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[Grimlocke]

Oh so this doesnt result in horrible tragedy? Neat, one more silly contraption to throw into my fortress. Will post results of my lousily armored dwarves trying this once I got it working (might be a while).

[Feral23]

pwnd a siege pretty hard, legendary shields means blocking near-everything.

if i remember correctly, all that armor skill does is increase the agility/speed of the armor user, material is the factor for what gets thru.

but the training room raises that too.

cmon folks, anyone else have results to share?

[Barrow]

Cool concept. Almost borders a little too close to exploiting for my tastes (though the inherent risk does help), but I'll give it a test run tonight and see how it fares.

[userjjb]

I read this thread and did this in my fortress last night. A squad of 10 relatively experienced dwarfs in full steel suffered no injuries (except for killing like 8 cats that were all pets of one axedwarf who likes cats for there aloofness, he wasn't too happy). THey went from perhaps lvl 8 or so in shields to legendary+5 in a season. Seems to work great!

[KojaK]

Cool concept. Almost borders a little too close to exploiting for my tastes (though the inherent risk does help), but I'll give it a test run tonight and see how it fares.

I see exploiting as using the game in improbable ways... although that is a VERY fuzzy line. On the one hand, I don't like using hallways full of traps for an invincible fortress, or exploiting the AI of the enemies to make them run endlessly over the same weapon trap, but on the other hand, I find a huge fortress built on one support made of soap and water reactors perfectly fine.

For this situation, I LOVE the idea. Partly because of it's usefulness (maybe it trains a little too fast?), but mainly because of the image it conjures. Throwing inexperienced conscripts into one burrow and making them beat the shit out of each other with training weapons all while dodging the SPEARS STABBING YOU THROUGH THE FLOOR! (pets are simply acceptable losses. Your military must learn to endure hardship! Also, floor stabby-spears appear to be a great way to train your medical staff)

[Johnny Madhouse]

Quite a few people have been doing this for a while now. Training spear traps also train weapon skills, if the dwarf is holding the appropriate weapon. Wrestling doesn't go up very fast at all, but it is quite possible to train (weapon)lords within a month or two.

The more spears in each trap, the faster dwarves will gain experience. Each spear attacks once for each set of lever pulls, meaning dwarves can be attacked hundreds of times a day with little or no damage.

To reduce damage, I suggest setting a mechanic's workshop to only accept dwarves with dabbling skill, and then have most of the fortress churn out crappy inaccurate mechanisms for the training spears. Crappy spears will help too, though I have never had an injury to a dwarf wearing full steel plate, even from stacks of masterpiece training spears.

[KojaK]

Do the mechanisms really affect damage? I thought it was only the weapon in the trap. o.O

[kaijyuu]

They affect accuracy, which is possibly important here.

[Urist Imiknorris]

It would also help to make the training spears out of feather wood.

[Feral23]

im kind of spoiled this fort-

reclaimed 3 obsidian goblin towers on a 2x2 embark, and got a SOLID *spoiler* deposit running all the way to the magma sea.

my carpenters and mechanics are legendary, as i make barrels on R, and train haulers on mechanics to force moods.

the spear setup i built is mostly therefore high-quality components, but my military is blue-armored.

steel should be sufficent, though, judging by responses in this thread.

I am aware that I am not the inventor of this technique, but I'm attempting to be the popularizer...

especially given the slow rate of training im experiencing from solo workouts alone (somehow, i have not ever gotten military to spar

or give demonstrations) AND this gives melee a  decent chance of surviving a charge into (buffed) enemy bolt-storms.

[Stravitch]

I'm not sure what it is with this new military.  It seems like either it works or it doesn't even when you do the setup correctly.  I had completely given up on archery for a squad I had setup and got frustrated because they wouldn't practice firing at the targets even with quivers and bolts in all of their inventories.  Come back past the area a season later and they are firing away.  No idea. lol   I'll have to try out this method though, thanks for the idea.

[o_O[WTFace]]

If mechanisms affect accuracy wouldn't it be best to use masterwork, since the goal is to maximize spear hits while minimizing the damage each one does? 

Also, does being stabbed at with spears cause job cancelations or anything? 

[sinister agent]

Your military must learn to endure hardship!

That reminds me.  Why are most of my dwarves 'getting used to tragedy'?  There've been about five deaths in three years, and the only other bad thing to happen was a miner who miscarried.  And nobody actually liked her.  Everyone else has been ecstatic for 80% of the time, and content at worst.  What gives?

[darkflagrance]

Your military must learn to endure hardship!

That reminds me.  Why are most of my dwarves 'getting used to tragedy'?  There've been about five deaths in three years, and the only other bad thing to happen was a miner who miscarried.  And nobody actually liked her.  Everyone else has been ecstatic for 80% of the time, and content at worst.  What gives?

They get it if they see death of any creature, not just dwarves. If you butcher animals in plain view, or kill goblins while everyone watches from the battlements, they'll get it just the same as if their best buddies died every few minutes.

[Johnny Madhouse]

If mechanisms affect accuracy wouldn't it be best to use masterwork, since the goal is to maximize spear hits while minimizing the damage each one does? 

Also, does being stabbed at with spears cause job cancelations or anything?

For the first question, I think it depends on whether you want to maximize armor user or dodging first. Low quality mechanisms should be easier to dodge. It really doesn't seem to matter a great deal: standard mechanisms train both skills to legendary in a couple months.

For the second, no. This method doesn't involve any job cancellation spam, which is nice. All it does is give combat reports full of shield blockings, spears glancing off of armor, and dwarves dodging. I don't know why weapon skill increases, but it does!