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[Morgraine, Dwarf Overlord]

1: do catapult do anything more then destroy stone? ive shot maybe 200+ stones at a large grouping of still standing goblins, and even with a high catapult quality and a good operator the only damage ive caused is a bruised spleen. (which apparently he recognised to mean he could have alchohal anymore, and decided he to end it all)
2: what causes the goblins to seige you besides population, is there somthing that increases the frequency at which goblins attack? such as created wealth. (the rate at which goblins attack has become quite obnoxious.)
3: what can i edit to stop the goblins from attacking me, without completly killing off the goblins(such as killing them via not being able to eat food.) allowing me to stop assaults for long enough for me to get situated.
4: is the danger room system really a good way to train soldiers? and what should my danger room consist of? i have a basic idea of a armor stand, door, then upright spear trap made of 1 wooden training spear, but is the danger caused by these rooms high enough for me to have a nearby doctor to constantly so that i dont lose any of the dwarfs? (i tried it once before with a non wooden spear, and it killed my steel/iron plated dwarf with 1 pull of the lever.)
5: it seems weapons like hammers tend to do less lethal damage, but more accumulative damage, such as bruising or braking something, aside from the dwarves pretrained weapon skills, or preferences, what weapon can i make in abundance to be a quick and clean killer?

[rhesusmacabre]

1: Catapults are good for training, mostly.
2: Wealth is a factor, yes.
3: The d_init.txt file lets you turn off invasions.
4: Never used them.
5: Axes are best against goblins.

[Garath]

a danger room is this

its a big enough room for a soldier, or a group of soldiers to walk into (I had some problems with them hanging around but never getting in)

i holds upright spike traps

the spike traps are filled with training spears
training spears dont do worse damage than a bruise, but they do learn dodge, shield, armor, and well, anything that way

link all the traps to a single leve outside the room and put it on repeat pull, close all doors leading to the room: instant training, no escape

the more training spears, the faster the learning

do Not leave this in a save or otherwise unattended. your legendary shield user +5, legendary fighter +5, grand master hammer dwarf, grand master dodger, WILL die of starvation if not let out

[Morgraine, Dwarf Overlord]

ooh axes, very dwarfie. thanks for the help, still looking for suggestions/info on danger rooms, or maybe ill just start a cave for goblin hunting to train soldiers, itd still be easier to make a danger room it seems, im going to go look into the d_init.txt file to see where to turn off invasions so i can set it like that as soon as my current seige ends.
btw: while digging out my new civilian rooms, i noticed that a dwarf will dig a few blocks out, then run to the exit but stop halfway or so, and then come back and dig some more of the stone, and do this repeatedly, each time he was to the exit he shows as : no job. Anyway to prevent/stop this?

[ZeroSumHappiness]

For your danger room the dwarves training must have full coverage equipment, including cloaks/robes to protect all the little face bits and gloves and boots for the fingers and toes.

[Morgraine, Dwarf Overlord]

For your danger room the dwarves training must have full coverage equipment, including cloaks/robes to protect all the little face bits and gloves and boots for the fingers and toes.

would a helmet gauntlet and boots solve this problem? or do they have to have cloaks and robes under their armour

[Garath]

the worst the can get is bruises or small injuries. even leather or cloth would protect suffieciently. I accidentally had a pet locked in with a crew of 3 trainees, and it survived and healed completely fine

only completely uncovered things get any low-serious damage from training spears..... they are designed for non lethal damage

[Poindexterity]

a good mix of weapons is best.
they all have their advantages.

[Starver]

Spoiler: A few random answers (click to show/hide)

• Porthmadoc
• e^iп
• Ray Cuney
• 254BC, according to some experts
• Hydrogen

However, more on topic I'm just pointing out that the doors aren't just useful for keeping the trainers in the Danger Room, but in keeping pets and other vulnerable dwarfs out.  And, in particular, don't allow any nursing mothers in the military to train there until their babies have become children and can be kept out in their own right.


