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[Urist McDwarfFortress]

Are 'candy canes' exceptionally good for upright spear traps?

I believe it depends on what armor your enemies are wearing.  For example: if they're wearing copper armor, then I think iron will be exactly as deadly as candy in piercing weapons.

So my best guess is:  Copper spikes will slaughter elves and unarmored enemies, but thats about it.  Iron spikes will be sufficient against many gobos (since they usually only wear 1 or 2 pieces of iron armor).  Steel spikes will take care of anyone short of the nastiest FBs.  Candy canes should skewer anything.

[Girlinhat]

Windows are preferred for bait because goblins can't shoot through them.  Although windows can be destroyed, you can prevent this by placing the windows in an unreachable position.

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      ^This path leads to the entranceAs long as it loops around somehow, even if it goes to HFS and back 3 times and through a maze, the goblins will realize "there's some route to the kitten!  Onwards!"  Push the windows far enough away that trolls can't break them, and your bait will work.

[Calathar]

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, but if a goblin lands on something alive (a dwarf or another goblin), it will be unharmed and not stunned.  So in the middle of a siege when there are twenty goblins trying to get through your dodge pit at once, there's a good chance some will be alive if it's not deep enough.

[Darkening Kaos]

Does the quality of the mechanism have any impact on the operation of the trap?

[Girlinhat]

It affects the accuracy of weapon traps.  Upright spears are 100% accurate.  I don't know if a higher quality mechanism will jam a weapon trap less frequently, that may be an interesting thing to look into, but I believe the jamming rate depends on weapon type and kill rate instead of mechanism.

[Darkening Kaos]

When I build weapon traps, I try to only use masterwork mechanisms, the weapons vary depending on the task, but I very rarely see them being jammed, but there's dorfs climbing all over them cleaning up all the blood and hauling body bits so it is difficult to tell.

Time to start a new fort to do some investigation.

[rtg593]

Tl;dr :p (referencing early in comments about magma pits to burn away useless items)

Couple forts ago I was getting over 100 goblins a year, mostly ambushes, my second seige had just occurred when I got bored.

Those 100 per year (and rising) were netting me 20,000 trade value in their clothing ALONE. Never did get around to seeing weapon shield values. Had far more than I needed, just from trading their clothes.

Not a single embark in that world I tried had coal, never hit magma, otherwise I would've kept selling clothing and melting their metal stuff for my own use.

Just something to think about.

[Vattic]

Since the clothing fix the dwarves will happily wear second hand goblin thongs and the like so there is even less reason to burn them.

[Loud Whispers]

Wooden spiky balls, pit has a rampway leading to the start of the dodge trap... Dodge or die. Beautiful.

[Uristocrat]

1)  I use a two-layer trap to avoid the problem where squad leaders cause their squad to stop moving when killed or caged.  See the whole setup here:  https://imgur.com/a/bMeYy#0

You'll see that I have a two-layer spiral design, that there's ALWAYS a clear path, etc.  It might be somewhat weak vs. flyers, but there are enough traps in there including cage traps that it should still stop quite a few.  I also have a statue set up to deal with annoying building destroyers.  And an auto-locking drawbridge area that will automatically seal off the fortress when enemies wander in.

2) If you have a lot of them, it doesn't matter at all.  I use a random mix of whatever I have on hand that I'm not going to use for anything else.  But I try to avoid projectile weapons simply because I don't want dwarves to have to wander in there and reload them all of the time.  Or if I do use those, I put them at the far end where they don't get used.  Once I get magma workshops going, everything tends to be green glass because it's free.  I use a few cage traps at the far ends to catch anything that somehow gets past everything, but that usually only happens while I'm still busy filling things with traps.  Once the path is full, those cage traps go unused.

3) Yes, just make sure you don't turn them into obsidian and have a good way to drain the magma.

[TinyPirate]

My dodge pit worked great until the hobos refused to advance and I had to send in my military to finish them off.... Four of whom dodged hobos and fell into the magma :/

[rtg593]

Just started using dodges, myself. 20z drop onto upright spikes. They explode. :-D Peices everywhere, 5 tiles away. Combat reports for the impact are pretty great, too. :-D

I had problems with them stopping, but I just added kittens to the path, and they attempt to run the gauntlet like they're possesed, now. :p

[Uristocrat]

My dodge pit worked great until the hobos refused to advance and I had to send in my military to finish them off.... Four of whom dodged hobos and fell into the magma :/

This is exactly why I went to the two-layer design.  It lets me cut off their escape route before I cut off their heads.

[Naryar]

I may add that magma pits only burn the non-metallic items. It melts silver and copper into globs, which can be melted back, and it keeps iron weapons and armor.

If you want gobbo clothes or bones, a drowning trap may be better.

[slothen]

As long as it loops around somehow, even if it goes to HFS and back 3 times and through a maze, the goblins will realize "there's some route to the kitten!  Onwards!"  Push the windows far enough away that trolls can't break them, and your bait will work.

i did this in my last fort and it worked perfectly.  The first half of the siegers got nailed/injured falling into a pit, and it appeared that the rest were starting to flee/path out, but they could see the kitten from the dodge trap entrance and went back into the traps.  I'm not sure exactly what their logic was, but they definitely were moving back/away/out, then would turn around and go right back in.  Might have something to do with me closing off their exit, making their only flee-route through my fortress.