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[Casp]

They shall be my finest warriors, these Dwarves who give of themselves to me.
Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them.
They will be of iron will and steely muscle.
In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest axes will they be armed.
They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them.
They will have tactics, strategies and magma so that no foe can best them in battle.
They are my bulwark against the terror.
They are the defenders of Dwarfhood.
They are my Dwarf Marines...
...and they shall know no fear.

So, starting a new fortress after a rather lengthy hiatus, and I want expert opinions on the viability of my planned 'Dwarven Super Soldier Project'. In short? I was going to shove a squad full of whatever dwarves I could find with combat skills in a room with weapons, shields and armor. I would supply them with a well and some uncooked plump helmets, and give them all orders to train ceaselessly. I would lock the door and put several traps in front of it. I figure any dwarf that comes out of that alive and sane is going to be a stone cold killer.

Well? Will it work?

[Gilihad]

So it would be like an inefficient danger room?

Honestly, if you were going to do a similar idea, you might as well just do a danger room.

[Casp]

So it would be like an inefficient danger room?

Honestly, if you were going to do a similar idea, you might as well just do a danger room.

Efficiency? IN MAH DWARF FORTRESS?

But seriously, I do no expect many of them to come out alive or sane. I am doing this purely for shits and giggles. I just want to know if it has some practical value.

[acetech09]

Choose 10 dorfs that all have unbelievably strong, amazingly agile, basically unbreakable, and absolutely inexhaustible. (You might have to edit the raws for that).

Masterwork cotton candy armor, masterwork weapons.

Engineer a syndrome that causes complete numbness and rots skin off.

Train them to legendary in danger room.


But why put all of your resources into one dwarf? Just make tons of sets of cheap armor and draft all your untrained migrants into your army.

EDIT: I've done something like that in the past, edited the raws to get insta-legendary in all skills and insta-perfect in all attributes... didn't do the syndrome. But even with a full set of masterwork iron armor and weapons, I haven't been able to hurt a single one of them, no matter how many squads of goblins I throw at them.

[Reelyanoob]

What you're after is called a "Danger Room" and has been well researched. It's on the wiki. What I put in bold is of utmost importance.

Build a tiny room filled with spear traps. Put 10 wooden training spears in each trap. It's important that you use those types of spear.

Link traps to a lever, order another dwarf to repeat pull the lever.

Throw fully armoured / armed dwarfs into the room while the traps are cycling. If they're not fully armoured they will get a wooden spear jammed through something like their brain, and die.

They will train in dodge, fighter, armour, and the weapon they hold, based on how they deal with each spear attack.

...

EDIT Look, why not have them train as a squad, while in a danger room as described. Give them training weapons btw, or adamantine hammers.

And also, periodically flood the chamber to train swimming.

[Casp]

Seriously, I know what a danger room is. I'm trying to find an alternative. It's not a danger room, I am sending these guys in to die. The entire principle is based off of the idea that they will probably all die. If they're lucky maybe one stone cold badass will come out.

I'm not doing this for efficiency, I'm doing it for !!SCIENCE!!

[Broseph Stalin]

Training is a waste of time, I've had four squads on perma train for about 4 years and only have a handful of competent militiamen. If you don't want an old fashioned danger room just put them in an arena indefinitely. Let them live day by day never knowing what horrible beast you're going to throw down there with them.

[Broseph Stalin]

Seriously, I know what a danger room is. I'm trying to find an alternative. It's not a danger room, I am sending these guys in to die. The entire principle is based off of the idea that they will probably all die. If they're lucky maybe one stone cold badass will come out.

I'm not doing this for efficiency, I'm doing it for !!SCIENCE!!

The problem is the practicality of training for making someone a badass. You need to get them in real fights, be it with wooden spears or wild animals. If your feeling adventurous I don't think anyone's successfully made dwarves immune to pain and fire in a way they ultimately survived.

[Casp]

Seriously, I know what a danger room is. I'm trying to find an alternative. It's not a danger room, I am sending these guys in to die. The entire principle is based off of the idea that they will probably all die. If they're lucky maybe one stone cold badass will come out.

I'm not doing this for efficiency, I'm doing it for !!SCIENCE!!

The problem is the practicality of training for making someone a badass. You need to get them in real fights, be it with wooden spears or wild animals. If your feeling adventurous I don't think anyone's successfully made dwarves immune to pain and fire in a way they ultimately survived.

Yeah, the training isn't the main aspect. I've designed it to be a complete hell hole. In my experience, training accomplishes nothing but making dwarves really pissed. The training, water, and bad food is designed to make them go batshit and kill each other.

[Broseph Stalin]

Yeah, the training isn't the main aspect. I've designed it to be a complete hell hole. In my experience, training accomplishes nothing but making dwarves really pissed. The training, water, and bad food is designed to make them go batshit and kill each other.

Ooooh! It's not a training program it's a murder-pit! We thought you were talking about training them like some elf, having them murder each other out of impotent rage is a great idea. Make the guy who survives your commander.

[Reelyanoob]

Hey if you want to hav some fun, try out an idea I had a while ago. A training/danger room for goblins. Nothing says playing with fire more than trying to train up super-goblins.

