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Author Topic: Wall grates, vertical bars, and dwarf compressability  (Read 2979 times)

Sofaspud

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Wall grates, vertical bars, and dwarf compressability
« on: December 11, 2007, 05:00:00 pm »

First off, what is the difference between a wall grate and a set of vertical bars?  Is there one?  Which should you use to keep (for example) lizardmen or giant crocodiles from swimming up your canal and munching on tasty dwarf around the well?

Second: I had a strange thing happen while playing and I'm trying to figure out what, exactly, transpired.  The setup: I dug a tunnel to my river (the other end dropped into a cistern).  I then set up a set of vertical bars, and stupidly, designated them 1 tile away from the end of the tunnel.  Since the tunnel ran left-to-right, it meant that the dwarf happily walled himself in (since they apparently prefer to work from the west).  Well, fine.  I wanted to test a theory I had about them being able to swim out of channels anyway, and he was a fresh-off-the-wagon immigrant with no skills.  So I left him there.

When everything else was ready he was still alive (thirsty, though).  I sent a miner over on the z-level above and channeled out the 1 remaining tile.  Of course the underground tunnel immediately filled with 7/7 water.  Hrm.  Looks like the peasant was going to drown -- he wasn't swimming out from above (the only open route), and the vertical bars were in the way preventing him from outrunning the flood.

Then, suddenly, he appeared on the OTHER side of the bars, sprinting as fast as his feet could carry him, and actually managed to outrun the flood and get back through the maintenance corridor before the water filled the tunnel.

So, what?  Do dwarves have some sort of compressable skeleton that allows them to squeeze through bars?  Can they teleport?  What gives here?

(I've checked, and the bars are still there.)

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Can't... stop... laughing...:<BR>"... but at least in DF if Elves chained themselves to trees it would just mean an extra ax stroke or two." --Forumsdwarf<BR>"Would the owner of the red GCS silk socks, please pick them the f*** up, you left your FPS void on." --MadJax

Mystry

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Re: Wall grates, vertical bars, and dwarf compressability
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2007, 05:37:00 pm »

I knew it.

Dwarves are decendants of octopi!

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BurnedToast

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Re: Wall grates, vertical bars, and dwarf compressability
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2007, 11:04:00 pm »

I believe that there is no difference between bars and grates right now, though eventually small items (rings and such) will fall through grates, and both large and small items will fall through bars, as well as maybe small creatures being able to get through bars. For now though, just build whichever you like the most.

As for the teleport thing... I don't know, I've never seen it but I've never messed with bars much. I suspect it's a bug of some sort though, if you can get it to reproduce constantly maybe make a bug report about it.

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An ambush! curse all friends of nature!

Greenwolf

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Re: Wall grates, vertical bars, and dwarf compressability
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2007, 04:01:00 am »

did the tile the bars were filling have another floor above it, or was the floor above channeled out.  just a wild hunch, but could the dwarf have been washed over the top of the bars? at which point he landed on the other side and ran like hell?

(dwarf hurtling anyone?)

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