View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0013143 | Dwarf Fortress | Fire | public | 2025-04-08 12:13 | 2025-04-10 02:36 |
| Reporter | Ciderglove | Assigned To | |||
| Priority | normal | Severity | major | Reproducibility | always |
| Status | new | Resolution | open | ||
| Platform | Steam | OS | Windows 10 | OS Version | 22H2 |
| Product Version | 51.09 | ||||
| Summary | 0013143: Dwarves will not attack creatures made of fire | ||||
| Description | It is already known (and, for some reason, intentional) that dwarves will not path through smoke, which makes fighting fire-breathing creatures a gamble. However, when creatures are actually made of fire, dwarves will simply not attack them at all, even if they are standing right next to them. Perhaps this is because creatures made of fire always generate a unit of smoke on their own body? Something very weird is going on, because even when I use DFHack's "gui/liquids" and "clear-smoke" features on *every tick*, the dwarves persist in refusing to fight. This can go on for hours, with no change (except the dwarves eventually melting to death). I am aware that DF is not supposed to be 'balanced', but I do not believe that this is intentional design. It is possible that this problem is less visible if one only fights a single flame creature at a time (such as a forgotten beast or a demon from a pocket), but when two or three (or more) flame demons are involved in the same combat, the result seems to be a total inability by the dwarves to even attempt to land a blow. | ||||
| Steps To Reproduce | Spawn three flame demons. Spawn some legendary warriors in non-flammable gear right next to them. Observe as the warriors spend all their time blocking fire, dodging attacks, and failing to strike at the demons, even when they are right next to them (and thus pathing issues are irrelevant). | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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Fire-immune cave dragons ignore smoke and fire and are useful in these cases. The fact that some creatures are immune to the effects might mean that it's working as intended? Perhaps some creatures are simply nigh invulnerable save to some specific counters (even if it's unbalanced)? My marksdwarves are also able to shoot these creatures to death, provided the smoke doesn't block their view. Of course, for the average player the obscurity of what exactly is preventing melee dwarves from attacking these creatures (too hot? can't path? etc) makes it difficult to know if something is working as intended or just plain broken. |
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It is true that cave dragons ignore smoke and fire, and therefore attack enemies. However, my 200-year-old cave dragon (which I had to teleport into the fight, as she would bounce between following my military dwarf and running to a random position hundreds of tiles away) was unable to land more than a single blow in a fight lasting thousands of ticks against four steam (!) demons and two flame demons -- steam and flame meaning that the demons' attacks had no force and could thus cause no injury. The cave dragon was trained as a war animal. |
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In fact, as substantial research has just shown me, cave dragons are NOT useful in these cases. The incorporeal nature of flame demons (and steam demons) means that a cave dragon will be incapable of hitting them. |
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You mentioned that they got at least one hit in? Could it be despite their latent fighting skills it's still not enough to get a good roll to hit their mark? Would boosting their skills to legendary+ allow them to hit the flame/steam demons? Realistically, marksdwarves should not be able to snuff out creatures made out of flame like someone would shoot out a candle flame, but that's definitely how I killed one by shooting "bits of flame" off of it little by little as if I'm chipping away a FB made out of snow or vomit. So I don't think its supposedly incorporeal nature is the problem, it's probably something else. |
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I mentioned that the cave dragon got a single hit in, yes. It missed hundreds of other hits. The dwarves who previously attempted to fight the flame demons and steam demons were all legendary in all combat skills, close to level 100. It may well be that if the cave dragon's combat skills were increased to legendary+, it would be able to fight the steam/flame demons -- but it is not possible to train the combat skills of animals. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-04-08 12:13 | Ciderglove | New Issue | |
| 2025-04-08 16:55 | amade | Note Added: 0042644 | |
| 2025-04-09 05:22 | Ciderglove | Note Added: 0042646 | |
| 2025-04-09 05:30 | Ciderglove | Note Added: 0042647 | |
| 2025-04-09 19:36 | amade | Note Added: 0042651 | |
| 2025-04-09 19:37 | amade | Note Edited: 0042651 | |
| 2025-04-10 02:36 | Ciderglove | Note Added: 0042652 |
