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[Kaos]

I have two entry points into my fort:
1) a long corridor with pig watch towers that check all transit passing bellow them, I had goblin child snatchers and kobold thieves pass through their watchful piggy eyes without being spotted...
2) a series of 1 tile wide back door maintenance tunnels that I use to allow my dwarves out to gather stuff and build new sections of my outer wall, here I've been ambushed by human necromancers, I had cases where I spot one of the necros right in front of my dwarf, I have the dwarf kill the necro, and the corpse gets raised by another necro that is in the same 1 tile corridor, just a few steps away from several dwarves that are killing the corpse, and even necros right next to dwarves or on the same tile...
Even worse one of the necros seem to have exited the tunnels into a herd of war dogs and still made it through to my corpse stockpile...


so what gives!!?? I thought that no ambusher could avoid be spotted if it passed in the tile right next to a creature and much less on the same tile...

[knutor]

1)Could LOS be the problem?  I know I cannot shoot critters just down, outside a murder hole.  And are you subtracting the range, correctly.  Isn't shooting/viewing distance shorter the higher up the entity is?  Unlike in reality.  What is he looking thru, fortified walls or upward gates?  Not sure if it matters, I use fortified walls to prevent too much exposure.

2)For that reason, 'unlimited Raise Dead ranges' and a few others, undead movement speeds, daywalking undead, etc..  I no longer play default worldgens.  Default worldgen is for rogue players.  Adv worldgen is for us.  It takes a few tweaks but can still be enjoyable in 34.xx, IMO.  Don't give up, just try other embarks.

Got a game going now.  Playing [34.11] on my end, but not seeing any snatchers/thieves passing restrained war dogs.  Three war dogs, one by the back door, and two by the main entrance bridge, either side.  The 2 have overlapping ranges, but not so far they wander out on the bridge.

I've never used piggies, but I've used kitties in a pinch.  Finding it hard myself, as well as you, to understand stealth in DF.  I uncover a cloaker, and he tip toes right out over a yard full of traps.  *scratch head*  It makes no sense that they should bypass traps, while uncloaked on their exit/fleeing path, they should suffer the same as others at that time.  Take care, Knutor

[nanomage]

Sneaking has been changed, and now really stealthy foes can walk right over your sleeping dogs. There's always a chance though.

[Kaos]

@Knutor, LOS shouldn't be a problem a have my pigs pastured on a floor grate right above the corridor, it keeps the animal safe and it used to work the same as having pastured or chained dogs on the same z-level. The same setup has spotted other ambushers, but now it seems that some still get through...

I think your issue with them walking over traps is the trapavoid tag on kobolds, kobolds won't trigger traps neither in ambush mode or revealed, only if they get stunned or unconscious on a trap tile or if the trap is webbed (that makes them stunned if i recall correctly) they will trigger traps.

that's why I'm using pigs by the way, so the pigs spot the kobolds, get scared out of their pasture on the grate and trigger a pressure plate that triggers a trap for the kobolds.

Sneaking has been changed, and now really stealthy foes can walk right over your sleeping dogs. There's always a chance though.

do you know in which version they changed it? how does it work now? back to the drawing board  I guess...

[nanomage]

I think it was with the necro update, so they can sneak right into your fortress to bring some fun to your stockpiles. I only know that stealth works much better now, with master+ level making you virtually invisible in adventure mode. Observer skill seems more important now that before because it combat's the target's ambusher skill a bit.

[Kaos]

do pets get better at observer skill?

[knutor]

Good info.  How does your pig sit on a grate and on a pressure plate trap?  NM, I get it, he flees after detection, and triggers it as he flees.  GOTCHA!  Ingenious. 

do pets get better at observer skill?

I had a Cougar from the elves that spotted stuff, very well.  But that fortress is long gone, or I'd check and see if he was improving.  My guess is it depends on the entity and breeding.  Just a guess.

[Kaos]

Good info.  How does your pig sit on a grate and on a pressure plate trap?  NM, I get it, he flees after detection, and triggers it as he flees.  GOTCHA!  Ingenious. 

yep, and that's why it has to be adult pigs, pigs are the only non-grazer easily available animal that weights above the minimum you can set a pressure plate to, and that will flee from enemies, dogs fit all that except the fleeing part, when I tried with dogs they would just stay on the grate, since they had no way to path to the enemy they stayed on the grate maybe since it was the closest tile to the enemy?...  pigs do get scared and flee  to the only tile available the plate, then a dwarf gets a pasture animal job, enters through a pet un-passable door and repastures the pig, resetting the trap.

[knutor]

I'm gonna use that setup three times, when I breach these caverns.  Sounds fun, I have a breeding pair of pigs, too.  I'll let ya know what they detect.

If we have to rely on Observation in fortress play, we are screwed.  It never raises up, even on the hunters, it stays so low.  Is there a trick to raising it?   Or is it static and based solely off Focus?

[Patchy]

The wiki says, the military seems to automatically train observation some.

Though if you aren't opposed to modding, you might make a training shop for it. Or maybe you could mod dogs with a natural skill in observation.

[gchristopher]

On 34.11 my guard dogs still reliably detect kobold thieves and goblin snatchers when stationed behind a pane of glass, so the distance is 2 squares. They don't detect necromancers ever. Generally the only time I actually find a necromancer is when their corpse shows up in a weapon trap.

[knutor]

I'd like the Reports, to display, broken stealth messages, and observation advances.  I could see a mod, or DF hack that provided additional combat details, at the start of say an Ambush, very helpful.  This may be off topic, and needing to go into the Suggestions or Mods forum.  I am sorry ahead of time for bringing it up, here.

Not sure I ever saw Observation improve on any of my dwarfs.  The highest I had after a 20 some year fortress, was lv2, and it was on the Hunter I gave it to, in the first 7 dwarfs of embark.  If it does advance in combat, it isn't in leaps and bounds. 

I'm thinking having cats sneaking about, staring off into other dimensions, to be the best prevention against stealth attacks.  However, this could prove hazardous to the cat and it might be hard getting him to agree, to it being the best prevention available.

[Sarthor]

I usually have a long corridor, 3 squares wide for trade caravans, that almost forms a large square. Most of the length is for my chosen method of defence. However at the entrance to the outside I have 3 grates above, stretching across the passage with single square pens and a war dog in each. Then at the opposite end at the entrance to my fortress-proper, I have the old style double chains with a war dog tied to each and in front of them a 5-6 deep bank of cage traps.

Only once or twice have I ever had anything make it undetected past that lot.

As a funny aside, I had a human diplomat heading out of the fortress once and ran into a kobold who had made it as far as the cages. There was a bit of a tussle, a few body parts, the kobold scarpered and the human stood there for a few seconds and then carried on out. After looking I saw the parts were human teeth. The kobold had knocked the guys teeth out and run for it. When I checked his description the guys back teeth were missing. Had me chuckling for a few minutes. Love this game.