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Author Topic: What Do You Do With Forgotten Beasts?  (Read 983 times)

edgefigaro

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What Do You Do With Forgotten Beasts?
« on: July 24, 2013, 10:22:21 pm »

I generally just wall the caverns off and forgotten beasts slowly spawn. I've noticed that when it comes time to breach the caverns properly, I will have a number of them roaming around, often off map. What generally happens is the citizenry/hunters/web collectors/pets wander down into the caverns outside the base while I'm not paying attention, and then the forgotten beasts come out of the woodwork to jump the citizens, and then my military moves in haphazardly and takes some losses. 

It is not a perfect system.
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Lalasa

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Re: What Do You Do With Forgotten Beasts?
« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2013, 10:34:29 pm »

I send my military after them immediately, and if they begin to pose issues to the citizenry, I activate my "Danger" alert and restrict them all to one area.  All the one's I've had so far were killable. 

In fact, its usually the beasts' blood and poisons that kill more than he actual beast itself.  I'm not super worried about a few hauler losses because I have a huge population (269 dwarves and counting, dozens of peasants).  Truth be told, I've lost more dwarves to my vampire queen than I ever have to forgotten beasts.

Sometimes forgotten beats aren't even an issue at all.  I had a quadruped today that was made out of steam and it kept shoving a child around while the kid kicked it a few times.  It couldn't even bruise that kid.
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edgefigaro

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Re: What Do You Do With Forgotten Beasts?
« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2013, 10:39:08 pm »

In fact, its usually the beasts' blood and poisons that kill more than he actual beast itself.  I'm not super worried about a few hauler losses because I have a huge population (269 dwarves and counting, dozens of peasants).  Truth be told, I've lost more dwarves to my vampire queen than I ever have to forgotten beasts.
This.  I have encountered extracts recently that cause small animals, mostly cats, to rot and die. It is sort of like a built in anti-catsplostion. I haven't seen so much rot recently though, so I wonder if it got cleaned/wore off.

My king likes cats. They kept adopting him and rotting out. I have been hoping that he gets a "doesn't care about anything anymore" tag, but no such luck so far.
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itg

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Re: What Do You Do With Forgotten Beasts?
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2013, 10:39:33 pm »

I seal off the caverns with bridges when I'm not using them. If a beast with an easy syndrome attack (e.g. poisonous bite) appears, I just send out the melee dwarves to kill it. If it has a nasty attack (e.g. dust), I try to shoot at them through fortifications.

If it has a nasty attack and it's made of some tough inorganic material, that's when things get Fun. Sometimes I engineer a cave-in to deal with these beasts, and sometimes I try to use some careful military tactics to kill it with minimal losses. For example, I recently killed an amber quadruped with deadly dust by shooting it up with marksdwarves to slow it down (which also slows its attack speed until the next release) and then jumping it with axedwarves + pick soldiers as it rounded a corner. I managed to kill it before it fired off the dust.

Lalasa

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Re: What Do You Do With Forgotten Beasts?
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2013, 10:45:50 pm »

In fact, its usually the beasts' blood and poisons that kill more than he actual beast itself.  I'm not super worried about a few hauler losses because I have a huge population (269 dwarves and counting, dozens of peasants).  Truth be told, I've lost more dwarves to my vampire queen than I ever have to forgotten beasts.
This.  I have encountered extracts recently that cause small animals, mostly cats, to rot and die. It is sort of like a built in anti-catsplostion. I haven't seen so much rot recently though, so I wonder if it got cleaned/wore off.

My king likes cats. They kept adopting him and rotting out. I have been hoping that he gets a "doesn't care about anything anymore" tag, but no such luck so far.

You remind me that somehow toxic FB blood (that causes spontaneous bleeding) got painted all over the front of my fortress gate.  Since it's outside no one bothers to mop it up.  A kobold thief once ran into my pile of cats and war dogs and jumped into said pile of FB liquid death.  Cue corpseplosion™ (dead cat/dog explosion) in my main fortress entryway.  Now that was really annoying to clean up and the kobold got away.  I wonder if he did that on purpose, the little jerk.  I always have to ensure my dorfs have enough shoes otherwise they start bleeding too.

Said blood also killed all of my chefs' cats and made them tantrum for a short time.  Screw the FB, I got more problems from it after it died.
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wierd

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Re: What Do You Do With Forgotten Beasts?
« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2013, 11:16:50 pm »

This depends on the FB, what its attacks are, and what syndromes it causes.


For some, I just murder them by dropping things on them. (It's a cavern layer. Dwarves OWN the ceiling!) For others, I attempt to lure and trap.

Ones that I murder tend to be things that are made of puke, ash, salt, or similarly unhardy materials, since I DEMAND that weaponized or employed FBs be durable goods. No chinese knockoffs.

For web shooters, I try to lure them into a confinable position using artifact appliance bait. (Querns made by moody children work great!) Once confined, I construct a silking farm around them, and use it to web traps for other, highly desirable FBs. Again, lured in using artifact kitchen appliances.

FBs are trap immune unless the trap is webbed, and web shooters are web immune as well. That's why special precautions need to be undertaken when dealing with them.

I only trap "useful" dust, gas, and fire FBs. Ones I know for sure cause instantaneous and horrible syndromes.

Those I like to install in "peepshow booths".


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edgefigaro

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Re: What Do You Do With Forgotten Beasts?
« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2013, 11:38:49 pm »

This depends on the FB, what its attacks are, and what syndromes it causes.


For some, I just murder them by dropping things on them. (It's a cavern layer. Dwarves OWN the ceiling!) For others, I attempt to lure and trap.

Ones that I murder tend to be things that are made of puke, ash, salt, or similarly unhardy materials, since I DEMAND that weaponized or employed FBs be durable goods. No chinese knockoffs.

For web shooters, I try to lure them into a confinable position using artifact appliance bait. (Querns made by moody children work great!) Once confined, I construct a silking farm around them, and use it to web traps for other, highly desirable FBs. Again, lured in using artifact kitchen appliances.

FBs are trap immune unless the trap is webbed, and web shooters are web immune as well. That's why special precautions need to be undertaken when dealing with them.

I only trap "useful" dust, gas, and fire FBs. Ones I know for sure cause instantaneous and horrible syndromes.

Those I like to install in "peepshow booths".
I applaud your diligence in weaponizing FBs. I'm impressed. I'm more of a "ehh, I'll send in the troopers, and deal with the casualties" kind of player.  On the other hand, I've never had a firebreathing gatekeep either.
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