Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[levraininjaneer]

Hi there

Nothing is more scary to melee dwarves than a webbing FB. I've had such monster tearing through melee squads that are otherwise godlike in combat prowess.

So when one arrived in cavern 3, I decided to pull up the drawbridges until I am ready to pull him into a room with fortifications on the sides so I can start pumping some iron. Into him.

Great was my surprise when I was preparing to do this, and I found he was dead.

My post mortem soon revealed that in his ardent webbing and murder of the poor creatures down in the cavern, he webbed some weapon traps and then stepped onto them himself, being torn apart by green glass spiked balls, enourmous corkskrews and giant axe blades. I had little sympathy.

So I opened up the cavern and immediately many of my dwarves stormed any in there. Many of them had the job "clean trap".

First Question: does "clean trap" mean clean the blood, or take away a web?

Then, soon, my Master of Artillery (the Crossbow dwarf I had brought on embark) was found dead.
I realised that the same fate as the Forgotten Beast became him. He passed over a webbed weapon trap and then... boom.

So my second question is: How to safely de-web traps? What labor applies? And how to make sure dwarfs don't get killed while doing it?

[StagnantSoul]

Magma.

[Quietust]

My post mortem soon revealed that in his ardent webbing and murder of the poor creatures down in the cavern, he webbed some weapon traps and then stepped onto them himself, being torn apart by green glass spiked balls, enourmous corkskrews and giant axe blades. I had little sympathy.

I assume you are running a rather old version of DF, since web-slinging beasts are currently immune to their own webs and thus should not have triggered those traps.

First Question: does "clean trap" mean clean the blood, or take away a web?

Neither - it means "remove the corpse that got jammed in the trap".

So my second question is: How to safely de-web traps? What labor applies? And how to make sure dwarfs don't get killed while doing it?

1. Forbid the traps so your dwarves do not attempt to clean them
2. Build a Loom and order it to Collect Webs, then ensure that the only webs your dwarves can collect are the ones covering the traps. When collecting webs, Dwarves will step carefully and avoid being entangled, at least in the particular webs they intend to collect - I'm not 100% sure about the other webs they encounter on the way there (or on the way back).

[levraininjaneer]

Ah, I see: so creatures who normally do not trigger traps *do* trigger them when the *creatures* become webbed, not when there are webs on the traps as such?

I'm playing 43.03.

[Starver]

Various forms of immobilisation can make a TRAPAVOID or otherwise immune¹ creature fall victim, I think.

Cave-in knock-outs can do this, I can imagine webs (not their own) should do so. Fatigue from efforts (wildlife zerg rush?) might do that.

A long, long time ago, I discovered a trader encaged. I never knew why, or at that time had the wit to try to work it out, but I assume they decided to sleep on a cage-trapped tile. Never noticed them sleeping, but I never did recall any other reason, once I knew enough to want to work it out. Possibly there was fumblingly inept digging that produced a cave-in, nearby, that caught them up in the dust and buffetting at the point they were near the trap..  but it never seemed to match my memories of the situation.

And I've never deliberately weaponised this catch-all, whilst the game continues to be tweaked to possibly debug related bugs and refine intended behaviours, so I am far from the best and most current authority on the subject.


¹ Your own dwarves are immune to your own traps (built in ones, that is, not user-concocted ones with pressure-plate triggers configured sufficiently inclusively), as are diplomats, traders, I think other non-hostile visitors.  And I believe that traps seen by benificent traders can then be avoided by hostiles that arise from that civilisation after sufficient 'misunderstandings'.

[PatrikLundell]

Web immune creatures are immune to all webs, including those of their predecessors at the FB cavern throne. In addition to that, they're stun immune and don't sleep (although I don't know if they're immune to syndromes dust of their predecessors).
Trap avoiders who are not web immune get trapped by webs on traps, which causes the traps to trigger (or something with the same effect). Thus, web on the trap -> trap trap avoiders who aren't also web immune.

Merchants don't sleep, but can be knocked out and caged by cave-ins. Most trap avoiders are also stun immune: kobolds and gremlins are the only exceptions, I believe.
Spiesdiplomats report traps seen, so invaders know about those seen (that's the description I've seen. I don't know if this reporting extends to traders). That's not really being trap avoiding. All vanilla civs are affected by stun.

(Supposedly) non hostile visitors somehow avoid all real traps and triggers, including those set to trigger on fortress inhabitants as well (in this context, a repeating spike isn't a trap, because it operates on a independent trigger).

