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Author Topic: Casotoxa, Striketrampled: Capturing Every Forgotten Beast In The World (743/748)  (Read 7991 times)

Salmeuk

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I'll say it again: this is a beautiful thing. wonderful work well done
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TheFlame52

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This fortress is absolutely amazing. I thought my magnum opus fort, Bastiongate, was amazing, but you've outdone me and then some. I only captured about 30 beasts and killed the rest. I only made it to 60 years. I absolutely respect the amount of effort you've put into this fortress. Can we see some more of the fortress?

EDIT: I forgot to mention that Bastiongate, too, was terrorized for years by a web-spitting crocodile.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2022, 06:19:03 pm by TheFlame52 »
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nocpur

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Alright, first post today will just cover beasts. I'll do a little fortress tour to answer TheFlame's question right after this.

For starters, here are 600 beasts. Mind the gaps, just temporary.

The 601st (Utes) is on its way into a trap right now, but I got impatient and wanted to just get an even 600 in. Woohoo! I didn't miss a milestone this time!

In the time between last post, I've had a couple interesting beasts show up. Here's some fun ones I liked.

1. Possibly the gentlest beast I've ever seen.



Made of steam, no effects, and is literally named "The Little Lambs." Aw. I picture this thing as a terrifying amalgamation of smoky lambs. But like, in a cute way.

2. The world's most fragile lobster.
You can see a blue lobster on the very bottom row, laying prone. That's because somehow it nearly lost a fight to a mud man. Yes, a mud man, one of the most fragile things out there. It broke a couple of its legs and it won't stand up anymore. Lol.


3. I do love some inorganic beasts. Keep reading to see why I specifically really like this one...


4. Isa Beachclam the Waves of Hell. What a name.

This one's especially interesting. Not only was it able to kill a web-shooter that had been rampaging around in the caverns, but it is also historically important. I've poked around legends before to see which beasts in my world have the most kills throughout history. I then made a top ten list of the beasts with the most kills, and Isa is actually the highest beast I have on that list. And you want to know where its position is?

It's just #6.

Not even top 5. I don't have any of the top 5's, which is such a shame. I'm watching out for them, but they're taking their time showing up. Rampaging around the world, whatever. Actually, here's the list I made, lol:

1. ner nightdepth - alligator
2. buriedumbras - salt blob, no effects
3. tofi whisperechoes - titmouse
4. ak menacedgristles - black opal quadruped
5. omethu coastalbeaches - ankylosaurid
6. isa beachclam - CAPTURED
7. ririli liewater - CAPTURED
8. fiva buriedghost - CAPTURED
9. kutsmob - DEAD
10. osmoz ecolash - DEAD

#9 is that alligator that killed a bunch of my dwarves. #10 is another web-shooter I killed somewhere along the way, I don't remember anything notable from that one.

Another interesting thing is that #2 is just a salt blob, nothing more. No deadly dust, no fire. And salt is pretty fragile as far as beasts go. So while this would be one that I'd be concerned about dying in my caverns, it's rampaging throughout the world, doing just fine. Go you.

And, back to the hippopotamus thing. You know what #1 is? An alligator composed of amethyst. Pretty sick if you ask me, and I actually think it's really neat how there's both an amethyst alligator and hippo available for me. It's an amethyst nature documentary out here. Now just waiting for Ner to finally show up.

Anyways, that's all as far as beast catching goes. Remember to subtract 1 for Ngonos.


« Last Edit: October 12, 2022, 08:09:08 pm by nocpur »
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nocpur

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This fortress is absolutely amazing. I thought my magnum opus fort, Bastiongate, was amazing, but you've outdone me and then some. I only captured about 30 beasts and killed the rest. I only made it to 60 years. I absolutely respect the amount of effort you've put into this fortress. Can we see some more of the fortress?

EDIT: I forgot to mention that Bastiongate, too, was terrorized for years by a web-spitting crocodile.

Thank you! I'm sure Bastiongate had some awesome stories to tell as well. If you have any you'd like to share, I'd love to hear.

I'm afraid to say that you might be quite disappointed by Casotoxa, lol. I made it with self-sufficiency in mind (and even messed that up, because at this point, I'd do everything differently for pathing optimization) so it's not the prettiest. I've made far nicer forts. But it keeps my dwarves stable and happy, so it works.

I think when this is all said and done I might upload the save, just for fun. But in the meantime here's some places I don't think I've shown.


Little fortress tour!


This is my big main hall. It's a mess. But you can see all the microcline pedestals holding bodies of forgotten beasts - that's where all my dead web-shooters are stored. There's about 93 there, I think? A couple random artifacts too.

