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[Lord Shonus]

I've come up with a simple "trap," but there's a flaw in it I can't figure a way around.

On level one (the corridor to be protected), I'll put a line of bauxite pressure plates, like this:

.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X

Directly above each plate will be a 1x1 open space. There will be a bauxite hatch cover linked to the plate underneath.

Either above or alongside that row of spaces will be a magma pipe. This will be connected to the open spaces via doors/hatches linked to a lever. Once the lever is pulled, magma will flow over the hatches.  when they are full, the lever will be pulled again, sealing them off. That way, touching a pressure plate will dispense a limited amount of magma onto whatever triggered the plate. This will take out most sigers, without flooding large areas of the map. Assuming that all the plates are triggered, I'll just have to keep that stretch of corridor restricted till the magma goes away, then collect the surviving equipment.

The flaw is how to disarm it if the plates are not all triggered. I can't figure out an easy way to remove the magma ammuniton from the trap without incinerating a peasant.

[Puck]

Using another lever and some floodgates you could just drain the magma into an evaporation chamber.

You might wanna reconsider the setup. There's delay between activating that plate and falling magma... I would try to time it properly, so the magma really hits the thing that activated the plate.

[Lord Shonus]

I didn't realize hatches had a delay, but that can be fixed by offsetting it. I don't think I have enough room for another chamber off to the side.

[Jimmy]

To get rid of all magma on the floor, you can create a row of automated screw pumps.

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[Puck]

I didn't realize hatches had a delay, but that can be fixed by offsetting it. I don't think I have enough room for another chamber off to the side.

I'm not sure whether or not hatches have a delay. But I'm pretty sure things will not happen instantly, either way.

Oh, and why not just not only link pressure plates to the hatches, but ALSO a lever? So you could disarm the trap by intentionally "triggering" it.

[Shakma]

Why would you need to disarm it?

[HammerHand]

From what I understand, it is not the hatches that have a delay, it is the pressure plate - or linked mechanisms in general.

If I remember and understand correctly, there is a 100-step delay between the activation of a lever/plate and the effect of that activation.  100 steps is nowhere near as long as it sounds, but it can be a pretty long time when dealing with traps, and particularly with magma.

I would make sure that only a certain amount of magma is ever allowed into the "loading chamber" - probably with a lever-activated floodgate.  This way, you can better control the amount of magma to come spouting down on your enemies (after all, you wouldn't want to release too much magma into your corridors while you wait for that 100-step delay between the magma activating the plate and the floodgate closing).

You might also use some grates on the trap-level floor to catch and divert the run-off magma, but this would also mean you might not get enough magma on the plates to turn the flow off.  Then again, why would you want the flow to turn off automatically?  Your Dwarves will flee from the magma, and your enemies will find it quite the gauntlet.  A manual disarm might be precisely the way to go.

But it is, after all, your deathtrap.

[Quietust]

I don't know about pressure plates, but there is no signal propagation delay when pulling a lever - a lever-operated floor hatch opens and closes instantly. For bridges and floodgates, the delay comes from themselves, not the lever/plate.

[dragon0421]

I remember reading somewhere that the quality of mechanisms used determine delay.

[Simmura McCrea]

I remember reading somewhere that the quality of mechanisms used determine delay.

Quality of mechanisms only determines the weapon skill used for attacks from a weapon trap.

[HammerHand]

Indeed, the delay seems to come from what's connected to the plate or lever.  Most of my experimentation thus far has involved Upright Spear Traps, which do indeed have an unrecorded delay (the wiki only seems to mention that you might want to set the spikes some distance away from any pressure plates activating them, as an enemy might trigger the spikes, then walk over the tile before they activate).  In fact, it's only because of this delay that my current noble deathtrap works at all.

Hence my assumption that all lever- or plate-activated mechanisms held a standard delay.  I stand corrected, and now require some mechanical testing of my limits.  Levers and plates are so much more reliable when they don't have that delay hanging over my head.

[forsaken1111]

Couldn't you floor the chamber with grates, allowing the magma to filter through like a sieve leaving nothing but magma-safe loot remaining?

The magma could even drop into a reclaimation chamber with pumps to recycle it.