Bay 12 Games Forum

Starver, it was the first "If" paragraph that I was kinda going for, hence the RENAME tags, which I admit could be significantly broader than the few examples I gave, the lifting of famine is an interesting thought though: who earns that name change? is it the hardest working and most productive farmer/hunter/butcher/cook? or a trader from the hillocks with a wagon full of plump helmets? or does a noble take all the credit because nobles are nobles and they like to pretend they're useful? could be a tough one to code since there are so many ways a famine might end and so many people involved, not to mention famines in worldgen probably won't happen until farming is overhauled and sites actually start producing and using goods, and that one probably won't happen till the economy is a thing. An equivalent in the same category that would more likely function in the game as it is now would likely be something like "Hamletsaviour", "Fortressfounder", or "Spellsage" after mythgen happens.

The thought does occur to me now, however, that maybe percentage chances aren't the way to go, maybe there should be more of a level of significance variable that can be set instead, to avoid Urist McDragonslayer suddenly deciding "nah my name Chef", but then maybe have that level of significance degrade over the generations so Urist McDragonslayer's great x 10 grandson who actively avoids conflict and has trained to become a legendary+5 cook, with monarchs of multiple civilisations from across the world coming to the fortress just to try his ☼roc liver roast☼ just might decide to change his surname from McDragonslayer to Chef

...Why the heck does raw hair have the [ITEMS_HARD] tag?

The way I see it given that there are absolutely zero AM ramifications, either it was a typo and it was supposed to be soft, or it was so it wouldn't be considered fleshy for the purposes of rotting, or Toady got really into his research again and found out that hooves, nails, and horns are all made of hair scratch that I just checked the raws, hooves are a material, horns are considered hooves, and nails have their own material too, it's either a typo, a "this is not flesh" body part tag, or its purpose is beyond mortal understanding

In the fort I had just before I updated to 44.07 I had so many, such utterly useless artefacts that I ended up making the museum of tat, where I put it all. There were  things that I have later learned were actually quite good but didn't see the point of at the time, like artefact mechanisms, things that were pretty but ultimately no better than low quality objects of the same type, like a solid gemstone barrel (green tourmaline I think, very popular among engravers, decorators, and artefact makers, often depicted containing sheep milk), things that were functionally fine game-wise but logically made no sense, like a green glass mini-forge, but mostly there were artefact crafts and unremarkable objects that just consumed useful resources. Possibly the worst offender was a steel studded wooden bucket, not only because it was a pointless consumption of steel, but specifically because this fortress had no access to iron, and it's flux stone layer was the magma sea, so that stuff had to be imported from the mountainhome, where I can only assume they summon it forth from deep within their beards as they also had no iron.

Here's a thought: with the magic-ification of artefacts being a possibility, maybe golems could be a form of artefact? Maybe any strange mood that could usually create an artefact statue could potentially, world gen permitting, create a golem instead.

... if you have a whole bunch of them, and they get injured, they will fight back and they will web vs a goblin invasion.  It's neat to see but difficult to set up.

I have quite a few defending the entrance to my fortress, they do get injured, but mostly by archers so it's possibly that they never get in range.

I think your problems with trained GCS stem from using chains instead of 1x1 pastures...

I have yet to chain a GCS at all, as stated previously, I think if a trained GCS does normally web an invader my problem is range

...

Some unusual results there for the military bait if you were using a wild GCS, was the bait skilled in combat? I found that GCSs tended to flee from my militia and wouldn't web unless forced into a fight, but my militia were all elites and judging by how they tended to hunt my civvies now and then I imagine the fleeing was a result of the skill level or strength, that being said they were perfectly willing to hunt my weaver who was quite a good striker (thanks troglodytes) somehow capable of 1v1ing anything in the first cavern layer barring forgotten beasts, using only his fists, and because he was a civvie the GCS wouldn't web him and he got away without a scratch, so maybe they're scared specifically of elite miltitadwarves? Alternatively, if it was a fresh unskilled conscript, I am bamboozle, that's supposed to be how to silk farm, but I made a 1 z level trained GCS silk farm that the wiki says shouldn't be possible, and you have a setup that the wiki says should work fine with a military dwarf but you have to use a zombie. Just how out of date is the wiki page on silk farming?

I have now performed all 5 tests on goblins, tests 1-4 all resulted in webbing, test 5 resulted in a horrifying venom-based execution from 34 simultaneous GCS bites, no webs and no mercy.

Bonus info learned from extra testing: 1)Trained GCS will not web wild animals, nor sentient creatures listed as wild animals such as cavern trolls and gorlaks, and 2) the trained GCS will web even when it cannot path to the bait, they can fire through fortifications, and they don't keep it pinned in place with the web either, meaning your prisoner needn't die if it's just caught by another cage trap as it tries to leave the room.

