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[Vicid]

Wont a switch that only the child can use be the best way to get them in?  Imo the child should be put in before making any friends.

[Girlinhat]

Children ignore switches and burrows.  They will only naturally deconstruct walls, pick plants from the field sometimes, and haul items sometimes.  They also almost entirely ignore regular burrows.  Assigning them a bedroom seems to be the best way to get them into a room.

Also, we KNOW that friends are bad.  We've discussed that through about half the thread.

[Vicid]

I see. Maybe the best solution would be to isolate the preg mother.

[JoshBrickstien]

I see. Maybe the best solution would be to isolate the preg mother.

No, we want children, not infants. Plus, there's no way to know if a given dwarf is pregnant anyhow.

[Oliolli]

If they isolated the mother carrying a nearly-child baby?

Also, I would like to have some sort of confirmation for the loss of Spartan One's good memory. Ya know, pictures as proof.

If it were impossible to bring any type of proof, I would believe you. Due to the possibility of proof though, I am feeling skeptical.

[MarcAFK]

I'm not sure this is the kind of thing that someone would make up, But i am very surprised that something like that can actually change.

[Broseph Stalin]

I'm not sure this is the kind of thing that someone would make up, But i am very surprised that something like that can actually change.

Well good memory refers to an attribute, I can't remember if attributes degrade but if they can it makes sense.

[SlimyMarmot]

Possible permanent damage to a child's psyche and mental capacity? No matter the desired long-term results, this experiment is already a grand success.

[Endiqua]

Actually, I'm fairly certain I've traumatized her. Looking at her bio, she no longer has "a good memory." I've never seen the soul attributes change, so this is an exciting new discovery for me. I can only assume she is doing her best to block the last quarter of her life from her mind.

Holy shit.  There is no emoticon for what I am feeling.  Awe, horror, and pity...now THAT'S DF.

[monk12]

Also, I would like to have some sort of confirmation for the loss of Spartan One's good memory. Ya know, pictures as proof.

Spoiler: Pics or it didn't happen (click to show/hide)

Compare/contrast with the shot I took when she was first introduced to the Chamber- the white personality traits bit didn't change apart from "getting used to tragedy." In fact, I just checked the "one year later" shot and she still had a good memory then- this change is recent. That shot was taken in late summer, and my game is currently saved at mid-winter. I can't think of anything that happened in the last few months that might inspire the change directly- this may be proof that sustained misery can erode memory. Like I said, I've never seen the soul attributes change, but then again I've never bothered to look closely. It's something to monitor as the tests go on- I'm interested to see whether positive change can be stimulated, and whether her memory will continue to decline.

Yes, children with lots of friends are unsuitable for the project (as my near-catastrophic tantrum spiral demonstrated.) As mentioned, the only reason Spartan One was chosen was because she had already had a mood- I wanted to be able to get some concrete data without being interrupted by artifact making. AFAIK, babies don't make friends, so once I go full-scale introducing children to the chamber as soon as they can walk would be ideal.

Build an empty room.  Place a bed in the room, and designate a bedroom over the whole room.  Fill 1/2 of the room with amazing statues.  Add a wall to make a solid room of statues.  Turn the other 1/2 of the room into the training cage.  The bedroom designation will still remain, encompassing every statue and making the room value extremely high, allowing them to sleep in a royal bedroom that's 1x1 wide.

Doors set to "internal" and "locked" replacing one wall can work as well.  Instead of a wall, just have one of these doors, and the room designation will be able to ignore the door, while the dwarf cannot pass through it.  With this, you can have some great platinum chain covering the floor outside the cage that's considered part of the cage's bedroom.

I've noticed that statues act as walls when designating bedrooms.



Notice how the room does NOT encompass the engraved walls on the right wall- that wall is all statues. Presumably the engraved floor beneath those statues still counts. I have not tried the designation trick, but I'll give that a go while I wait for the chambers to be engraved- at this point, I'm not too concerned about room quality, as AFAIK there isn't a quality level higher than Royal.

The advantage of a table/throne in the Chamber is that it gives happy thoughts for "dining in a Legendary dining room" and avoids the "complained of lack of chairs/tables" thought- you can see from Spartan One's current mood that she is displeased with the lack. I'll test whether giving her Royal dining room/tomb/statue garden/etc increases Spartan One's happiness even though she cannot access it- if results are favorable, I'll build a set of suites for each test Chamber.

The door trick is a good idea, and I may have to incorporate it if I run out of Masterworks to furnish the Chamber with. I am leery about taking that route because if the subject does tantrum, they might destroy the door and containment will be lost. Whether the preventative benefits outweigh the risk remains to be seen.

[Girlinhat]

Statues prevent designations, but they do not remove designations.  If you designate a room, THEN lay the statues, the room remains and includes all the statues.

[Dynastia]

A small suggestion for the confinement rooms, if you can spare the space.

