Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Yes

125 (55.1%)

No

102 (44.9%)

Total Members Voted: 227

[Kofthefens]

I added a pit next to my danger room... Every so often, they dodge into it, and have to walk/crawl back up. This effectively slows danger room training, plus the height of the pit can be modified to put the danger in danger room.The length of the walk back can provide a way to control the speed. Overall, this solves many of the problems so far said about danger rooms.

[Loud Whispers]

I added a pit next to my danger room... Every so often, they dodge into it, and have to walk/crawl back up. This effectively slows danger room training, plus the height of the pit can be modified to put the danger in danger room.The length of the walk back can provide a way to control the speed. Overall, this solves many of the problems so far said about danger rooms.

So you've turned it into simulated combat? !!GENIUS!!
*edit, put weapon traps at the bottom, TRULY simulated combat.

[Tryble]

I like the concept, dislike the extreme training acceleration it has.  Voted no.

It'd would be neat to be able to set up specific training types...danger rooms for dodging/blocking, practice dummies for weapon/fighting, and sparring for a general improvement in everything.  As long as they had reasonable skill improvements.

[Kofthefens]

I added a pit next to my danger room... Every so often, they dodge into it, and have to walk/crawl back up. This effectively slows danger room training, plus the height of the pit can be modified to put the danger in danger room.The length of the walk back can provide a way to control the speed. Overall, this solves many of the problems so far said about danger rooms.

So you've turned it into simulated combat? !!GENIUS!!
*edit, put weapon traps at the bottom, TRULY simulated combat.

I just thought: What do dwarfs do in combat?
They jump off random cliffs of course.

[Andal]

I'd like to think that dwarven spear traps are dynamic objects that jab a spear out of any possible spot on the wall to train your reflexes, but their capable rate of fire and how they only take up one tile of space suggests to me that they are as simple as spikes poking out of predictable holes on the ground.

Of course, bronze colossi, dragons, and forgotten beasts of gigantic proportions also occupy only one tile of space. I am sure if an eldritch monstrosity from the depths of time can fit, so can a semi-complex feat of dorf engineering.

More on point, I have used a danger room in the past, especially for megaconstruction/specific goal forts, instead of simply turning off invasions. But I much prefer trial by fire training, for the narrative opportunities and the attrition. Not to mention the true satisfaction of a traditionally trained dorf hitting legendary in combat skills.

[cikulisu]

the real problem is that vanilla training is so slow, imo. skill rust basically ensures that even dwarves training 24/7 basically never improve. hell, i've had warriors under a trained teacher go 3+ years and be competent swordsdwarves. it's ridiculous. if training was boosted a bit, the necessity of a danger room would basically disappear.

[Halnoth]

Until training is fixed danger rooms are going to be used. People in this thread keep talking about how realistic or unrealistic danger rooms are well...

Training itself is pretty unrealistic how it currently is designed.

Modern armies (even mideval armies) all eat, sleep, and train at the same time (per regiment, squad, company, or w/e obviously). They also focus on a skill or several at the same time during training. If the player was able to set military schedule right down to when the squad ate and slept as well as when and what kind of training was going on then it would be much more effective and realistic. (think drill sergeant and bootcamp)

As it is now it takes much too long and is not very effective to train dwarves up. When I don't use danger rooms and focus on the military I usually embark with 3 military dwarves and start training right off the wagon. I then set up 3 squads of 3 with the first migrant waves. To get a decent military in time for the first goblins you have to plan ahead and devote significant time to it. Still, even after all that the wrong bug or the wrong dwarves can mess up the whole thing. Often dwarves just stand around waiting for demos. So, if my fort's focus is not military and I just want one for general defense I use danger rooms so I can devote time to something else.

[King DZA]

To be entirely honest, I don't have my dwarves train expecting them to become significantly better, that's what live combat is for. I basically have them train as a way of saying "there's nothing trying to kill us at the moment, do this to keep yourselves occupied so your skills don't begin to rust". That way, even when not in the heat of battle, they are still gaining at least some experience, and I have most of them ready for action when they actually are needed.

Does it make it harder to get a decent military force going? Hell yes. But goddamn does it make for some good stories, and that's why I prefer it. Nothing beats watching a dwarf start off as a lowly recruit, only to someday grow into the greatest warrior you've ever seen through bloodshed and hardship.

Also, I only ever draft dwarves with existing military skills.

