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Total Members Voted: 227

[Necromunger]

When i was first starting in Dwarf Fortress i thought that Danger Rooms were unrealistic.

Now i see them as more reasonable and less of an exploit because they are in real life.

If you have seen the movie Kung Fu Panda 1 and seen the training room and rooms similar to that in real life IT IS A DANGER ROOM!

But just because it is in real life does not make it balanced in the game, so what does everyone think?

[Zahariel]

I think, as they stand, the basic idea is ok. HOWEVER, they should not be nearly as effective as they currently are, and they should involve more actual danger if you choose to use them. It makes no sense that just standing around in the danger room is hundreds of times more efficient than actual training, while posing absolutely no threat (except to children, oops  ). Currently though, dwarves need to succeed more often in setting up sparring sessions for non-danger-room training to become effective. Having a dwarf stand around for months at a time because her chosen sparring partner is getting a drink is not really workable, especially if everyone else in her squad also stands around pointlessly waiting to watch the sparring demonstration rather than actually sparring themselves.

[EveryZig]

Danger rooms train too fast.
The only thing I want to use one for is to train a modded bronze colossus to be a legendary fighter, somehow get it to pick up an addy weapon, and unleash it on sieges and/or clowns while laughing.

Maybe they would be balanced if you used less training spears or something.

[Newbunkle]

Yep. They're a great feature.

[tommy521]

If they trained things like dodging quite quickly and sword skills a bit slower then they would be alright. How they train now is just... scary.

[King DZA]

Never used one. I don't have anything against them, if someone likes the idea than go for it. I Just prefer to have my dwarves trained in a barracks/real combat because of the more gritty sense of realism it gives:

A recruit who spends the year training under the watchful eye of the hardened veteran, who has seen more mutilated corpses in a single season than most dwarves will in a lifetime, is being sent out to defend against a massive siege, his first real battle. The only combat he's ever had before now has been with his sparring partner, and he has no idea what to expect, or if he will make it back alive. Under the leadership of the veteran, they run to their station, and prepare for the onslaught.

Just seems more fun to me than:

grab some armor, then stay in this room until you become a demigod.

[malroth]

Far from ideal but still better than the alternative where skill rust sets in and drops the skill faster than full time training raises it.

[Boost One]

Dwarf Fortress should not be easy.

There are some great inventions out there, like danger rooms, that make the game way easier than it should be... I feel that if you've invented some awesome device yourself that grinds goblins into powder or stores all your furniture on one tile, go ahead and use it. You've earned it.

But if you're just taking it off the web, you're not playing DF, really. You're not thinking! A full danger-roomed military destroys everything, but it's no fun. "Losing is fun!" actually means something, people! Them danger-room players don't know what they're missing.

The OP mentions danger rooms in real life, but I imagine that if they existed, it would not substitute for actual training, merely supplement it. It would still take years of practice in the room AND sparring AND practice to become a competent fighter - not one season.

[DisgruntledPeasant]

At first I thought that yes, its a great invention and its not exactly unrealistic  (I imagine training in a room where poles fire out of the walls at you would sharpen up your reflexes),  but the speed is just... staggering.

I currently have a fort where the entire population is in the military on a rota,   I built a danger room since training is very slow when soldiers also need to train civi skills,  and now the entire fort are legendary dodgers, shield users, the works.  Didnt take any time at all. 

You could easily say 'dont like em, dont use em'  but the I would rather them just be made into a feature,   give them an actual sense of danger-  so if you plan on using them you better have a doctor ready (could double as a doctor training tool!)  and tone down the training speed so you dont end up with an entire fort of legendary ninja warriors.

[drilltooth]

I've yet to actually try one, but I intend to in the near future, if only to see how it compares funwise to using the barracks as the terminus of a pit shaft.

[set]

Danger rooms with 10 training spears per tile make uber-dorfs in no time.


We need to research the spears/skill gain/time ratio. So if you think it's an exploit-cheat, you can make a danger room with fewer spears so you can feel better about it.

[Lordraymond]

I only used it to train my legendary "Three Dwarfsketeers" (Name pending) squad, other than that I don't even give most of my recruits higher than basic armor and training to balance it out.

At least it feels DWORFier than a fifty-tile long hallway of cage traps.

[acetech09]

What do you mean by 'legitimate'?

I think they are perfectly legitimate in terms of in-game mechanics. A dorf gets xp every time he blocks a spear. He blocks spears a lot, he gets a lot of xp.

I also believe that they are horribly unrealistic compared to RL training techniques. Put a soldier in a room with a stationary training dummy that pops out every 5 seconds and tell him to shoot the dummy every time it pops out, you'll get a excellent pop-out dummy shooter, but throw him in a battlefield and he'll be crap.

I think that blocking/whatnot should vary depending on source. i.e. A dwarf would benefit from a spear trap - he'd get used to how to hold the shield so he can best absorb the blow. But absorbing blows for 15 days shouldn't make him be able to then wield that shield in a swordfight perfectly. After 5 days of training shield posture with a training spear, he should stop getting xp from that source.

[Shinotsa]

I used one in one fortress and never will again. It simply broke what's supposed to be a difficult game, morphing it into something a four year old could play. I've never played fortress defense or any other mods, so I can't speak on those, but vanilla just wasn't fun to me when I wasn't constantly on edge. Granted my current fortress was torn apart by war grizzlies, war giant eagles, and 6 ambushing waves of elves. The next wave of migrants saw only a fevered cripple laying down on a cliff overlooking the valley where my fledgling fortress once was, crying and screaming in pain and sorrow in between bouts of unconsciousness.

Just wall yourself in instead of using a danger room. With a decent tree farm you get the same effect without breaking whatever narrative you're developing. Granted this is all my opinion, to each his or her own. This game wouldn't be nearly as popular if there wasn't so much freedom in how to accomplish both necessary (food/water booze) and hugely unnecessary (read: dwarfy) goals.

[Girlinhat]

Danger rooms work better when the timing is adjusted.  Levers work FAST.  Like, really fast.  A water repeater can be set up to trigger however often you want, as little as once a day if you desire.  1 spear at 1/12th the speed is a lot more managable than 10 at max speed.  A little engineering can ensure things to work exactly as you intend.

Or just do a ballista danger room, aim several ballistae to fire into your barracks.