As mentioned, residents don't normally trigger their own traps, but can do so while webbed, stunned, sleeping, or dodging (there may be additional cases).

[levraininjaneer]

Ok, so all agree with Quietust on process to de-web your traps?

I suppose the FB was then slain by a cavern beast... though I find that hard to imagine given how very dangerous webbing FBs can be...

[Starver]

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy... 

(I wonder if there might be a combat log or Legends entry that might show which fresh hell it is that did you a favour, then wandered off to do you a further favour, all without you noticing...)

[PatrikLundell]

It's not very common to disagree with Quietust on how DF works...
- If it's a single trap I'd suggest web collection. If multiple I'd be wary, as DF "randomly" assigns a web to pick, not the first one encountered. (Can be seen when some other dorf destroys the targeted web, which results in the cancellation of the job (including any repeats)).
- Magma is a cumbersome alternative, which can have masterworks destruction side effects. It's probably easier to use a cave-in in that case, unless the (important) stuff is magma safe. Magma won't work if the web slinger is also a fire breather, though (in which case you're in the rare situation of having FB webs that are actually worth collecting).
- Getting something expendable to trigger the web (such as a cat or a cavern critter) will work as well. For cage traps you can use dorfs, although it's a pain to get them out again (build, hook up lever, pull) and the poor victim feels very bad for being jailed.

You'd be surprised what can deal the last blow to a strong FB when something has softened it up already.

[gchristopher]

- If it's a single trap I'd suggest web collection. If multiple I'd be wary, as DF "randomly" assigns a web to pick, not the first one encountered. (Can be seen when some other dorf destroys the targeted web, which results in the cancellation of the job (including any repeats)).

Are you sure it's random? I've done a lot of web collection and it seemed that it was always picking the nearest web to the workshop issuing the order.

[Werdna]

I think what happens is that due to varying web-picker distances at time of assignment, it can appear random.  A near web gets assigned to an available web-picker that is either slow or far away; the next further web may get assigned to someone fast/close.  To an observer, the obvious nearer web appears to get skipped for some reason. 

Conjecture aside, I've definitely seen what Pat describes though, where they'll sometimes ruin other webs on the way to their target web.

[StagnantSoul]

Make the collect webs order, and put the worker in a burrow and slowly increase the burrow to include one web at a time.

[Loci]

- If it's a single trap I'd suggest web collection. If multiple I'd be wary, as DF "randomly" assigns a web to pick, not the first one encountered. (Can be seen when some other dorf destroys the targeted web, which results in the cancellation of the job (including any repeats)).

That's mostly irrelevant. A dwarf on a web-collection job is immune to all webs, not just the one marked for collection. (Otherwise stacks of webs from a silk farm would be uncollectable since the collecting dwarf would be constantly caught by the rest of the webs in the tile.) You do need to watch out for other dwarves (such as children) following the web-collector, and anything that could cancel the web-collection job while the collector is on the wrong side of a trap (e.g. hunger, thirst, needs). It's best to assign expendable collectors just in case.

[PatrikLundell]

Thanks for that clarification, Loci.

I'm sure web selection isn't random. It uses an algorithm, hence the quotes. However, if you don't know the logic it appears random.

I'd avoid burrows, as it's rather likely all you'll achieve is cancellation spam when the web selected for collection is one outside the burrow, so a dorf would take up the web collection job, try to path to the web, conclude it's not possible, drop the job, look for a job, find a web collection job... in the same manner as the cancellation spam you get with refuse hauling and burrows (instate a civilian alert to keep them inside the fortress when your militia explores the newly breached cavern, and your fortress activities grind to a halt as most civilians keep spamming about their inability to perform the INCREDIBLY URGENT tasks of hauling away the dusty skeletons and teeth resulting from years of FB rampage in the cavern.

[levraininjaneer]

I agree that the burrows idea is probably not such a great one.

But on a side note: With my breeding program I learnt something interesting about burrows and cancellation span:

This usually happens when you assign a dwarf to a burrow WHILE he is busy with a job that falls outside of the burrow. I suspect (must still do some experimenting to confirm) that if a dwarf is already assigned to a burrow, he will not take on (and therefore cancel spam) jobs outside the burrow. So a good method to get dwarfs into burrows would be to (a) disable all their labours (b) wait for them to be idle, or hang out at the tavern, library or temple (c) assign them to the burrow (d) re-enable their labours.