Also, notice all the levers to the left. This is the control room for most of my fortress. It's organized, I swear. Although... I have had to stop playing whenever I indulge in a bit of the devil's lettuce, because I start losing my ability to actually navigate my organized chaos. ;)



This is my king's quarters, dining room, tomb, etc. I've had several kings/queens for ~150 years by now. You can see where I sort of gave up on trying to make it look nice, lol. The far right is the fortress's collective tomb, which is a mess, but you can see how many dead I have. I mentioned it before, but I am playing with a modded race (which is why you might see h's and S's around instead of dwarves. They have a slightly shorter lifespan, so I get dwarves dying of old age aaaaaall the time). Again I should emphasize this has no impact on beast trapping, though. I just like messing with raws :P

Also, notice all the slabs outside of the tomb area. Those are all slabs that contain the secrets of life and death, which get brought here by megabeasts. I dunno. You'd think one would be plenty, but I have like 8. Dwarves can't read those though.



Here's a different place where I store non-forgotten beasts - dragons, those werebeast and commander cyclopes, hydras, titans, etc. And is also where I display the bodies of semi-megabeasts. You might see a few ones that you don't recognize, and that's just because I've modded in a couple new megabeasts. Mostly just different types of dragons, because I thought dragons weren't hard enough, lol. Give them wings!



Casotoxa also is sort of a test fortress while I'm waiting for beasts to show up. Here's an (abandoned) sea creature breeding pit. It didn't work out so well, and I think it's no fault of my own - sea creatures tend to hold still and refuse to move after a while, and stop breeding. I had a pod of giant orcas show up and captured them all, but couldn't get much use out of them (which is a shame, because orcas are some of my favorite animals). In the end, I didn't need it. I have a ridiculous amount of food and bones anyways. Notice the rocs chained around the walls... they're my emergency food supplies, instead of orcas.



A view from the surface. I have a wall around the main area and a bit of a moat around the entrance. It's built next to a volcano and ocean, so that's why you see a magma chute in view at all times. The ocean is less apparent but it's there. And it is remarkably empty. I have caught a total of 4 different aquatic creatures throughout the whole 175 years. We're in a white sand desert, though, which is my favorite biome.



You can see the wall extends into the ocean. That's because below it, I made a sea creature trapping area. You can't see them, but this is full of cage traps, and has bridges on each side. So something swims in, gets captured, I close the bridges along each side, I open the door at the top to drain out all the water, I collect the cages, and repeat. Simple but unfortunately I haven't been able to put it to much use at all. I might do a more ocean-centric fortress next time, because I think this would've been cooler if I actually had anything show up.



And a view from the caverns...

Level 1 (notice how I put floors right above the spaces in the cage trap to prevent trees from growing there / me cutting them down to leave holes - beasts will climb/fly out):


Level 2:


Level 3:


Yeah, my caverns are pretty boring. Level 1 and level 2 seem to have had all their wildlife go (mostly) extinct. I only really get creatures from level 3 anymore. I usually direct web-shooters down into level 3 so they can hopefully go get themselves killed by a jabberer or cave dragon.

Level 1 is my tallest cavern by z-level, 2 is probably my nicest looking one, and 3 is my flattest (you can't see the majority of it from the screenshot I took, but I wanted to show off the tunnels around the side). As you can see... I made those tunnels. I was hoping to be able to direct beasts and creatures a bit more easily by using those tunnels, but this was mostly a resounding failure. I just abandoned the idea and left it like that. You can see all the dead bodies laying around from all the web-shooters that get shoved down here. However, I don't get much cool wildlife anymore, it's a lot of flesh balls and cave blobs. And I mean a lot. So a web-shooter usually just has a field day down there for a couple years.




« Last Edit: October 13, 2022, 01:21:00 am by nocpur »
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Salmeuk

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great update. this is sort of like peeling back the mystery of RNG and enjoying the succulent sweet creative fodder that is DF beast generation. A pair of amethyst beasts, rampaging across the world, suddenly meet in battle. .

"The Little Lambs" is like something out of a Miyazaki movie. perhaps a visitor to the bathhouse from Spirited Away?

also, epic fuckin architecture! love those microcline layers, and the large circular formations.
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TheFlame52

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"hey sorry guys my fortress isn't very cool looking" *posts one of the most beautiful forts I've ever seen*

I'm also a big fan of deserts and glass. What's your roc breeding method? Are they tame or trained? I could never get my roc breeding to work out.

