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[Krakow Sam]

So far in Dwarf Fortress, traps are only placeable on the floor, which works very well. Howver, anyone who has seen Indiana Jones will know that Traps embedded in the walls of a temple/fortress are much more common, and in most cases deadly.
I think it would be interesting to be able to convert a smoothed wall into a trap-bearing surface (by designating it, as with fortifications, and then building a trap on the space as normal). This opens up the possibility of bottlenecks defended by three traps at the same time, or corridors lined with crossbow traps to perforate your foes.
I know an extended battery of traps is planned with the introduction of the more advanced Z-axis stuff, and this seems like a logical next step.

[Yat]

are they triggered by a pressure plate on the floor, or some kinda of dwarven motion sensor? Really i would like to have one of those giant rolling boulders for any unfortunate foes who make it past the first line of defenses

[Krakow Sam]

I would imagine there would be a sort of pressure-plate built into the system, which would eat up an extra mechanism and be placed as part of the construction fo the trap (rather than building it seperately and then connecting it to the trap manually), although motion sensors would be an interesting application of magic once it's introduced (perhaps a tiny, caged demon could pull a lever when it sees goblins passing, or a clear diamond could form the basis of a magically powered thermal sensor)

[Toady One]

If there's going to be an extra plate in the floor to trigger the wall trap, the floor/ceiling traps need to be handled differently to justify that expense.  Not that that's a bad idea, since floor/ceiling traps are already very powerful and easy to produce.

[Gaulgath]

I got it! You build a "Dart Trap" which can only be placed in walls. Then you have to designate how many bolts can be placed in at one time (and you can choose whether you want to use bone, wood, metal bolts as well). Then you link it up to a pressure plate or something and it pincusion those damned goblins! (You would probably have to make it so you can choose which way it will shoot the darts, i.e. like in archery targets.)

[Krakow Sam]

Sounds like it would be a bitch to reload, especially if combining stacks isnt implemented by then. (same with crossbow traps at the moment, I guess)

[slMagnvox]

You can always load up a single weapon trap with 4 or more crossbows and just roleplay your dwarves have loaded them into the walls.  Traps are pretty damn strong as they are.

Rolling boulder traps would be fun, they were always my favorite in Nethack.

[puke]

i always assume they are located in nearby walls, if there are any walls nearby.  it gives more plausable locations for crossbows or all those multiple weapons in the multiple-weapon-traps.

if traps were actually located on walls, you would have problems with which direction they face.  imagine a wall that has open space facing two or three sides.  worse, imagine a pillar!  

as we know, you can only DETAIL one side of a wall, and you cant controll which side except by making sure only one side is accessable by the dwarf doing the detailing.  imagine the headache this would cause with traps.

[darknight]

I used to love the boulder traps in Dungeon Keeper II. One long hallway + one trigger + one boulder = Lots of rumbling carnage!

[Krakow Sam]

Not so good when it was your own Imps being squished while foolishly trying to claim a long stretch of enemy corridor.

[jonhuang]

quote:Originally posted by Gaulgath:
<STRONG>I got it! You build a "Dart Trap" which can only be placed in walls. Then you have to designate how many bolts can be placed in at one time (and you can choose whether you want to use bone, wood, metal bolts as well). Then you link it up to a pressure plate or something and it pincusion those damned goblins! (You would probably have to make it so you can choose which way it will shoot the darts, i.e. like in archery targets.)</STRONG>

I like this. A lot. Basically, I want to use mechanisms for building more things.. complicated things.

You could build a long hallway for invaders and have a single plate trigger darts to fire up and down it at once. Or use a switch to do it by hand. Probably less effective than massing regular traps, but a whole lot of fun. Plus, you could combine the two meaningfully since the floor trigger can't be on the same square as a floor trap.

If possible, it would be awesome to have friendly fire with these too. Good drama.

It'll also give us something to do with all the useless crossbows you make to train a bowyer.

The "stonefall" version of it could throw a rock instead, with the same loading constraint as a stonefall. People would feel free to imagine the flying rock as rolling.

[ January 15, 2007: Message edited by: jonhuang ]

[aeroue]

It would be good if you could do more with mechanisms, I find I always have too many mechanics doing nearly nothing.

If you could make really elaborate traps by using more mechanisms it would be good, for example

attackers run ->
________________________
+++++XXXXXXXXXXXA+++++++
+++++XXXXXXXXXXXA+++++++  X trap + floor
+++++XXXXXXXXXXXA+++++++   -/_ wall
------------------------   A activator

and kill a bunch at once would be sly.

[slMagnvox]

code:

-------------------------
+++++++++===+g+===g++===A
++++g++g+++g+++g+++gg+ggA
++++++++++++===+g+===+++A
-------------------------
...
----------------------------
+++++++++|-||-||-||-||-|A+++
++++++g!+|~||~||~||~||~|g!++
++++g!+++|-||-||-||-||-|A+++
----------------------------
- wall               |-|
+ floor              |~| lowered drawbridge
= raised drawbridge  |-|
A pressure plate      g  goblin    g! terrified goblin

[aeroue]

Its not chopping them into little pieces though.

That was just a very simple example anyways.

[slMagnvox]

I was just thinking how your idea for a trapped hallway that only triggers when a lead monter hits a pressure plate could work with existing stuff.  I've never build a "collapsing hallway" with bridges like that, but its kinda like what you were describing and would probably work.  I thought it was pretty sly.