[Kylarus]

Modern armies (even mideval armies) all eat, sleep, and train at the same time (per regiment, squad, company, or w/e obviously). They also focus on a skill or several at the same time during training. If the player was able to set military schedule right down to when the squad ate and slept as well as when and what kind of training was going on then it would be much more effective and realistic. (think drill sergeant and bootcamp)

I now need to mod in DI hats for my dorf squad leaders.

Also, I voted yes on danger rooms. I like them as starting points for a squad, training up one dorf to be legendary and use him to teach the rest of his squad. I have done, and still do, use them to train numerous forces in my fortress but like to do it in stages. A squad will train up dodging first, then armor user, then shield, then a weapon. Stages at a time, then put them in a live weapon room to see how well they learned. I usually keep an expendable set of squads around, milling around outside my fortress to take on and battle local fauna and ambushes, but reserve my trained force for interior defense. The idea is sound, even if it does train rather quickly.

The fix I'd like to see first is that the ability to appoint a drill master or instructor to lead training and ensure it is effective.

[EveryZig]

I added a pit next to my danger room... Every so often, they dodge into it, and have to walk/crawl back up. This effectively slows danger room training, plus the height of the pit can be modified to put the danger in danger room.The length of the walk back can provide a way to control the speed. Overall, this solves many of the problems so far said about danger rooms.

I generally dislike danger rooms, but I really like this idea. It slows down the process and more importantly introduces diminishing returns to balance things (mid to high level dodgers would gain much less experience than novices due to dodging into the pits more often).
Hmm, if I included 3/7 water in the pits, I could have this also serve as swimming lessons...
If I make the 'trapped' walkway go around the edge of a square pool and had the spears triggered by pressure plates the other recruits walk on, it would be Dwarven Monopoly.

[TerryDactyl]

IRL, A training dummy or a punching bag is a useful complement to a martial training program. There are things you can do with a dummy you do not want to do to your sparring partner. Like pulling his arms off, or exploring your full range of force. However, dodging a punching bag gets boring very quickly. Less so if somebody nearby is controlling the speed and angle of said device. But all that is useless without being able to look someone in the eye.

I haven't tried out danger rooms. The concept is off-putting to me. But I have commenced beating prisoners [to death] for the sake of surviving a few years of fortress defense.

[Lagslayer]

The water would have to be at least 4/7 to train swimming. Still love the idea, though. Perhaps it could be combined with a retracting bridge (or raising bridge if you are sadistic) meeting area to train up your civilians as well, and your doctors would get a lot of practice.

[Iton Ibrukrithzam]

I make good use of danger rooms, because they make the occasional goblin ambush go by easy, but don't do much to the real threats like forgotten beasts, tantrum spirals and surviving nobles.  Some people might say I'm cheating myself out of some fun, but if I lose a fort to enemies and I know I didn't do everything I could have done to win, I already feel cheated.  No, when I want it harder, I start looking for terrifying glaciers on embark.

Also, danger rooms contributed heavily to one of my favorite narrative happenings thus far.  It was summer of the first year in a new fort, and some zombies killed one of my dwarves.  A small tantrum storm ensued, during which a miner went berserk and started hacking the feet off of several of his fellow dwarves.  The hospital wasn't ready yet(I scrambled to build it as this happened), and the various one-footed dwarves never received treatment or crutches for their injuries, the stumps healing over naturally.  They continued to hobble around the fort, and despite one of them being close friends with the chief medical dwarf, they never got crutches.  Finally, I got a plan.  I finished my danger room, and formed a squad called The Bewildered Crypts, made up entirely of crippled dwarves.  Season after season they entered the danger room, no weapons, no armor, just cloaks(I couldn't figure out how to get them to drop the cloaks).  I had been hoping to get them some broken thumbs and have them go to the hospital, where they might finally get crutches, but it never worked.  Eventually, though, they became so strong, so agile, so tireless, that they seemed to function almost at normal capacity.  Reforged in the fires their brethren set, these sons and daughters of Armok lived again.

[darkflagrance]

I'm quite surprised that the votes-in-favor are so high. I thought more people would have a spirit of affected judgmentalism regarding single-player practices.

[Lagslayer]

I'm quite surprised that the votes-in-favor are so high. I thought more people would have a spirit of affected judgmentalism regarding single-player practices.

Mine is to not use traps unless I'm doing some !!science!! or a megaproject. Turning off temperature and sieges all together is cheating.