The thread I made for Bastiongate is in my sig. Going back and reading it again years later, it's lackluster at first but picks up later. My notable achievements are:
 - Taming and getting to expert training level for almost every single animal, surface and cave. I had giant desert scorpions, giant cave spiders (with both a wild and tame breeding population), cave dragons, an eyrie for giant sparrows, and managed to breed, if not tame, the only two rocs in the world.
 - A magma moat and a decently sized square surface fort. Not tremendously impressive, but they saved my fort from a web-spitting titan in its third year.
 - Building an outpost in hell. Building a wall around the entirety of hell, from floor to ceiling, and claiming it as my own. Flooding hell. Draining hell and growing cave grass down there. Sadly, even with modding, you can't get trees to grow in hell.
 - Building a demon trap and capturing demons. I even managed to breed some, though it wasn't a full-blown ranching operation.
 - Using 50 years of stockpiled goblinite-sourced steel to arm and armor the entire fort in steel. Most of the fort became at least master-level soldiers. The actual military, after training for 50-60 years, was absolutely unstoppable. Dwarf Therapist said they had skills in the legendary +200s.

nocpur

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I have just a minor update right now, but I wanted to get at least one update out there because I officially have less than 100 left.

I'm actually getting beast after beast right now, it's been really hard to keep up. I just put like 20 beasts away into their cells because I was procrastinating. A bunch of web-shooters have been showing up, and I currently have a glass shrimp terrorizing the flesh blobs downstairs (doesn't that sound like a great innuendo?)


Here's... I don't know. Somewhere around 650, I guess, I've been moving beasts for a while.

Below is a screenshot I took about 20 minutes ago when I was thinking "good god how many beasts do I have to put away??". In that time since, 3 more forgotten beasts have shown up. This is actually pretty fast as far as beast appearances go.
Also, notice the colors. I don't think I've ever had so many beasts of the same color show up after one another. The trend is still continuing, btw. I'm onto a white group of beasts now.


Anyways. A bunch of web-shooters have showed up lately, but I think I actually might be nearing the end of them soon, which is really exciting. I had the wimpiest web-shooter made out of steam, and then a couple more... alligators. Yes. I don't know why I get so many web-shooting alligators. I forgot to get a screenshot of its description, but I also had a webby crocodile right after this one.



So, here's all 3 of those beasts' bodies on display. The alligator, steam, and croc.


Let's see... I had some funny names show up lately.



Me too, Madum. Me too.

And this poor guy, who lost his whole general mouth situation to either a jabberer or a web-shooter, I can't remember.

 
Also, I'm down to just one dwarf who still has the coughing blood syndrome, so I think I'm gonna stop having the spatters to clean up all the time soon, because they're getting really old. We're arriving at year 591 now, which is year 191 in Casotoxa lifespan. I actually had a megabeast (a species that I modded in) die of old age, which made me realize I forgot to give it an infinite lifespan. Oops.

Not much else for right now. I'll try to do a couple more updates as we approach the end, but right now we are absolutely speeding towards it, so who knows. I'll 100% have one for 700 and the fifth hall construction though. I didn't actually count how many halls I would need, but it looks like five will be the final. What a trip. I'm actually getting a little sad about this whole thing ending, it's really nice having something going on in the background all the time. It's become a bit of a daily routine to open up stuff I need to work on on one monitor, while having my DF tab open on my other monitor so I can watch it when a forgotten beast shows up. I at least have the tournament to prepare for, though. : )
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nocpur

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"hey sorry guys my fortress isn't very cool looking" *posts one of the most beautiful forts I've ever seen*

I'm also a big fan of deserts and glass. What's your roc breeding method? Are they tame or trained? I could never get my roc breeding to work out.

The thread I made for Bastiongate is in my sig. Going back and reading it again years later, it's lackluster at first but picks up later. My notable achievements are:
 - Taming and getting to expert training level for almost every single animal, surface and cave. I had giant desert scorpions, giant cave spiders (with both a wild and tame breeding population), cave dragons, an eyrie for giant sparrows, and managed to breed, if not tame, the only two rocs in the world.
 - A magma moat and a decently sized square surface fort. Not tremendously impressive, but they saved my fort from a web-spitting titan in its third year.
 - Building an outpost in hell. Building a wall around the entirety of hell, from floor to ceiling, and claiming it as my own. Flooding hell. Draining hell and growing cave grass down there. Sadly, even with modding, you can't get trees to grow in hell.
 - Building a demon trap and capturing demons. I even managed to breed some, though it wasn't a full-blown ranching operation.
 - Using 50 years of stockpiled goblinite-sourced steel to arm and armor the entire fort in steel. Most of the fort became at least master-level soldiers. The actual military, after training for 50-60 years, was absolutely unstoppable. Dwarf Therapist said they had skills in the legendary +200s.


