Bay 12 Games Forum

That is troubling...if there's no physical link then the idea is dead in the water and I have been misinformed by the most holy of fonts of knowledge..the wiki. This is a travesty.

I get the feeling that if I manage a way to systematically break their legs and nothing more the plan is going to have to be so overly elaborate that the point of the exercise is lost in a long drawn out process consisting mostly of sadomasochism 

Sadly kingubu has the best screen shot were likely to get. After extensive testing and several yaks (a quick pocket embark with the nessecary items) the bridge retracting still seems to catapult who ever is standing on it in the same was a raised drawbridge does. I'm not sure why the chain isn't holding but the bridge seems to punt them out one before dropping them or out diagonally as they fall taking them more then one tile away from the chain.

I was unable to get a straight drop to see if it was the push messing things up or the chain simply doesn't hold the poor buggers in place to begin with. I spose walling the whole way around the drop zone would force the victim to fall directly down. I'll have to try that in future. Most disappointingly of all the fall was the only thing that seemed to break bones. The chain didn't seem to have an effect.

In other news I tested how long it would take for a raw recruit to train up with a plank on a goblin in a copper cap in arena. This was all before the chain fiasco, if I get this to work your not likely to see massive returns. The xp drops off fairly fast as the dwarf skills up. He begins busting the pinata open too quickly even with his stick. With a stock pile close at hand and small ambush worth of goblins you can probably boost a dwarf to adept in short order. Your mileage may vary depending on locally available wood and just how well armoured you goblin is, I kept it minimal for a point of reference.

Its looking more and more like a busted idea, but ill persevere with it over the coming days as I feel like it and see if I can't get a workable method. The goal is a system to get the most out your goblins while taking the risk out of it. Then again with a surplus of goblins the time saved by mass pitting may just make this a moot point

Getting the weapons of them is easy, hide the cage tile in the stock pile with d-b-h, go through your z stock list of weapons and designate all the hidden weapons as dump items then unhide the cage tile with d-b-H, that should strip them of the weapons and the weapons only.

Minecart pinata...wow I thought I was sick. Will it tear their legs off or will it simply tenderize them? Veal all round

Sounds like a bug if they don't try and dodge the stone. Unless the dodges from dropping creatures are coming from the creatures themselves attacking?

Like in the same way a charging unit strikes something before it collides with the target;

Urist McMilitia charges goblin
Urist McMilitia strikes goblin with hammer
Urist McMilitia collides with goblin

I see that sort of thing in the combat log all the time. Is it possible that the falling creature is getting an attack off between entering the same zlevel and the impact being resolved causing the intended target to dodge?

I recently asked a similiar question, namely could you influence the quality of the migration waves through world gen. Your migration waves are drawn from the world population present in the world after generation.

Without knowing what setting you used both times its hard to say what caused it. But a few factors could be;

-World gen time, the longer a world is set to generate the more skilled dwarfs will be around. Too short and none of them will have time to rank up. dwarfs live for about 150 years
-Civilization size, a civ with only a single mountainhome will have a much smaller pool to draw from meaning less immigrants
-Wealth, not world gen related but as you said massive amounts of wealth influence the size of migrations to a degree

Those are only general statements, especially because the longer the world spins in generation the more varied the results will be with the same parameters so results could vary wildy. Plus even if you saved, got a wave and then reloaded and tried again (assuming the wave of migrants is chosen as the wave spawns) you could still get vastly different skill set because of the randomness of the draft.

There's a weighting element mentioned on the wiki that's apparently a quote from Toady so the immigrants will try to fill your skill gaps. Not sure just how bias those weighting are. Its quite possible to hit a Pop cap of 200 and the only miners you've got are the two you started with and there's still not a metal smith in sight despite having 4 master cheesemakers, a high master potash maker and the legendary +2 beekeeper. Better to embark with the skills you simply must have and start training all the other ones you want very early

Yea attributes increase from skill level ups, hauling has no skill attached therefore no skill increase and no attribute points.

A strong/agile dwarf will haul heavier objects faster but Urist McScrawnyClutz won't get any better unless you send his ass to the gym.

So as an idea if you manage to work out everyones positions, removing a few of your dedicated haulers and putting them on full time air pumping duties would give them a stat buff then you could just cycle through them a few at a time. Probably a waste of time seen as wheel barrows/mine carts are probably just as fast.  Too bad pumps don't increase agility too

Yea I did read up on the older version of world gen but I wasn't sure how much of it still applied. No idea how much those values are tweaked. The DF2012 article is non-existent.

So the theoretical magical number would lay somewhere between 125 and 250. Anything past that would be purely chance based. Much earlier and the second generation of dwarfs wouldn't have had time to skill up and a large number of the first generation would be tied up in various official positions (subject to population sizes of course) and not eligible to migrate.

By the time the third and fourth generations come around there should be a good mix in the pool and anything past that it becomes total guess work as wars develop, artifacts are made and the RNG kicks into high gear as the population explodes.

Well at least that's how I see it working in a general sense. !!SCIENCE!! could be done I spose but the results wouldn't really be all that beneficial. And there's more productive tasks at the moment; breaking, weaponizing and general dwarf shinnenigans with minecarts are the order of the day.

Thanks for the help