Bay 12 Games Forum

I think to roughly get what you want you can replace the [BENIGN] tag with [LARGE_PREDATOR], and then adjust the BODY_SIZE tokens to be bigger.  I think that carp used to be bigger relative to dwarves, but I'm not sure, because as you noted the tags have changed a lot since then.  The biggest difference is that they are now There is no "damage" directly assigned to creature attacks - the damage depends on the material of the bodypart used, and the size of the bodypart and creature.  If you want to get more accurate, you could give the carp teeth, and make their attack use the tooth body part instead of mouth.  You could look at hippos for an example.  Actually, if you want something close to the deadliness of the old carp without much work, just copy the whole raws from Hippos to carp, and then replace the [BENIGN] tag with [LARGE_PREDATOR], and then your dwarves will learn to fear the water...

I am not an expert in modding, so I don't know how (or even if it is possible) to exactly reproduce the carp of old.  As I said, my understanding is that they were larger, and were aggressive.  Based on the raws, it also looks like they attacked using teeth (which they no longer have), but i'm not sure.  In other words, they were the aquatic equivalent of elephants, which I why I suggest you just copy hippos (and make them aggressive) if you want a quick simple change.

Also, I am not 100% sure that [LARGE_PREDATOR] will give them the proper level of aggressiveness (if anything it may make them too aggressive) - you might just need to remove [BENIGN].  But I think it should make them attack like wolves (which also have [LARGE_PREDATOR]), which sounds like what you want.

I've never had bones decay in a refuse stockpile. In Bastiongate I kept FB bones in the refuse stockpile for ~20 years before they were used in moods.

If the wiki is to be believed, decay of bones is caused by vermin, so if you have efficient cats it may not happen.  Typically my bones last a long time (certainly more than the few months I observed this time), but eventually decay, usually right before a dwarf moods and wants them.  There are some hooves in the same refuse pile that did not decay yet, and I suspect those use the same mechanism.  What makes me believe that the minecart may preserve all refuse is that I also have vermin remains, cartilage, hair, etc in there, and none of that has decayed either, while everything except 1 hoof decayed on the floor.  I think bone decay is somewhat random (possibly related to vermin), and mine in the stockpile decayed unusually quickly this time, but having all those other things that typically decay fast also preserved in the minecart suggests the bones may be preserved as well.

If it works, I think it is because they are in a container, but not in a refuse stockpile.  In other words the same mechanism that allows food in barrels to last forever.  Since this doesn't seem to be well known, I will try to do some more controlled experiments to verify if this really works and how well.

Also, the same is true for hunting as for fishing.  Although not quite as maniacally devoted to hunting as fishing, hunters won't do much else if you let them hunt.

This story would have been much more !FUN! in the days of !CARP!.

On a separate note, is it possible to attach spinning blades to such axles, and spin them like a propeller? And kill the evil Nazi Goblin Wrestler's indiana Jones style?

This is pretty much what you get if you build a weapon trap and put in a serrated disk.  It is quite effective, although apparently can jam rather often due to the large number of severed body parts produced.

While your butchers might be getting some mildly negative thoughts from seeing dead crundles, etc, the real problem is them seeing dead sentient creatures (goblins, elves, etc).  Move your piles for dead invaders somewhere that none of your dwarves will ever see them (i.e. in a deep pit), or better yet destroy the invader corpses (smash them with a bridge, throw them in magma, etc).

Your butchers should quickly get used to seeing dead animals, and then will just spam a lot of "Urist felt nothing when seeing a crundle die".  Also, even if they are getting negative thoughts from dead animals, it should be relatively mild, as I said above.  The negative thoughts from seeing dead goblins seem to now be about as bad as seeing dead dwarves, which is quite severe.  I'm not sure if this is a bug or intentional, but the bottom line is you need to get rid of those invader corpses.

Also, the "watching a X die" thought occurs any time a dwarf sees a dead body.  It doesn't matter how long the creature has been dead, and I believe they can get the thought from the same corpse multiple times, although I'm not sure about that part.

