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[denito]

So you're playing a nice efficient game, you know all your dwarves by name and have tasks distributed efficiently, and then you get the dreaded message:  migrants have arrived.  It's not that we don't want more labor, it's just that it completely wrecks your train of thought, forces you to take time from your devious master plans to figure out what to do with yet another cheese maker and that wood burner with random military skills in towel lashing and basket punching.  Wouldn't it be better if you could just toss the noobs into cages and just let them out one by one when you're ready for them?

The trick to getting a dwarf into a cage is you've got to knock him out first.  Lacking a trained Cyclops named Bubba to clonk the dwarves on the head, your best option is a controlled cave-in.  I've spent the last few hours designing a building that allows repeatable cave-ins while minimizing the chances of damage.  (Damage to the building that is - the dwarves come out of it all fucked to hell.  Extra practice for your doctors.)

Here it is, the Department of Dwarven Immigration:

Code: [Select]

RO===O  Level 1
 |^^^|
 D^ ^|
 |^^^|
RO===O

 +++++  Level 2
 +...R
  . .O
 +...R
 +++++

 .....  Level 3
 .   .
   +++
 .   .
 .....

R is ramps, O is walls, ^ is cage traps, D is door, + is either floor tiles or the top of a wall.

Here's how it works:  it's very important that the building face West.  Have the dwarf you want to cage deconstruct the floor tile that is the MIDDLE plus (+) symbol on Level 3. (Press d->n.)  Because the building faces West he'll stand on the floor tile that is going to fall.  He'll fall 2-Z levels and be knocked out, and hopefully land in one of the cage traps in the ring.  There's no cage trap underneath him because the falling tile would break it anyway.  The connecting tile he's removing doesn't break a cage trap, because it's gone when the cave-in occurs. 

The fall has to be 2 levels; a 1-level fall won't knock him out.

To reset the trap, simply reconstruct the two floor tiles on level 3.

It's difficult to do more than one dwarf at a time with this building, because military dwarves stationed on the platform tend to move around and obstruct the tile that needs to be deconstructed.  I managed to drop four dwarves at once, three were caged and one landed on the middle tile and was merely injured.  I was trying to find out whether it's possible for multiple dwarves to get caught in the same cage if they land on the trap at the same time, but these results are inconclusive (the three landed in separate cages by chance).

[Thadius]

I...

Huh.

May have to try that some time soon...

I mean it's not like I don't LIKE my migrants.  I just don't need a wave of 20+ coming over the horizon to drink my booze, eat my food, and sleep in the fine quarters I've provided those already here while I scramble to make MORE STUFF.

Huh.  May have to adapt it though.  Like for the really useless ones, I could just drop them into a cavern.

[denito]

Well I just had my 3 caged test dwarves die.  I'm not sure if they died from their wounds or because the other bozos forgot to bring them water; I had the game running without paying attention to it.  Keeping them alive in the cages may be harder than caging them in the first place.  I've noticed I can't free a dwarf from a cage unless someone has animal caretaker labor turned on; maybe I need animal caretakers to water the caged dwarves as well?

[AtomicPaperclip]

yet another cheese maker and that wood burner with random military skills in towel lashing and basket punching.

I just laughed my freaking pants off

[melomel]

I've noticed I can't free a dwarf from a cage unless someone has animal caretaker labor turned on; maybe I need animal caretakers to water the caged dwarves as well?

That isn't covered by feed/water prisoners under healthcare?  Hmm...  makes sense in a DF-y way, if they only count as prisoners after being the victims of "justice".

Building the cage and attaching a lever should work, too.  In case you have a excellent mechanic corps and feel like extra complication.

[The Yellow Peril]

They can't die from their wounds in cages, it's been tested before. However, if you have few idle dwarves at any one time, a shortage of buckets, or no well, then it's very easy for them to starve or dehydrate to death. There still seems to be that bug where a dwarf will half-fill a bucket, then the water inside will stagnate, and they won't be able to empty it or drink from it or refill it, making the bucket useless, and killing any dwarves you have which rely on being given water (that is, if you don't make new buckets). As I already mentioned above, feeding and giving water to other dwarves seems to be a really low priority job, so lots of times you'll be able to do it, but your dwarves will just rather throw parties instead.

[Kanddak]

The fall has to be 2 levels; a 1-level fall won't knock him out.

Won't the cave-in dust knock him out?

I just learned that cave-in dust no longer automatically knocks creatures out like it did in 40d.

I still wanted to try to improve on this excellent idea so I built an immigrant motel comprising a hall of 2-tile rooms where the tile next to the door is a dummy lever and the far tile is the top of a 2-level shaft with a cage trap at the bottom. The levers are given pull-on-repeat orders to get a dwarf into the room so they can be locked in.
Water is pumped into a plumbing system above the motel, falls through the ceiling onto the levers, and washes the occupants over the edges, whereupon they fall 2 levels onto the cage traps.
The cage level has the same layout as the lever level; the far tile is the cage trap and the near tile is a grate-covered channel which allows the water to drain.

It didn't quite work. Out of seven test subjects, two died on impact and the others sustained serious injuries but didn't pass out and didn't get caged.