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[lleu]

Well, I'm relatively new to DF and I found some caverns. After fighting off a troll, I placed a few traps in the way. The troll killed my only trained fighter, and I had to mob it with my miners to kill it.  I ended up capturing another troll in a cage trap. I want to know if I can move the troll without releasing it, and somehow make it useful. What could I do?

[NecroRebel]

You can move the cage safely, either by placing an animal stockpile somewhere or by building the cage with b-j.

Trolls can't really be made useful; they can't be tamed or butchered. You could build the cage somewhere where dwarves will see it and use it as a zoo, but you're probably better off just arranging for the thing to die. Using it as live combat training for your soldiers is probably a good use.

[lleu]

I think I'll try the combat training. Gives me an excuse to make a gladiator arena.  If not, would using the drawbridge to smash it, or dropping it in magma get rid of it?

[NecroRebel]

Trolls can get smashed by drawbridges, IIRC, so that will work. Dropping it in magma will also kill it. If the cage is magma-safe, you'll have to pit the troll alone and not just dump the cage, as the cage will protect the creature within as long as it survives.

[lleu]

Well, I would do the drawbridge but that's boring. Would floor connected to a retracting bridge collapse? That way, I would have a semi-repeatable disposal method. The cage is wood, but how would I be able to get hostiles to go on the bridge for later use? The only way I see is making it the only path into my fortress, and have a pressure plate at the far end to drop all but one of the invaders. Decided against the arena to prevent a possible fortress-destroying rampage. 

[NecroRebel]

Floors that are connected to a retracting bridge and nothing else do collapse, but they collapse instantly. You wouldn't have time to build a cage on top of it. Also, dropping cages in magma is somewhat of a waste of cages when you can just use a pit zone instead of a garbage dump to drop the creature within the cage and not the cage, though that does risk letting the creature escape.

You could use a retracting bridge for your defense and link it to a lever instead of a pressure plate. Make several retracting bridges in a row to make it easier to catch a significant part of the enemy force. Also note that some, very large enemies will prevent bridges from retracting beneath them or lowering on top of them.

[lleu]

Well, I found out what didn't work. The rampaging troll just smashed through my hastily-constructed wall, and then joined a giant cave swallow in killing all my dwarves. Guess I should have set more than one trap down there. Oh, well.

[Kay12]

Wait, what? I thought trolls couldn't smash through walls.

I have a giant myself, I think I'll place it in a zoo.

[AutomataKittay]

Wait, what? I thought trolls couldn't smash through walls.

I have a giant myself, I think I'll place it in a zoo.

Sounds like the walls wasn't completed. Building destroyers can ruin incomplete constructions.

[nanomage]

Well, I'm relatively new to DF and I found some caverns. After fighting off a troll, I placed a few traps in the way. The troll killed my only trained fighter, and I had to mob it with my miners to kill it.  I ended up capturing another troll in a cage trap. I want to know if I can move the troll without releasing it, and somehow make it useful. What could I do?

Trolls can be pitted or pastured or recaged by regular dwarves okay, they do not try to escape unless something else interrupts the job.

[Farmerbob]

Well, I would do the drawbridge but that's boring. Would floor connected to a retracting bridge collapse? That way, I would have a semi-repeatable disposal method. The cage is wood, but how would I be able to get hostiles to go on the bridge for later use? The only way I see is making it the only path into my fortress, and have a pressure plate at the far end to drop all but one of the invaders. Decided against the arena to prevent a possible fortress-destroying rampage.

I wrote up a way to make a rebuildable suspended floor trap a few days ago - will try to find it and post a link here.

Meh, will just repost it, not link it.

Process which seems to work for consistency - and which will also allow you to rebuild the exact same way after collapsing the trap.

Step 1: Create hallway

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Step 2: Channel down all the tiles - I left the slopes at the edges of the excavation so dwarves could climb out, then built a tunnel later - could have just as easily built tunnel first, then removed all the upward slopes.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Step 3: Build all of the floors that you want to collapse, as well as one floor at each end for your dwarves to build off of, and for them to build a support on at the end.  I used grey stone for the main platform, and dark blue for the two end tiles that will end up being supports.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Step 4: Build the bridges and the supports.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Step 5: Deconstruct the built floors under the supports - you no longer need them.  Use the d -> n command.  If you don't deconstruct the floors under the supports, the trap won't work at all

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Your dwarves will happily cross back and forth across this platform with the bridges down

Your dwarves will not travel across the platform with the bridges up, because supports are impassable terrain, and there's no floor under them anyway

If a building destroyer destroys the bridges and support at one end of the platform, big deal - send out some marksdwarves, or set up ballistas.

You can build cages, traps, and chains for animals on the constructed floors as well.

After the initial excavation, the entire building process can be done without entering the hole - and it doesn't care which side you start building from, unlike bridges.  The 4 small bridges shown will not be destroyed in a collapse, even if they are extended - however when rebuilding the platform make sure to raise the bridges or the dwarves will make a hash of the building process and drop a lot of rocks and require lots of re-designations of construction.

*NOTE* This will have no useful value against flying critters

[lleu]

Yeah, the wall wasn't completed yet. Shoulda mentioned that, I guess. Will making the fall longer beneath the trap make it much more effective, or would be better off just adding spikes? I'm thinking about having the only exit for the pit be a drawbride that raises to close off all exits, and having fortifications so my markdwarves can use them for practice. What type of weapon trap is most likely to maim people? I don't want them to be able to shoot back.

[Saiko Kila]

Your dwarves will not travel across the platform with the bridges up, because supports are impassable terrain, and there's no floor under them anyway

Nice trap, one small note though - supports are passable, as long as there is floor under them. Which quality can be used in narrow (one tile wide) cave-in traps. And in current DF version supports (and bridges) are not attacked by destroyers.

[lleu]

Could I make more of these on either side of a path if I leash an animal on the other side? That should make them go on out after it, if I read the wiki right.

[Farmerbob]

Yeah, the wall wasn't completed yet. Shoulda mentioned that, I guess. Will making the fall longer beneath the trap make it much more effective, or would be better off just adding spikes? I'm thinking about having the only exit for the pit be a drawbride that raises to close off all exits, and having fortifications so my markdwarves can use them for practice. What type of weapon trap is most likely to maim people? I don't want them to be able to shoot back.

If you want them to survive and be targets, 1 Z-level.

If you want them to explode into component parts - 10-12 z-levels.

Something inbetween, experiment

If you want targets that can't shoot back, use cage traps, then remove the equipment from the enemy, then release them in a controlled manner.