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[socially_inept_butterfly]

So I've decided to build I gigantic hole in the ground, and place a bunch of hatch covers over it.
I'll then hook up a single lever to ALL the hatch covers, and then proceed to wait till my enemies walk over the hatches...and then BAM pull the lever and drop them to their demise. I may or may not use a nearby river to fill the pit with water (that might be overkill, if I can get the hatch deep enough)
My only problem, then, is this:
If I forbid passage through the hatches, so dwarves can't fall through, does this mean that the lever won't open them?

[cbfog]

I dunno but it would be really easy to test. Just make like a 4x4 hatch patch over a 1 z-level pit, have some hapless chump stand on it and let 'er rip.

[King Doom]

Or use a giant retractable bridge. You can make bridges from the edge of bridges, but only the ones next to the edge of the pit will retract, the others just deconstruct, dropping the stone they were made of and anything on them into the pit.

[Derakon]

You can't build unsupported hatch covers, and hatch covers do not themselves provide support. Upshot is, you can't make such a pit trap using only hatch covers. I'd recommend either using bridges (you could make a 26x26 bridge-based trap by building retracting bridges from opposite edges of the pit), or including walls across the pit to provide support for the hatches.

Frankly, go with bridges - there's a lot fewer mechanisms involved, not to mention the actual construction process is easier.

[Konis]

If I forbid passage through the hatches, so dwarves can't fall through, does this mean that the lever won't open them?

I agree that bridges are the easiest way to go, but speaking to this specifically:

I believe once you link up a hatch cover to a lever, there'll be a tag on there that says "Operated by Mechanisms" or something.  This means that it'll only respond to the lever from then on.  I use that all the time.

[socially_inept_butterfly]

You can't build unsupported hatch covers, and hatch covers do not themselves provide support. Upshot is, you can't make such a pit trap using only hatch covers. I'd recommend either using bridges (you could make a 26x26 bridge-based trap by building retracting bridges from opposite edges of the pit), or including walls across the pit to provide support for the hatches.

Frankly, go with bridges - there's a lot fewer mechanisms involved, not to mention the actual construction process is easier.

I think I'll go with the bridges, thanks for the help.

[LumenPlacidum]

The problem with bridges is the delay between pulling the lever and the bridge retracting.  Aren't hatches instantaneous?

[Derakon]

They are, yes. Arguably they shouldn't be (and neither should doors, for that matter).

[inaluct]

Actually, I think there are floor bars or something that function like vertical floodgates. You might want to try them.

Alternately, you could make it a one-shot-massive-cave in thing.

[Demonic Gophers]

I recommend using an area of floor, held up by a single support, linked to a lever.  Or a pressure plate, to make it a trap that can be set off by the target, instead of triggered by a dwarf.  Use bridges or grates or some such to provide access to it.

This way you get a cave in, and a bunch of dust, when you set it off.  Also, you only need three mechanisms for the entire trap.  It does take longer to reset, though.  You have to rebuild the floor.


If you can get it deep enough, don't bother with water.  Your hapless foes will be splattered across several levels, and you can retrieve what you want of their equipment at your leisure.

[sneakey pete]

If I forbid passage through the hatches, so dwarves can't fall through, does this mean that the lever won't open them?

Once you get a hatch linked to a lever, the forbidding access etc. isn't an option, they just act as, say, a floodgate would.