So it seems, a trained GCS will not web anything except unrestrained released prisoners, whether this is exclusive to goblins or not I haven't tested yet, if someone else wants to test on beak dogs, siege trolls, or elves, feel free to do so, but the mission of Bronzevipers is complete and I'm gonna go teach my dwarves all about pillaging.

Made a forum account just for this post, cause it seems important.

Until just now it was my understanding that a trained Giant Cave Spider doesn't shoot webs at hostiles, that's what the wiki says and I'm only playing my second proper fortress, so I pretty much rely on the wiki for everything, so I'm gonna go ahead and assume my GCS based execution chamber filling literally every tile with silk the first time I used it is unusual, I'll go over what I did in as much detail as possible, to the point where it's probably unnecessary, because I am but a Dabbling Fortress Builder and Not Scientist, though I do plan on posting on this thread again for my next test(s), where I'll try removing certain steps to find out which ones are and aren't necessary. Also I am currently using 0.44.05, I've not updated yet cause I'm waiting for the inevitable fall of the fortress, I'm surprised I've even lasted this long.

So, first possible important detail: The 5 GCSs are pastured in a 7x7 room, at the end of a 20 tile long, 1 tile wide hallway completely filled with cage traps on a subterranean soil layer 3 z-levels from the surface, this room was initially a precaution to prevent a GCS from reverting to wild and eating my fortress' entire population, later used as a mating room to build up my trained GCS numbers just cause it was already made and not being used for much else now that my trainers are somewhat competent, and following my most recent goblin siege I decided I was going to feed the prisoners to the GCSs cause my military is already pretty well trained and pitting them against 2 goblins and 2 beak dogs seemed like more effort than it was worth, and also I thought it would be mildly amusing, their cages were built 1 tile's distance diagonally away from the 4 corners of the room, inside the pasture, beak dogs on the bottom, goblin hammerman on the top left, goblin spearman top right.
Possibly related detail #2: I caught the goblins on a different IRL day to building the cages and releasing them via lever, I hope that didn't have any effect on things but it's a possibility.
3rd possible relevant detail: I forgot to unforbid the goblins' equipment before designating dumping, they still had arms and armour when put in with the GCSs (didn't help them at all, and the helms probably boosted web production), and I am aware that during sieges any trained GCS will not web invaders, but maybe they react differently when there isn't an ongoing siege?
Next year's siege I'll do as many tests as my military will allow me to gather subjects for, hopefully providing me with at least 1 beak dog and 1 troll for testing on intelligence levels, and I might try to get an elf or two, I'm not at war with them (yet) but they are an important test subject for this; their unique relationship with wildlife could mean that the hippies are even more useless than I thought they are an unsuitable medium for generating silk.
Priority of tests will be as follows:

1)Test if exiting the game/turning off computer is necessary
2)Test if subject needs to be in GCS pasture
3)Test if subject must be armed during procedure
4)Test if subject must be armoured during procedure
5)Test if subject may be restrained

After the first 4 tests I should be able to determine what exactly caused the GCSs to shoot webs when usually they wouldn't, unless of course all tests turn out to prove their potentially relevant detail to actually be irrelevant.

Bonus: If tests 2 gives results that allow for it, use of fortifications could mean only one subject is needed, or perhaps for greater efficiency, one subject per GCS, however in order to actually collect the webs a marksdwarf may be needed to clear the area before any doors are unlocked, though info from test 5 may make this less of an issue

I had 3 other theories on this: that the GCSs being descended from male and female Hist Fig GCSs that I captured had some effect on things, that the GCSs being pregnant was somehow relevant, or that they are young enough to have not had to receive training yet did something, all of which were debunked when I checked the combat logs, as luck would have it I had unintentionally included control groups, there is a single male present and one of the females has recently been caught from the wild and thus was neither untrained nor a Hist Fig or descendent of, that meant if any of these were true, one of the GCSs would have no "the giant cave spider shoots out thick strands of webbing" in it's combat log, but all GCSs shot webs.

Anyone willing to test this out in 0.44.06 please do, I'm going to be converting the fortress of Bronzevipers into a GCS lab for the next 1-5 years depending on how many goblins my military kills before they have the chance to get caged per siege, so I won't be updating anytime soon. Also if anyone comes up with results before me please share, even if it is that you were able to replicate the results under the exact same conditions, it's at least proof that my game hasn't bugged out or something.

I've saved a screenshot of the silky room (been mostly harvested cause I accidentally left the game running before thinking to take the screenshot) while showing that the GCSs are tame with v (and also a potter busy harvesting silk), and I also got a screenshot of the combat log showing a goblin being webbed then bitten and repeatedly shaken around, will post as evidence if someone tells me how, I don't really know how to forum