Build cisterns above the cells and sewer corridors running under them. In each cell, place a lever-operated hatch cover in one corner, naturally this hatch should be made out of very valuable material, masterwork, encrusted and etc. Directly under each hatch cover should be an upwards ramp, and directly to the side (or sides) of the ramp should be a wall grate or floor grate which connects to a drainage pipe (directly to the caverns or an aquifer level if you happen to be above them, edge-of-map drainage will drain too slowly to avoid mishaps). To the ramped tile, build sealed access tunnels which you can open at your discretion.

Periodically open the hatch and dump the cistern to wash all rotting corpses and test subjects into the 1x1 ramp, making sure to avoid doing this during tantrums (you wouldn't want the test subject breaking up your grates and escaping). Close the hatch after the test subject and a majority of animals climb back into the cell, then send your hauling dwarfs to cart away the dead animals and re-pit and/or reassign any live ones (don't forget to check if the food stockpiles got washed away and need restocking). With this system, if a surfeit of aggressive animals begins to cause sleep-deprivation it can be whittled down, miasma-producing "accidents" can be disposed of, and as an added bonus the primary subject should also receive valuable swimming lessons from this process.

I'd also suggest that the feeding/pitting access have a shaft at least 10z high, designed so that food and test animals may be pitted in from the level directly above the pits, while prisoners, livestock and etc. may be regularly pitted from the highest level into any cell you feel hasn't seen quite enough horrifying deaths. Expendable friends of the test subjects should also take the high drop, at carefully spaced intervals. The occasional live wild animal (the size of, perhaps, a fox or badger) could also be pitted via the short drop, to allow the test subject a more prolonged training session in biting, kicking and striking skills)

And finally, I have to find some directions to this "baptism by fire" concept so I can try it out. It would strike me as being wiser to burn the supersoldiers first, since I'm guessing it's a shorter and more dangerous process, before investing 12 years and countless turkeys, fort resources and hours of personal oversight into their upbringing in the conditioning cells.

[Broseph Stalin]

A small suggestion for the confinement rooms, if you can spare the space.

Build cisterns above the cells and sewer corridors running under them. In each cell, place a lever-operated hatch cover in one corner, naturally this hatch should be made out of very valuable material, masterwork, encrusted and etc. Directly under each hatch cover should be an upwards ramp, and directly to the side (or sides) of the ramp should be a wall grate or floor grate which connects to a drainage pipe (directly to the caverns or an aquifer level if you happen to be above them, edge-of-map drainage will drain too slowly to avoid mishaps). To the ramped tile, build sealed access tunnels which you can open at your discretion.

Periodically open the hatch and dump the cistern to wash all rotting corpses and test subjects into the 1x1 ramp, making sure to avoid doing this during tantrums (you wouldn't want the test subject breaking up your grates and escaping). Close the hatch after the test subject and a majority of animals climb back into the cell, then send your hauling dwarfs to cart away the dead animals and re-pit and/or reassign any live ones (don't forget to check if the food stockpiles got washed away and need restocking). With this system, if a surfeit of aggressive animals begins to cause sleep-deprivation it can be whittled down, miasma-producing "accidents" can be disposed of, and as an added bonus the primary subject should also receive valuable swimming lessons from this process.

I'd also suggest that the feeding/pitting access have a shaft at least 10z high, designed so that food and test animals may be pitted in from the level directly above the pits, while prisoners, livestock and etc. may be regularly pitted from the highest level into any cell you feel hasn't seen quite enough horrifying deaths. Expendable friends of the test subjects should also take the high drop, at carefully spaced intervals. The occasional live wild animal (the size of, perhaps, a fox or badger) could also be pitted via the short drop, to allow the test subject a more prolonged training session in biting, kicking and striking skills)

And finally, I have to find some directions to this "baptism by fire" concept so I can try it out. It would strike me as being wiser to burn the supersoldiers first, since I'm guessing it's a shorter and more dangerous process, before investing 12 years and countless turkeys, fort resources and hours of personal oversight into their upbringing in the conditioning cells.

This guy gets it, the problem with the child torture dungeon is that they weren't set on fire first.

[Frogwarrior]

You could get fresh children into the rooms by:
When a baby is born, record its birthdate (possibly a custom profession title).
When the baby is almost 1 year old, use an assigned lever to lure the mother into a waiting room with a lockable door.
As soon as the baby becomes a child, activate the lever again to give the mother a job and designate a construction to be removed in the containment room.
Lock the door to the containment room when the child is inside, then let the mother back out.

Whaddya think?

[monk12]

Spoiler: Status, 1st Granite 315 (click to show/hide)

Spartan One is, once again, very weak. The lack of constant attacks has allowed the subject to lapse into decadence. In a proper Chamber, this should not happen, but thus far all I've managed to do is give the subject dabbling combat skills and erode her memory.

Spartan One is also on her last masterwork roast- rather than restock the defunct Chamber, I've elected to release Spartan One pending the completion of the new Chamber. Work on that Chamber remains slow, due to FB extract flare-ups and goblin ambushes cutting into our workforce. I've treated the wounded, I know the state of our military- we are losing this war. Hopefully some new migrants will arrive to bolster our forces.