I don't have a solution, but does anyone know if a bug report has been created for this?  Dumping used to be a top priority task that was completed almost immediately (unless I'm crazy - wouldn't be the first time...) before the overhaul of the job assignment system, and now it seems to have very low priority under the new system.  I suspect that this is probably unintentional, and even if for some reason that's not true, its incredibly annoying.

Not any easier than burrowing,  but I think if you disable hauling on some of your haulers (or otherwise make sure that a dwarf has nothing to do) then they will dump stuff right away.  This might be better than burrowing as it avoids job inaccessible spam.  But I'm also not 100% sure it works, as its possible hauling enabled is required for dumping, but I don't think so.  It definitely works to have no other jobs which need to be done, but that's certainly not practical.

If it is safe to pen/pasture said creatures (probably not true) that seems to have a very high priority, so you could have them put in a pasture in the incinerator. 

I also am intrigued - since you need dumping, I assume the creatures are already in cages.  What creature is dangerous when in a cage?  Or is that something that's too much of a spoiler for the forums?  Usually when something dies in a cage its corpse remains in the cage, and is completely harmless (no rotting or miasma).

Quote from: Pirate Bob on June 08, 2015, 11:53:24 am

Are you sure the dwarf was actually wearing the iron helm?  I am pretty sure iron should block all punches, although I am not certain how strong a legendary puncher would be.

...

But I'm 100% sure helm doesn't block all punches, unless the target is unconscious.
...

The reason the helm blocks all punches when the target is unconscious is that then the AI targets ONLY the head.  At other times there is a chance of it targeting facial features, which are not covered by helms.  However, Dwarf Fortress also doesn't allow for a very strong punch to the eye, for examples, to also damage the skull, as it doesn't currently model facial features as being located on top of the skull.

In other words, for the dwarf to have his skull caved in, as you reported, the AI would have to have scored a hit which targeted the head through his iron helm.  I do not believe this is possible, and will try to test it if I have time.  For now, I maintain that you are mistaken in your report.  I do believe that your dwarf died from being punched, (maybe in the throat for example?), but not to the head while wearing a helm.  It is also possible that he had dropped his *Iron Helm*, and was on the way to pick up a better quality one when he got interrupted for punishment...

Edit:
OK, so I tested it, and it does seem to be possible.  I am quite confused by this, as even bolts with their tiny contact area and very large momentum can nearly be blocked by iron helms (if you mod them to be just a little slower).  I assumed that dwarven fists must have a much larger contact area than bolts, and in many years of playing adventure mode I could swear I've never seen a punch penetrate iron armor.  However, I placed a modded dwarf with maxed out strength and size in the arena, and gave him grand master fighter and striker, and indeed he did explode a regular dwarf's head right through an iron helm with one heavy punch.  I guess grossly underestimated just how lethal a year or so of training makes a dwarf  .

Also, FYI, even a steel helm doesn't seem to be enough to stop the punch of a dwarf with 4500 strength.  The head doesn't explode in one hit, but the skull is still bruised.  After 4 hits, "the injured part collapses".  I also found that a normal dwarf with grandmaster striker/fighter could do damage through an iron helm, although again much less.

Here's the relevant modding of the dwarf:
[PHYS_ATT_RANGE:STRENGTH:4500:4500:4500:4500:4500:4500:4500]              +
...
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:HEIGHT:125:125:125:125:125:125:125]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:500]
[BODY_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:BROADNESS:125:125:125:125:125:125:125]
[APP_MOD_IMPORTANCE:500]

I believe these are the maximum possible size and strength for a dwarf, if you take a dwarf starting with the highest possible base strength (2250) and train them to max.  In other words, its quite likely that steel helms will be enough for anything you are likely to create in game.  Certainly for goblins, as they don't benefit from dwarven training.  That being said, the throat is not protected by any plate armor, and having it collapsed by a punch is...bad.

I did also confirm that attacks from normal dwarves with dabbling skills will be stopped by iron armor, which agrees with my experience from adventure mode.

TL:DR - don't assume your dwarves armor will protect them from justice punishments.  Either don't assign anyone to be hammerer or captain of the guard, or assign pansies with wooden/candy crossbows/hammers.