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Author Topic: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?  (Read 7351 times)

Melting Sky

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Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« on: June 21, 2014, 01:39:36 pm »

I decided to start my 3rd fort in a terrifying/haunted/joyous embark site. So we get these clouds of doom that occasionally pop up and get announced with an alert. I've tried looking at them with "k" but it doesn't seem to tell me anything about what the cloud actually does. Is there anyway to investigate what sort of effects these things will have without sending some poor dwarf into it to find out?

Since I am on two evil biomes I think we might have more than one variety of evil cloud. Is there any way to tell them apart from each other. If it turns out I have one cloud type that say causes minor fevers for a day vs one that husks or melts dwarves I would prefer it if I was able to tell them apart.
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christopher1006

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2014, 02:31:49 pm »

As far as I'm aware, it's a surprise. Though they should only exist in their own biomes so as long as you know where the Joyous biome is, you can tell where the cloud goes.
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m-logik

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2014, 02:34:37 pm »

Pasture an expendable animal in the path of the cloud.
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Melting Sky

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2014, 03:59:08 pm »

As far as I'm aware, it's a surprise. Though they should only exist in their own biomes so as long as you know where the Joyous biome is, you can tell where the cloud goes.
That's good, at least they won't drift across the entrance to the fort then.

Pasture an expendable animal in the path of the cloud.
I was hoping it wouldn't come to that as I have only brought the bare bones necessities as far as animals go. I assume that the local wildlife will be effected as well?

So the clouds will appear the same regardless of the syndrome they carry? I was hoping they might be a different color or something.

I assume the only way to tell if you are in a reanimating biome is to wait for the corpses to rise? I haven't seen any undead yet, just a bunch of snapping turtle and otter men along with some gators. I have a tower nearby so I want to be able to tell the difference between an undead siege and local undead wildlife. Are necro sieges announced similarly to Goblin sieges?

One of my goals is to find undead unicorns before the fortress falls.
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fortydayweekend

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2014, 04:34:08 pm »

Pasture an expendable animal in the path of the cloud.
I was hoping it wouldn't come to that as I have only brought the bare bones necessities as far as animals go. I assume that the local wildlife will be effected as well?

Yep, watch what happens to the local wildlife.

I assume the only way to tell if you are in a reanimating biome is to wait for the corpses to rise? I haven't seen any undead yet, just a bunch of snapping turtle and otter men along with some gators. I have a tower nearby so I want to be able to tell the difference between an undead siege and local undead wildlife. Are necro sieges announced similarly to Goblin sieges?

You could put a corpse or body part in the biome, or kill something there, to find out.

Undead sieges bring undead humans, goblins, elves and dwarves, not animals, so undead animals will either be from the biome or an ambushing necromancer. But you should be able to tell whether it's a new animal or a re-animated corpse.

Undead sieges are announced like goblin sieges, but more often you'll get ambushing necromancers rather than an actual siege. They sneak and can be quite difficult to spot.

If you have an animating biome you could just kill unicorns and place their corpses in it. Or kill them and leave them in the open for visiting necromancers.
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Melting Sky

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #5 on: June 21, 2014, 05:38:28 pm »

Thanks for the heads up on the ambushing necromancers. I was under the false assumption that they always showed up with undead and were thus a pretty visible threat.

This should definitely be an amusing fortress.   :D
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greycat

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #6 on: June 21, 2014, 05:41:50 pm »

Undead sieges bring undead humans, goblins, elves and dwarves, not animals, so undead animals will either be from the biome or an ambushing necromancer. But you should be able to tell whether it's a new animal or a re-animated corpse.

"Natural" undead that arrive on the map have capital letters in their labels.  "Giant Jumping Spider corpse", for example.

Undead that have been raised from body parts are all lower-case.  "coyote head", for instance.

Not sure that it really matters, though.  They're both in need of (re-)killin'.
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Melting Sky

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #7 on: June 21, 2014, 07:43:26 pm »

Not sure that it really matters, though.  They're both in need of (re-)killin'.

I'm next to a necro tower on multiple evil biomes and I am not sure if they reanimate so its nice to be able to know if they are necromancer spawned or if part of my embark reanimates things on its own. If I am on a reanimating biome it will make fighting the necromancers and goblins much trickier.