Well, thank you! I'm definitely going all out on architecture the next fortress I make.

For rocs, I just caught a breeding pair and stuck them together on two ropes. They can still breed while chained, so I just put a nest box between them when I want to have eggs. I always put the rocs behind a bunch of tightly closed doors, though, since soldiers will attack the babies (who always beeline for meeting areas as soon as they hatch). But I chain those and keep them trained, and because they're babies they usually eventually get tamed, repeat.

My breeding pair of rocs is kinda cute because they're both named Kodor.




Anyways, though, I'm super jealous of all the hell stuff! I actually have never breached hell in all my years of playing, but I've always wanted to build a hell base. I don't even know if it's possible anymore, but I cannot imagine how much effort that took. Did you get "a section of the cavern has collapsed" spam for hours straight? Because I feel like whenever I do magma + water projects, I get "a section of the cavern has collapsed" spam for hours straight, let alone working with the entire magma sea. That's super impressive! I'm gonna give the whole thread a read when I have time next, thanks for showing me. A demon breeding program sounds incredibly fun, and definitely gives me ideas...
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TheFlame52

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I destroyed the initial demonic invasion using 1000 menacing spikes hooked to a lever in the dining hall set to pull on repeat. Then I trapped a group of demons with an artifact cabinet, so that more demons wouldn't come onto the map. After that it was simply a matter of designating a few thousand walls, and stairs for scaffolds. No obsidian casting needed.

Salmeuk

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cute Rocs are cute. if I was artist I would fanart
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nocpur

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Alright, 5th hall filled, and this will be the last hall I will ever be able to completely fill. I actually don't know what I'm going to do with the empty spaces just yet, but I'm digging out the 6th hall now in its entirety. I might move the web-shooter bodies to the empty spaces and put them on pedestals there, if I can.

I also might make one of the last rows an ABCDEFG... row. I think the only letters I won't have access to are U, X, Y (will replace with the ¥ symbol), and Z, because I don't think I have any zebras. I don't have a second E yet, but there is an elk somewhere out there that I haven't caught yet.



I actually have a couple beasts that I haven't stored away yet, as you can see below, so 677 is not visible in this picture. Right now I have a couple in cages and one in the maze trap, because it's a gaseous noxious secretion beast with some particularly nasty syndromes and I'm a little afraid of it. So I'm going to get the rest stored away and then put that one in captivity. It has a few syndromes like unconsciousness and bleeding that make me a little nervous, but I actually prioritize other beasts' safety over my own dwarves, which is why I'm waiting. ;) My last dwarf with the coughing blood syndrome died recently though, so no more blood spatter everywhere. For now.




Above, a bunch of beasts waiting in storage. This room is right above the halls.

I had an unfortunate crash and lost a bunch of progress which really put me behind. I actually had all these beasts stored away as they arrived, but lost that in the crash, so I had to redo the process. And it's kind of tedious, so that's why they're not stored in order this time. I even took a screenshot of one of the beasts that I lost in the crash because I thought it was wild and was looking forward to adding it to my collection.



So, unfortunately I no longer have it, but it'll be back eventually. Forgotten beasts are not generated randomly when they enter your map, it's just which one that decides to show up that is random.



Miscellaneous section and events.

While I was webbing some cage traps, I noticed something new. I threw in a large rat as bait for Ngonos to shoot at. Normally, most of the time these rats are "overcome by terror", and I've never seen the phrase "emotionally overloaded" before. Which I thought was kinda funny.


And a good name.

Heheehee.


Also, I believe jabberers have gone totally extinct in my caverns, which I rely on mostly to kill web-shooters, with enough persistence. So despite disbanding my military long ago, I've had to revive it to make a small squad that will now be devoted to killing webshooters. I kinda liked watching them run around and get themselves killed by jabberers (inorganic ones were always a treat, because they couldn't heal) but pretty much my only cavern wildlife nowadays are large rats, giant moles, and flesh balls. I don't see much of anything else anymore. Rats are kind of annoying because they make a beeline for your fortress, so I have had to place down more cage traps (you can see this in the "emotionally overloaded" picture) to prevent them from triggering the webbed ones.

I'll edit this post later today if transporting that one nasty noxious secretion beast goes wrong.

