhaps clothing too, if you want to get rid of that as well).  If needed, have it Take From your main finished goods pile, to ensure that it's always full.

Also, artifacts will burn forever, so if you're feeling sneaky you can set up a trench in front of your entrance, which accepts only wooden and lignite artifacts (let's face it, you've got a ton of stonecrafting moods already).  Cover this 1-2 wide trench with hatches, and then surround these hatches with pressure plates, linked to the hatches.  The effect of this, is that when an enemy comes near, they'll flip the plates, forcing them to run into the trench.  Because they move fairly quickly, they'll probably be able to leave the trench before the hatch closes, but by stepping onto the flaming artifacts, they will catch fire themselves.  Or, if you want a more manual route, you could just link the plates to a lever, to expose them to fire when you get the siege warning.

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+++HP++
+++HP++
+++HP++^This would allow a trench undernearth that would force anyone approaching to travel into, and possibly get trapped in, the trench.  For additional security, you can have the trench expanded underground, allowing the invaders to path back towards the right.  That way, in case they get stuck and the hatch closes over them, they'll naturally move away from the fire and towards the opening further away.  So when your dwarves go to claim their copper and iron weapons, they won't jump into the fire to do so.

Granted, this isn't much about dragons, but you'll be dealing with a lot of fire and this could help.

[Tetragenic]

Mod the game so you can tame the dragon. Problem solved.

[Kentti]

Mod the game so you can tame the dragon. Problem solved.

Elite bowgoblin says hi.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Oh and this a bit of wisdom from someone else's experiments, but if you want it to fire dependably, cage traps with kittens built right above the line of fire (ideally in the air, with the build wall/remove wall trick) will give you an effective and dwarfy way to trigger firebreathing.

[Erkki]

First operational test done.

"Pull the lever!", and my smile stayed for about half a second as I saw over 100 Goblins catch fire and panic. Meanwhile, the Dragon was re-caged as I had allowed passing through the floor hatch, and she moved out, without bothering to breath fire a second time. She only breathed fire right after the floor hatch was allowed.

Then both lowered drawbridges were destroyed, and then the raised one, that separated my entire military from the air-lock. And then they assaulted the Goblins.

I lost at least 15 out of my 30 strong infantry pretty much right away(starting from mere seconds after they had finished off the last Goblin), and someone stepped on the grass, resulting in my whole inner yard, including the pasture, nest boxes and bee hives, catching fire. And all the animals. And possibly half the fort had I not savescummed... Lets call it consulting the Mountainhomes. Luckily I lost "only" half a year.

A) either diorite or iron(for mechanisms) cant sustain dragon fire
B) Dwarves are too stupid to go around magma/dragonfire, burning grass or burning goblin corpses, and when they hack off body parts off Goblins, the body parts and blood spread fire

[Greiger]

B I kinda figured might happen.  Dwarves are well known to be blissfully ignorant of the presence of fire.  A is surprising though.  Both of those are magma safe materiels from what I saw, a little fire should have proven no issue.

Maybe dragonfire is significantly hotter than thought.  I suppose it makes sense, since dragonfire is often significantly hotter than 'normal' fire in quite a bit of fiction.

Hmmm....*begins performing ‼SCIENCE‼*

EDIT: My ‼SCIENCE‼ attempt failed.  According to Stonesense debug mode running in arena mode dragonfire does not change the temperature of a tile in any way DFHack can detect.  Dragonfire does obviously raise temperature of things under it, but the actual temperature of dragonfire is still an unknown factor.

Try replacing the bridges and mechanisms with steel and see if it still does it.   Steel was the old 2D version's only magmasafe materiel, so that might do better,  if that fails try adamantine mechanisms and bridge.  Adamantine could probably survive on the surface of the sun without melting.

[celem]

Yeah dragonfire smokes bridges, even magma safe ones.  I learned that the hard way from FD's hellfire imps.  Mine were raised with iron mechanisms and quartzite bridge........whoooosh....ashes, only constructions withstand that tag's attack (and shields ) It's easy to forget that bridges are not technicaly constructions just because building destroyers dont trash them.

[SolPyre]

saw this thread and couldnt resist

[Jacos]

Elite bowgoblin says hi.

War Dragon modded to have adamantine scales says "Hi." back.

(Though that would take some heavy modding, I presume)