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[Saiko Kila]

I've got an incident with two issues I think may be bugs. Posting to see if anyone experienced them, or can shed some light on. This is v0.44.10.
It involves invisible kobolds and artefact substitution.

A kobold was discovered near my entrance, either by pastured animals or by an incoming monster slayer candidate (crossbowman). A fight ensued, when as I assumed the crossbowman attacked the kobold with his artefact (which I thought was just a named crossbow). However, in reality the original kobold started cruising along the border of the map, while the actual fight was between another invisible kobold (the kobolds always come in pairs in this embark) and the monster slayer. Combat report was reporting events, including name, blood was spattering, then a dagger appeared (after kobold lost hold of it), but the kobold itself was invisible, and absent from the list of units. Finally the kobold was bashed with artefact in the head, and only then his body as well as rags appeared. I've checked why the crossbowman wasn't shooting, despite full quiver. The reason was that the artefact he was holding was a gemstone earring. It had only one kill - that of the kobold, and was a proper artefact. But the dwarf had no actual weapon. Later he asked to be allowed monster hunting, and only then became a citizen, or rather long-term resident. He also dropped his bolts, but I see it often with monster slayer rangers (also may be a bug).

1. Why was the kobold invisible? Maybe because the dwarf wasn't from my civ yet, but overall maintaining the invisibility after initiating the combat, with details shown for everyone, makes no sense whatsoever. I can see batmen bashing heads of troglodytes in the caves I've never been to, and cannot see a enemy fighting one of my guests next to my door?

2. Why the crossbowman had no weapon? Maybe because the algorithm which creates equipment just replaces one item with another, random one, when it wants to give an artefact? Doesn't make much sense, either.

Anyone has seen one of these behaviours?

[PatrikLundell]

1. Kobolds are sneakers, so they remain hidden until discovered by a member of your fortress (which may be a guard animal). They have this behavior in common with weres (and goblin snatchers and necros), by the way. This means they can slaughter wildlife without being detected unless you happen to look at locations where recently killed corpses are (e.g. as a result of dorfs rushing towards an unseen were to haul corpses...).
Combat reports involving unseen sneakers are a bit of a bug, though.

2. I haven't seen that particular case, but I've seen quite a few fighter type visitors wearing at least partial metal armor but wielding wooden melee weapons.

[Saiko Kila]

I think that Toady should do like they do in roguelikes, when fighting with invisible enemy (and report should say something like "unseen force hits the monster slayer"), or just reveal them, if one of visitors fights with them.

As for weapon, the crossbowman is probably also a creator of the artefact. He is displayed as "Creator of     ", with empty space instead of name. Maybe he had to sell his crossbow to buy materials to create the earring.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I've witnessed crossbow bolts spewing from an entirely invisible ambush squad. One of those times when you get two invading forces arrive at the same time and they start fighting each other. Both were [AMBUSHER] civs which are always revealed a little bit at a time.

My dwarves spotted one, so I could see them, but for a while, besides their bolts, the other was only visible to the first set of invaders. Very surreal fight to watch.

So, yeah, something needs to be done when hidden forces are 'revealed' by visitors.

[Saiko Kila]

Invisible rangers? Maybe even elves? Sneaky bastards. Although currently it is indeed surreal, it would be fine if they used some kind of magic, though. But for now, it is kind of immersion breaking and absurd. I mean - who is the military chronicler who writes these reports? Some kind of psychic?

[BruceyBoyo]

Oddly enough, I've heard of stealth enemies being revealed when a wild animal spotted them in the past (and I think on the wiki), so it's possible the "fix" for that was overzealous. I'm sure I've also seen people mention that monster slayers usually just use some random object as a weapon, thus dying trying to beat cave crocodiles with a sock.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Oddly enough, I've heard of stealth enemies being revealed when a wild animal spotted them in the past (and I think on the wiki), so it's possible the "fix" for that was overzealous. I'm sure I've also seen people mention that monster slayers usually just use some random object as a weapon, thus dying trying to beat cave crocodiles with a sock.

They've probably had their weapon stolen by the overseer through dumping. They might on a very rare occasion use something else, but they all initially come armed.

[Saiko Kila]

The monster slayer crossbowman with artefact I got definitely had no weapon (crossbow or otherwise). He had an artefact trinket in his fighting hand though, and had a quiver with bolts, that's why I think that artefact generation mechanism was responsible for this substitution.

[PatrikLundell]

Oddly enough, I've heard of stealth enemies being revealed when a wild animal spotted them in the past (and I think on the wiki), so it's possible the "fix" for that was overzealous. I'm sure I've also seen people mention that monster slayers usually just use some random object as a weapon, thus dying trying to beat cave crocodiles with a sock.

They've probably had their weapon stolen by the overseer through dumping. They might on a very rare occasion use something else, but they all initially come armed.

I believe I've seen monster slayers wielding "books" (i.e. book/codex/scroll/quire) rather than weapons without me robbing them first.