Your running-around miner sounds like one which really wants to go and eat or drink, but then decides not to and returns for a bit more digging.  Sometimes symptomatic of using burrows without food/drink stations in them, but I've an idea that you'd get cancel messages in those events, I.  Have you locked him in, in lieu of a burrow-restriction?  Check their health for hunger and thirst (and sleepiness, nearly forgot needing to go to bed, although they will lie down on the floor when they need to that and can't get to a suitable bed) and sort that out.

If it's not that, is the next minable spot accessible immediately upon completing the previous one?  A multi-miner effort can sometimes mean there's no access to a new mining spot when completing a current tile, they wander around with no job for a moment and then head back when the partner reveals the next.  But that's not likely to be such a recurring performance, either.  I still think it's a need to consume, prevented and he decides he might as well get back to digging for a few more tiles before succumbing to another moment of abandonment.

[Loud Whispers]

1. Think of catapults as a Bart Simpson sling shot, and you'll do fine.

2. Wealth, exports and goblins reporting wealth are big factors, I find the most dangerous time is when your fortress transitions from clinging on for dear life to uber death star, as at this point your fortress cannot deal with large amounts of hostiles, and ambushes tend to wait for that one dwarf... Before beelining.

3. You can turn off invasions in the raws, somewhere, can't quite remember (never had to turn them off xD)

4. Danger rooms work well.

Too well, so as a general rule of thumb, avoid them if you want an honest fort, or nerf them in some way (like making them incredibly deadly).

5. Weapons all have advantages and disadvantages, Battle axes are the best at hacking apart titans and megabeasts, spears are great on creatures with vulnerable organs, swords great against opponents armed to the beard, and hammers great against small humanoids [and armoured one's].

[Morgraine, Dwarf Overlord]

3. You can turn off invasions in the raws, somewhere, can't quite remember (never had to turn them off xD)

Well its just getting bothersome, i had goblins retreat after most of them getting killed or they just got bored, either way, before they were even off the map another message " A vile force of darkness has appeared!" popped up, and i could only respond with a -_-.

[Loud Whispers]

3. You can turn off invasions in the raws, somewhere, can't quite remember (never had to turn them off xD)

Well its just getting bothersome, i had goblins retreat after most of them getting killed or they just got bored, either way, before they were even off the map another message " A vile force of darkness has appeared!" popped up, and i could only respond with a -_-.

Spoiler: I respond with an....... (click to show/hide)

[Garath]

danger room design. I dont have all the right keys so using my own legend and it looks a bit weird, but basically:
X = wall
O = door
L = lever
S = upright spear/spike trap

    L
XOXXXXX
XSSSSSX
XSSSSSX
XSSSSSX
XSSSSSX
XSSSSSX
XXXXXXX

it needs a lot of spears (wooden training!) to fully load all the traps, and a lot of mechanisms to link them all to the lever (q, a, S, then pick the trap), but its worth it. And yes, it's considered cheating, even for DF standards for FUN.

[i2amroy]

Not if you do something to nerd its potential. I personally connect them to a pressure plate in front of my dining room, which drastically slows the rate of training down.

Also to reiterate what was stated in the "exploit list plz" thread that appeared recently, there is no such thing as an "exploit" or "cheating" unless it is specifically stated as a bug by Toady. Sure some things like danger rooms and cave-in traps are certainly very powerful tools, and if you use them then it could be viewed as "easy-mode DF". Where as harder things, such as embarking in more difficult biomes, not starting with a pick, not using traps, are simply ways to turn up the difficulty level. If you get your kicks by danger-room training your dwarves and hiding behind a wall of traps so powerful not even the clowns can breach it, then more power to you. If on the other hand, you prefer to embark with nothing and no skills and force your dwarves to survive till the first caravan by building wooden axes out of the wagon to cut trees to make shelter, then that is also fine. It's a single-player game, and therefore there is no real definition of "cheating" other than what you or the game creator makes it to be.

[Morgraine, Dwarf Overlord]

cheating or not, im fairly new to the game, maybe 2 weeks of experience, so until i can hold my own without traps and dangerous and etc, i think ill keep my drawbridge and field of cage traps, thank you.