Magma will surely fix it, but if Magma isn't easily available...
1) Build a support next to the cage...
Magma-safe cage. Hell, fire demon safe cage. That's what I was trapping for, just thought I'd grab a few FB when I was done.
The support's a good idea of how to do it without dwarven deaths, if that's what I decide. Curious though, don't boiling liquids rise? I think the miner would probably get hit with the syndrome.
Make it into an execution gas chamber. You said it takes too long to kick in for a siege, so don't rely on it during siege time. Build lots of cage traps and once the siege is over, shove the prisoners into the gas chamber. Uh... you may want to find some way to clear teh corpses so you don't end up with endless miasma killing fps. Is that cage magma-proof?
That is a good idea... Right now, I'm kind of short on prisoners, because I don't really like cage traps but I like experimentation. It's true that it's too much of a pain to disarm and kill prisoners, and this would serve that purpose nicely.... Of course, magma would work fine for that too. Yeah, I could clean the area with magma, cage is adam. Would need a hell of a pump stack, but that's on the eventual to-do list anyways.
why must you move the cage? just dig all around were it's left, place stairs which lead to the surface from there, and then wall everything in aroudn the cage, remember to leave a "door" so enemies will path through it. (make the door really far, and BEFORE it, place a couple floodgates, so building destroyers will destroy those andn ot the door.
Then wait for enemies to path through that opening into a gassy chamber of doom.
That's a good point. It'd leave the cage level awfully inelegant-looking, but I'm in the process of rebuilding everything anyways-- I could rebuild that whole level into a labyrinth, to get some time for the syndrome to work. It'd be a very long-term project....
I think the way to do it would be one of those one-way hatches on the dwarven side, close to the cage, over a channel with a civs-trigger pressure plate-- that ought to keep dwarves from pathing through the cage area, unless what they're pathing to is directly in the FB's smoke. Then, during siege, it's just close one entrance, open the other....
NOTE: Water covering only prevents contaminants sticking in a dwarf's inventory, they may receive some temporary syndrome effects. Better make that two decon ditches.
Actually, one of the interesting parts of the boiling secretions is that they don't leave any contaminants-- it must adhere for half a frame, cause the syndrome, then boil away.
you want a "save" cheaty way to set up the trap? turn tempreture off. that should stop the secret from boiling.
and the the gas-champer: how far does the gas move? an easy layout would be:
Actually, temperature IS off. Makes me wonder if I should turn it on and see what happens....
The gas flows sometimes 1 square away from cage (so 3x3 square, or cube?) and sometimes 2 squares away (5x5). I'm not sure if it would still kill at 2 squares away. That is a good layout for a gas chamber, but I think the range is too far, and it would involve a lot of deaths
One thing I could consider is that since the cage doesn't even need to be built, I could actually just drop it onto a fortification and it could exist in the same space. But the fortification isn't necessary except in case of gremlins anyways.
Think I'll do a little experimentation with temperature and goblin mortality. Thanks for all the thoughts!