If a necromancer is reanimated either by another necromancer or a reanimating biome will it become a regular zombie or does it return as a necromancer?
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m-logik

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2014, 08:26:24 pm »

Neither a necromancer's corpse nor any of its reanimated giblets (I'm looking at you Urist McCuisinart, Axelord) will retain its necromantic hoodoo upon undeath. Erm, reundeath, I mean.
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Flarp

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #9 on: June 22, 2014, 05:12:52 pm »

If the cloud does actively turn things hostile, and not just give them ebola or something, I think the suffix of the changed creatures is meaningful, somehow. I've only experienced [creature name] [cloud name] zombies myself (the cow evil smoke zombie in question was very hard to kill, but didn't instantly murder everything it touched), but from what I read on the forums, husks and thralls are generally more dangerous.
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Solon64

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #10 on: June 24, 2014, 07:28:42 am »

Zombie, husk, and thrall, in the sense that they are caused by evil weather, are exactly the same thing, a horrible undead monstrosity that knows no pain, fear, or rest, and can only be truly laid to rest by bisection or decapitation.  Evil weather thralls are about the most Fun you can ever get in this game.  They even beat HFS with just a small number of them.

Corpses, however, are either random undead wildlife or reanimated bodies due to the biome itself or necromancers.  Quite simple to remove but dangerously strong.  Don't let them near the children.  Unless you want to get rid of the children.  Then they're a fantastic way to do that.

As for the original post, evil weather is a surprise.  It ranges from simple blisters, dizziness, nausea, or exhaustion, all the way to instant suffocation, full-body necrosis, super ebola, or that sort of stuff.  I had an evil rain that put everything it touched to sleep.  Forever.  Or at least long enough that they dehydrated or starved.

If the evil weather is a cloud and leaves dust coverings, it can be so much more entertaining, since you can leave ammunition out to get coated by it and then anything hit by the toxic ammo will suffer the syndrome.  Super ebola for the goblins, doesn't get much funnier than that!
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tuypo1

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #11 on: June 30, 2014, 09:30:53 pm »

Zombie, husk, and thrall, in the sense that they are caused by evil weather, are exactly the same thing, a horrible undead monstrosity that knows no pain, fear, or rest, and can only be truly laid to rest by bisection or decapitation.  Evil weather thralls are about the most Fun you can ever get in this game.  They even beat HFS with just a small number of them.

Corpses, however, are either random undead wildlife or reanimated bodies due to the biome itself or necromancers.  Quite simple to remove but dangerously strong.  Don't let them near the children.  Unless you want to get rid of the children.  Then they're a fantastic way to do that.

As for the original post, evil weather is a surprise.  It ranges from simple blisters, dizziness, nausea, or exhaustion, all the way to instant suffocation, full-body necrosis, super ebola, or that sort of stuff.  I had an evil rain that put everything it touched to sleep.  Forever.  Or at least long enough that they dehydrated or starved.

If the evil weather is a cloud and leaves dust coverings, it can be so much more entertaining, since you can leave ammunition out to get coated by it and then anything hit by the toxic ammo will suffer the syndrome.  Super ebola for the goblins, doesn't get much funnier than that!

speaking of which I still havent worked out what they mean by bisection does it mean you have to separate there lower body from there upper body or something
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Covenant Ringthane

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #12 on: June 30, 2014, 10:20:41 pm »

speaking of which I still havent worked out what they mean by bisection does it mean you have to separate there lower body from there upper body or something

Yep. You cut them in half. Into two big pieces, which is where the "bi" part comes from. So yeah, separate the upper body from the lower body.

If you manage do it with a blunt weapon, Armok will bless your game :P
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tuypo1

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #13 on: June 30, 2014, 10:35:15 pm »

speaking of which I still havent worked out what they mean by bisection does it mean you have to separate there lower body from there upper body or something

Yep. You cut them in half. Into two big pieces, which is where the "bi" part comes from. So yeah, separate the upper body from the lower body.

If you manage do it with a blunt weapon, Armok will bless your game :P

cool thanks
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Sutremaine

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Re: Clouds of Doom: How can you tell what flavor they are?
« Reply #14 on: July 02, 2014, 06:13:33 pm »

"Natural" undead that arrive on the map have capital letters in their labels.  "Giant Jumping Spider corpse", for example.

Undead that have been raised from body parts are all lower-case.  "coyote head", for instance.

Not sure that it really matters, though.  They're both in need of (re-)killin'.
Nitpick: Native undead are Corpses. Raised undead are just lower-case corpses.

Another difference is that native undead can do interactions (eg. webbing), but raised undead can't. No eternal GCS farm unless your undead spider came onto the map that way. :(
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