[Casp]

Yeah, the training isn't the main aspect. I've designed it to be a complete hell hole. In my experience, training accomplishes nothing but making dwarves really pissed. The training, water, and bad food is designed to make them go batshit and kill each other.

Ooooh! It's not a training program it's a murder-pit! We thought you were talking about training them like some elf, having them murder each other out of impotent rage is a great idea. Make the guy who survives your commander.

Yes, thank you! Someone gets it!

[zilpin]

Sounds like a weak plan from a sissy human brain.

You want Dwarven Super Soldiers?
Assign them 20 pets.  Then send them to the danger room to see them all die.
Then build a bed in the middle of the danger room, assign it to their best friend the naked soap maker to be impaled right in front of them, leaving the body to rot.
...then send their spouse, if they were so foolish to fall in love.
...then their children, if any somehow managed to survive birth.

The many who go berserk will only act as additional training for those who stay sane useful, fueling their rage at a cruel world, filling their hearts with the vicious power of Armok where once some dreg of compassion stirred.

That's how you train these Slaves to Armok into Dwarven Super Soldiers.
With Blood.

[Dynastia]

The training aspect has no new !!SCIENCE!! to discover. The Danger Room needs no alternatives, it is the pinnacle of dwarven training. The supersoldier project, however, has several other aspects requiring some !!SCIENCE!!

The goals I would suggest to you are...

1. Psychological Hardening
-------------------------
Determine an optimal method of exposing your supersoldiers to excessive death and tragedy without destroying their sanity. This method should ideally be as safe as possible, as fast as possible, and as cost-efficient as possible, in both fortress resources and personal oversight. Your method of locking multiple dwarves in a room and inciting them to murder each other hinges on the breaking of their psyches, which is not a desirable outcome. Unpredictable supersoldiers are a liability to any fort, not an asset.

2. Social Retardation
-------------------------
Determine a method of stunting all social skills and making your supersoldiers extremely unlikely to form new attachments ; this is not for their own benefit, as the ideal supersoldier will not so much as blink when watching their spouse cut down in front of them. This is for the benefit of the soft squishy workforce of your fortress, who may make the mistake of fraternising with the supersoldiers and become upset to hear of battlefield casualties. I would suggest you investigate the effects of total isolation during the Psychological Hardening program, and the carefully timed termination of all existing friends, pets and relatives of this dwarf. It should be determined whether or not it is possible to socially retard a dwarf so severely that no amount of communal eating and socialising will result in him forming new friendships. The ultimate goal is to determine a program which will allow supersoldiers and workers to mingle freely with no risk of bonds being formed, again with emphasis on safety, speed and cost-efficiency.

3. Physical Alterations
-------------------------
Skinless dwarves feel less (no?) pain, while fatless dwarves are fireproof. A repeatable system of removing the fat and skin should be investigated. This process is likely to have high risk of death, which you should endeavor to reduce as much as is possible, as well as cutting down on the fortress resources and personal oversight of the program.

[Casp]

The training aspect has no new !!SCIENCE!! to discover. The Danger Room needs no alternatives, it is the pinnacle of dwarven training. The supersoldier project, however, has several other aspects requiring some !!SCIENCE!!

The goals I would suggest to you are...

1. Psychological Hardening
-------------------------
Determine an optimal method of exposing your supersoldiers to excessive death and tragedy without destroying their sanity. This method should ideally be as safe as possible, as fast as possible, and as cost-efficient as possible, in both fortress resources and personal oversight. Your method of locking multiple dwarves in a room and inciting them to murder each other hinges on the breaking of their psyches, which is not a desirable outcome. Unpredictable supersoldiers are a liability to any fort, not an asset.

2. Social Retardation
-------------------------
Determine a method of stunting all social skills and making your supersoldiers extremely unlikely to form new attachments ; this is not for their own benefit, as the ideal supersoldier will not so much as blink when watching their spouse cut down in front of them. This is for the benefit of the soft squishy workforce of your fortress, who may make the mistake of fraternising with the supersoldiers and become upset to hear of battlefield casualties. I would suggest you investigate the effects of total isolation during the Psychological Hardening program, and the carefully timed termination of all existing friends, pets and relatives of this dwarf. It should be determined whether or not it is possible to socially retard a dwarf so severely that no amount of communal eating and socialising will result in him forming new friendships. The ultimate goal is to determine a program which will allow supersoldiers and workers to mingle freely with no risk of bonds being formed, again with emphasis on safety, speed and cost-efficiency.

3. Physical Alterations
-------------------------
Skinless dwarves feel less (no?) pain, while fatless dwarves are fireproof. A repeatable system of removing the fat and skin should be investigated. This process is likely to have high risk of death, which you should endeavor to reduce as much as is possible, as well as cutting down on the fortress resources and personal oversight of the program.

By my life or death, if these things are possible, I will not rest until I may discover them. No matter how many fortresses fall, I will attain this knowledge from Armok's great bowl of wisdom. I, and all my dwarves henceforth, pledge ourselves to discovering this, forevermore.

So yeah, time to start madly sacrificing dwarves.