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[billybobfred]

Code: [Select]

   world
XXXX^^^XXXXX
RSGF^^^FGFSX
XXXX^^^XXXXX
   fort

R=rope/chain
S=gcs
G=floodgate or other such barrier
F=fortification
X=wall
^=trap

One GCS is tame and chained, the other is hostile and pitted. (the hostile one can be chained too if that is possible but i am pretty sure it isn't?)

The floodgates are linked to a lever somewhere in the fort. When danger strikes and the usual methods fail, Urist McMayor pull the lever and the spiders start webbing each other, incidentally covering the traps and stopping nearly anything.

... Actually, this would also make a good silk farm.

[PopeRichardCorey]

That is...  pretty freakin' awesome.  The only problem is that if you activate it at the wrong time, you're likely to get some webbed dwarves.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Won't work - GCS won't web what they can't path to, and tame GCS will only web when attacked.

[billybobfred]

Is that so?

... There are no fortifications in the arena to test this and I can't think of any way to make some. =/

But if this won't work then we can use two ropes and no fortification. The GCS might die, though...

[EveryZig]

What if the GCS have a path to eachother that has some cage traps (not the ones you want to web) in it?

+ Floor
#Fortification
X Stairs
^Cage trap
S Spider (released by lever from a cage. One spider is tame and one isn't)

+++++
^###^
+#X#+
+#^#+
+#^#+
S#^#S

You can have the staircase be an up/down staircase with a down stircase on the level above covered by a retracting bridge. Open the bridge when you want your dwarves to go through, close it to seal that path an make the remaining path the trapped one.

[Uristocrat]

You don't need two GCSes, just a tame one and a pitted hostile in front of it.

I suggest copying the silk farm from the wiki and using it to spray webs all over your cage traps in the cavern layers, so that you can trap those nasty FBs.

[Hyndis]

Just capture goblins in a cage, strip them of their weapons, and pit them into the GCS pen one at a time.

You just need a way to recapture the GCS to harvest the silk. You can do this by dividing the pen into two rooms with a door linked to a lever. Retractable bridge works fine for this and it will not accidentally crush the spider. When the spider is in one side of the room pull the bridge to trap it there, and then clean the other side of the room.

[Urist Da Vinci]

GCS can path through "tightly closed" (pet-locked) doors, but not forbidden doors. This allows you to build a fortification bunker with a single pet-locked door a wild GCS that shoots out at tame bait animals outside. It doesn't matter if the bait kitten is caged by the web-cage-traps, if enough webs land on the other cages.

Put a cage trap outside the pet-locked door, so that if you remove the "tightly closed" status the GCS will run through and cage itself.

[Girlinhat]

It seems I'm the resident GCS expert, at least looking at these responses...  Being that I've refined my trap-webbing technique and I've caught nine (9) FB/Titans in my current fort, yeah...

1) Wild GCS will shoot at anything they can path to.  Tame GCS will only shoot in self-defense.  Exposing your GCS to danger is clearly bad, so it's preferred to leave them wild so that you can utilize pathfinding.

2) Wild GCS will only shoot at things they can path to, even if the actual shot is over un-pathable terrain.  Namely, if they have a row of fortifications, and there's an opening at the end of the row, they'll shoot through the forts as they run to the opening.

3) GCS can destroy wooden objects, like wooden doors and hatch covers, but cannot destroy stone.

4) GCS will trigger pressure plates, and hatches activate instantly.

All this in mind, it culminates to make my very fun cage-webbing setup, which is...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Those two webs in the center are stray webs and have nothing under them, so consider them "empty space".  The GCS is placed on the lower side, then the door is locked, and it's released via lever.  It runs towards the chained animal, which is not pictured here, and hits one pressure plate.  Then it notices the other route, and runs the other way, hitting the other pressure plate.  It does this repeatedly, and very often shoots web while running.  I've set this up so that I can open the door and let the GCS run down and cage itself while trying to escape, and that 1x1 bridge at the top can be raised to stop Urist McSuicidal from getting himself caged.  The stairs you see offer an alternate route, which is just a short hallway with a drawbridge and some cage traps.  This is so that Urist McSuicidal can go over the whole thing and avoid the spider already in progress, and the cages collect various trolls/crundle/more-GCS that try to get into my fort.  When a FB appears, I simply close the upper gate, open the lower gate, and the FB runs in to kill my bait animal, getting itself caged before it can actually kill it.  Peacocks are my preferred bait, as they don't eat and they lay eggs like wildfire.

As per the original post, this could be modified to leave the GCS a path -under- the cage alley, with fortifications to allow web movement, and a hatch to prevent the spider from actually leaving the enclosure.  This should, in theory, make the spider path towards the bait on the other side, webbing as it runs, then stop when its hatch disappears, but I've not tried a mid-placement web target, as I prefer the back-placement web target.

Still, it's much much easier to web the cages, block them off, and then unblock them in event of [TRAP_AVOID] because having pre-webbed traps in the open, or trying to web traps on demand, results in lots of Fun.  Also, archers will get your GCS if it's just got forts protecting it, and that's not cool.