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[Xheia]

What is a reasonable amount of weapons in trap? (my main question)
I mostly rely on discs, and I have been striving to put 10 weapons in each trap, but I'm beginning to realize that's ridiculous.
Reasonable means, a good chance of rendering an enemy harmless.

Also, any advice on what kind of weapons? (I have a large selection of normal, unused weapons.) Does quality matter (significantly), for the weapons and the mechanism?

[Niyazov]

Mechanism quality is important; it affects the chance to hit for every weapon in the trap.

Weapon material is important against armored enemies, but most enemies don't wear full armor.

Weapon quality is as important as it would be if a military dwarf wielded the weapon.

Rendering a enemy harmless within a trap corridor is probably not a great idea since your military dwarves will then have to fight and kill them in the same trap corridor, and run the risk of being hit by the traps you that laid out for your enemy if they get knocked out. Ideally your traps should cause instant kills up until they jam. For this, more weapons is better.

If you are dead set on nonfatal traps, you might experiment with high-quality silver or copper slashing weapons, or even with wooden elf weapons (not training weapons). These will remove arms and legs from armored goblins but are less likely to kill them immediately with lethal head or torso shots and are less likely to knock them unconscious in the middle of the trap corridor.

Serrated discs are unique in that they attack 3 times rather than just once.

I favor crossbows for weapon traps since they never jam. A crossbow trap with metal or wooden bolts can take out up to 25 different enemies before it has to be reloaded.

[Xheia]

Thanks for the advice. ("rendering them harmless" definitely includes killing them.) The info about the crossbow trap is interesting.
My question is more like, how many copper serrated discs do I need to get instant kills? Has anyone done any experiments? Or, how much damage does one disc alone do?

[Garath]

much maligned is the spiked ball. It also has 3 attacks and copper spiked balls are just as effective as copper discs, silver spiked balls regularly cause heads to crack even through helms.

2 iron serrated discs and 2 spiked silver balls in a trap, making it a field of 5 deep will kill a lot, and what passes through will be seriously injured.

Personally, after this field I have 3 rows of upright spear traps with copper or glass spikes, then a row of cages and again 2 rows of upright spears. After that I tend to make a pattern alternating cages, spikes and weapon traps. A 20 tile long corridor in this setup will kill anything. Most likely, you wonder about the spikes.

I assume you use some cages too, to get sparring dummies and leaders have a habit of getting trapped, making the rest of the squad hang around, most likely jamming a lot of weapon traps. The next squad runs right over it. By setting some cages (I actually start with some spikes at the entrance, then cages spikes alternate untill I get to weapon traps way in the end) with spikes around, you trap 2, 3 or more, then kill the squad with the spikes. Next squad gets to the next row, gets trapped and killed. Now all cages are full, spikes on repeat and anything that gets past the spikes gets chopped and smashed by the spiked ball/serrated disc combination. If anything gets through, my militia (non-danger room, all natural) can probably deal with it (2 marksdwarf squads, 2 mixed with axes, hammers and swords, 1 lasher squad, 1 recruits/wrestlers squad).

It was in fact so effective that I made 2 new entrances to the fort with different traps, fewer traps or whatever, because nothing was coming through

The good thing about the spikes is that they also affect goblin demonic leaders and titans

[Niyazov]

much maligned is the spiked ball. It also has 3 attacks and copper spiked balls are just as effective as copper discs, silver spiked balls regularly cause heads to crack even through helms.

2 iron serrated discs and 2 spiked silver balls in a trap, making it a field of 5 deep will kill a lot, and what passes through will be seriously injured.

Personally, after this field I have 3 rows of upright spear traps with copper or glass spikes, then a row of cages and again 2 rows of upright spears. After that I tend to make a pattern alternating cages, spikes and weapon traps. A 20 tile long corridor in this setup will kill anything. Most likely, you wonder about the spikes.

I assume you use some cages too, to get sparring dummies and leaders have a habit of getting trapped, making the rest of the squad hang around, most likely jamming a lot of weapon traps. The next squad runs right over it. By setting some cages (I actually start with some spikes at the entrance, then cages spikes alternate untill I get to weapon traps way in the end) with spikes around, you trap 2, 3 or more, then kill the squad with the spikes. Next squad gets to the next row, gets trapped and killed. Now all cages are full, spikes on repeat and anything that gets past the spikes gets chopped and smashed by the spiked ball/serrated disc combination. If anything gets through, my militia (non-danger room, all natural) can probably deal with it (2 marksdwarf squads, 2 mixed with axes, hammers and swords, 1 lasher squad, 1 recruits/wrestlers squad).

It was in fact so effective that I made 2 new entrances to the fort with different traps, fewer traps or whatever, because nothing was coming through

The good thing about the spikes is that they also affect goblin demonic leaders and titans

This man speaks wisdom.

[Tirion]

Alternatively, if you have safe, available sand and magma on your map, you can make all the trap components you want, and save the metal for bolts. Glass may be inferior to metals, but trap components are always better for a weapon trap than normal weapons. A sufficiently large goblin grinder stuffed full of glass weapon traps can bleed out sieges.

[Garath]

I usually mod giant axe blades to have 2 hits. Then they are very useful

[slink]

The good thing about the spikes is that they also affect goblin demonic leaders and titans

And those nasty little kobolds.   

[vassock]

Beware. Multiple attacks can theoretically make an enemy jump that many times away from the trap. A trap with 10 weapons can attack 10 times and a goblin can dodge 10 times in one direction, potentially skipping 9 adjacent weapon traps. So low quality weapons in one trap can actually neutralize high quality traps further along the weapon trap hallway. At least that's how I think it works.

[sjaakwortel]

I usually use about full loaded weapon traps with spiked wooden or silver balls, next to the trap (both sides) i dig a deep pit, deep enough for instant frags, with some good quality/material uprigth spikes for thougher/luckier enemies(some enemies dont take fall damage because they fall on each other). Then a way back up to the entrance.
...............
^^^^^^^
...............
.= 10zlevel drop
^=weapon trap loaded with a high quality mechanism and some spiked balls

The great thing about this thing is that:
a)no need for expensive materials, the dodging and falling 10 z-levels kills the enemies
b)no jamming, because the weapons rarely hit/make a kill.
c)automatic reloading, if the enemies survive the drop, they just walk up and try again.

After this corridor I usually have some uprigth steel/glass spears to kill the [trapavoid] creatures.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I wouldn't worry too much about enemies dodging past traps. It's like Brownian motion, except less directed. Face it, goblins are as likely to dodge back up your trap corridor as they are to dodge further down it. A deep enough trap corridor would almost completely elliminate the improbability of a goblin dodging all 10 weapons, in the same direction. Besides, isn't that what your militia is for?

[Garath]

and cage traps

[i2amroy]

I wouldn't worry too much about enemies dodging past traps. It's like Brownian motion, except less directed. Face it, goblins are as likely to dodge back up your trap corridor as they are to dodge further down it. A deep enough trap corridor would almost completely elliminate the improbability of a goblin dodging all 10 weapons, in the same direction. Besides, isn't that what your militia is for?

And take into effect that most goblins won't dodge at all. You don't really get reliable dodging out of goblins until they hit the elite level, so the only ones you really need to worry about are the elites.