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[TheOnlySolitaire]

I found pitting single wild mandrills, coatis, koalas works.

Are coatis really safe to pit? I had one of those things walk into my fort and singlehandedly take all seven of my dwarves out. One of your kids was able to survive with one of those monsters?

Is his name Pi or something?

haha I really should watch that film...

Well, I knew it was risky, i started out with the standard tame bird thing, but took the birds out once I got a bit frustrated with the speed of the skill gain, which is when I checked my animal stockpile and had 5 mandrills. One of the kids died in its fight, but the others somehow won, after that I think I tried some softer wild animals to get a bit more levelling, then started testing the larger animals. I didnt think the coati would be anywhere near as bad as a bobcat or a lynx, but they all survived that.
I think the wild turkeys and koala buffers after the mandrills helped toughen up the kids...

2 have 7 kills so far, one has 8.
they are all expert or higher in fighter, 2 are novice strikers, and 2 are talented and one is adept at wrestling. The other skills are dabbling. They're getting armor user from wearing clothing - which was news to me...

[Kadzar]

I just want to see if the attribute decay can be mitigated with "fake" social interaction.
(Amusingly, if you don't mind the prospect of modding and also of course, if this works, it would be a good use for elven caravan members. Just mod them to not need food or water, drop them on some cage traps, install them in the mist chamber and link them to a lever-- fortification slit them in, open the cage by remote. All set. Elves being immortal would solve many problems.)

Perhaps goblins, then?

[Lielac]

I just want to see if the attribute decay can be mitigated with "fake" social interaction.
(Amusingly, if you don't mind the prospect of modding and also of course, if this works, it would be a good use for elven caravan members. Just mod them to not need food or water, drop them on some cage traps, install them in the mist chamber and link them to a lever-- fortification slit them in, open the cage by remote. All set. Elves being immortal would solve many problems.)

Perhaps goblins, then?

No, those are hostile, the kid would starve to death because of terror.

... I think.

[wierd]

If the goblin prisoner is on a chain, then the kid should not respond with terror, right?
Then the question is if the child will simply see them as furniture, or if the will actually converse with said prisoner.

Wow.. goblin daycare attendants... that's getting kinda dark.

[Gwen]

haha I really should watch that film...

Well, I knew it was risky, i started out with the standard tame bird thing, but took the birds out once I got a bit frustrated with the speed of the skill gain, which is when I checked my animal stockpile and had 5 mandrills. One of the kids died in its fight, but the others somehow won, after that I think I tried some softer wild animals to get a bit more levelling, then started testing the larger animals. I didnt think the coati would be anywhere near as bad as a bobcat or a lynx, but they all survived that.
I think the wild turkeys and koala buffers after the mandrills helped toughen up the kids...

2 have 7 kills so far, one has 8.
they are all expert or higher in fighter, 2 are novice strikers, and 2 are talented and one is adept at wrestling. The other skills are dabbling. They're getting armor user from wearing clothing - which was news to me...

Well the elves have been really good about bringing me fun new toys to play with. I have a pair of giant mosquitoes, a jaguar, a lion, and a tiger. (oh my! I need a beer bear)
If I had a lake I could totally do a life of pi thing. Of course there is that volcano...

Anyway, cloth clothing is considered armor and will still 'block' damage, so it makes sense that they get some armor user out of it. If you could persuade them to wear leather armor as clothing, that would be interesting. What you'd have to forbid all clothing except leather armor (which I think civilians can equip as if it were regular clothing?) Unless someone knows better, it calls for science.

Who knows of a good way to remove dwarf clothing? Removing children's clothing is of particular interest.

Also, with the socialization problem, would it be possible just to place the cell in the middle of the dining hall? If we rig it so the child can't dodge through the fortifications, it might be possible to have some real socialization rather than fake.

[wierd]

No, we WANT fake, because it completely prevents friendships.

You don't want your super soldiers to have friendships, because then they induce tantrum spirals when they eventually die during a siege.

With fake socialization, they would keep mental attributes useful to weapon training in the barracks, without getting a nasty friendship.

A possible bonus to using a goblin over a tame sentient is that they will *never* become the mayor.

[Di]

You're exaggerating, one dead friend won't cause serious impact on turkey-hardened killing machine. And elves or anyone else from trading caravan won't do because regardless of their need of feeding traders go mad when they're usnable to fulfil their karmic duty of selling things.

[wierd]

I was responding to the notion of installation in the dining hall. Super soldier child would be exposed to many dwarves, not just one.  Each exposure adds interaction points that contribute to developing a friendship.

The elven problem with madness is definately a problem. I will test with a goblin and a hack-spawned plump helmet man, and compare.  If a chained goblin is an acceptable substitute, then its game on.

[Putnam]

I know dfhack can spawn items, but can it spawn entities too? That would make this considerably easier in regard to obtaining some plump helmet men for the test protocol.

1. You want units; entities are civilizations and nothing else.

2. yeah. You might want to use warmist's version that I forked from there or the r3 version I have if you're using r3.

[TheOnlySolitaire]

So the theory is, adding in chained goblin prisoners, will give the children FAKE social interaction, thus preventing their mental attributes from decaying while the 'training' progresses?

Being that they cannot talk to the goblin, does that mean that they don't need to actually SPEAK to anyone, they just need to see they're not alone?

I've been separating my chambers with windows, so the children can see each other, and the doctor stationed in the hospital the other side of the entrance to the chambers can see them... would that work? I'm just setting up my second science fort to expand on my wild animal theory, I'm wondering whether to build daycare attendants into the design....

I agree with Wierd, this already macabre subject gets just a little darker, and a little more poetic, when you put child snatchers as daycare attendants.

[wierd]

I havent tested goblins as daycare attendants yet.  I KNOW that plump helmet men talk with dwarves, because plump helmet men develop social skill gains from idling in the meeting and dining halls.  I do NOT know if chained goblins talk with dwarves. If they do, then they are perfect, since they dont eat or drink, and are immortal. I dont know if being put on a chain makes creatures unable to socialize or not. That is why I intent to simultaneously test both a goblin attendant in one cell, and a plump helmet man in another.

[zombat]

By Armok's beard! This is finally bearing results???

[TheOnlySolitaire]

By Armok's beard! This is finally bearing results???

I don't know about results - I only had 4 test subjects, and only 3 passed. I'm doing more tests now, just waiting on bloody children to arrive - the one time you actually want kids in a fort. I am having trouble because I'm testing evil weather too, so it's impacting immigrants etc.

But the early tests show promise, its simply a case of repeating those results, and then making it as low maintenance as possible to give the whole project a point.

I want to experiment with both methods simultaneously too, as together they should really work wonders - one supporting the other, and allowing the child to go from strength to strength, rather than the risky gauntlet my method has them running at the moment...

[Drewigi]

You are all horrible people

[Durthane]

You are all horrible people

Aye, truly terrible homo sapiens. But exemplary examples of dwarfdom. Furthering the cause of !!Science!! and creating abominations against the gods... Or creating exactly what the gods want depending on your particular heavenly affiliations.