Edit: All good. It was not as bad as I thought it'd be. I think sometimes the threshold for any actual syndrome to take effect is lower than what the beast produces naturally, so that's why I've gone such a long time (and only learned in this fortress) without most noxious secretion beasts causing trouble. This one had four syndromes it could apply IIRC, which I think was nausea, fever, unconsciousness, and bleeding. The only one that made me nervous was unconsciousness and bleeding - bleeding for obvious reasons, and unconsciousness could just be tedious. (Or dangerous, if a dwarf passed out while transporting a beast). 

It wasn't totally incident-free, though.




Poor Cemir, passed out in the main hall with a fever, while the linedance continues above them. They walked it off shortly afterwards.

I really genuinely love gaseous noxious secretions.

Edit 2: One more thing I forgot to add: we've hit year 200.
« Last Edit: October 24, 2022, 05:41:49 pm by nocpur »
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nocpur

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God, you'd think I'd finally remember to check in at the right time during a milestone, nope.

700 just barely slipped past me. Technically, I have 700 exactly on display. The rest are waiting to be caged or are caged. So technically, I'm on time.


Latest progress is a little messy, but hopefully you can see why. The bottom row is getting an alphabetical one, just for fun. There are some letters missing and that's fine, I'll just be skipping them.

I'm saving the A/B slot for the #1 and #2 deadliest beasts in my world, the amethyst alligator and the salt blob, but the rest I'll fill in along the way or move some stuff around to finish it all off.



See. 700. Don't look at the caged/uninvited guests. I'm on time!



It hasn't been very long since my last update but there has been some stuff happening. Mostly minor, just fun stuff. I should add I remember people asking about my FPS in the past, until the past few days it's been holding steady around 20, but lately it's been hovering between 10-15. So, it's been slowing down a lot. I don't know how much more of Casotoxa I'll be playing after I complete this quest, since I might move onto other projects, but I'm incredibly surprised at how well it's been performing for most of its 203-year-old lifespan. Keep in mind, my fortress turned 100 sometime in September. I started this whole thing in July, I think. So 2 months per 100 years seems steady.

Here's some fun stuff.

Easily the most terrifying web-shooter I've ever encountered.


Another event: My outpost liaison LOVES to always leave out of the caverns, instead of the safe surface exit which all the other merchants like to take. Great. That's fine. You do you.


... Until it's not, because they accidentally got caged while I was trying to set up more traps and immediately went berserk. Here they are, sitting in the purple cage on the left.



So, the problem was... solved.



I know it won't matter too much since I don't have many beasts left to catch, but I put an extra series of doors down to hopefully prevent this from happening. Honestly, the most annoying part is trying to get access to the far right cage and the far left cage without getting any other dwarves caged, because you can't really do that without some serious micromanaging, pathing will take them right through and I'll end up with 5 extra caged dwarves.

I am slightly worried this might lead to a loyalty cascade later down the road, but some time has passed since and it's been fine. I made a backup just in case.
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TheFlame52

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Berserk dwarves are enemies and don't trigger cascades.

nocpur

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Good to know that berserk merchants can't cause loyalty cascades, I always get a little nervous when I have to kill merchants.

Anyways! Progress. 727/728, 21 left, if all counts are accurate. We haven't had too much happen, but I want to keep this last stretch pretty well-documented. Who knows.



Here's the hall's current status. I have one more beast in a cage, but I need another one to show up before I can collect it. I just finished moving stuff around to complete the alphabetical row - besides the two reserved spots, for that amethyst alligator and the salt blob. I really don't have much else to report here.

You'll notice though, I finally got that second E, which was pretty exciting. I'm a bit thankful I got that first E so quickly, because as far as I know there are only 2 in my world. I wish I had more so I could spell out more things with it, but it does the basics - dwarf fortress and the (obtainable) alphabet is fine.





We had an interesting web-shooter show up the other day.



Which was killed by some seriously sharp nails, what the hell.


Oh, and you remember that camel I screenshotted earlier, that I lost? It finally came back, and I caught it this time, so it's here for good.


Waiting ever so patiently for Ner and salt blob to arrive... they really took their time, waiting until the last 20-ish beasts.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2022, 10:19:54 pm by nocpur »
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Paaaad

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Oh... It just occurred to me... Those two haven't taken up residence in a ruined fortress or something, have they? I'm not sure if they'll leave if they have, and the wiki is no help on the matter, having looked at the pages for Forgotten Beasts, Titans, Megabeasts in general, and Ruins. Including the discussion pages thereof.
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Unity! Duty! Destiny!

Does the walker chose the path, or the path the walker?
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