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[knutor]

How will these new trees, and fallen fruit affect depot access.  Will the road sometimes be closed by fallen trees as a resort of evil weather and lightning strikes?  Just curious, still not sure the traversing trap thing is a bug or a feature.  I liked it before when the trade carts could traverse traps.  This new method causes too many issues with high stealth kobolds, walking right on into steal from us.  Without Observation progression, and a reseal-able front door, we can't seal it in, without the carts skipping us.  There should either be a delay to cart decision to skip fortress or a penalty on kobold stealth progression.  As it is now, after 20yrs they start walking right off with all our possessions, with no repercussions.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Wait... carts...fruit... kobolds... traps... Huh?

[Revanchist]

I think he means that he doesn't see a reasonably, or even unreasonable method if defending against ambushes while he allows in caravans. Perhaps he assumes building close to trees just give the enemies an extra avenue of entry?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Ah.

knutor, have you tried building walls to form a path to the depot, putting one-tile "holes" in the walls, and putting traps in the holes?

[Imp]

Ah.

knutor, have you tried building walls to form a path to the depot, putting one-tile "holes" in the walls, and putting traps in the holes?

But arn't kobolds trap immune?

Maybe a war dog in a 1x1 pen in that hole in the wall?

[Kaos]

Ah.

knutor, have you tried building walls to form a path to the depot, putting one-tile "holes" in the walls, and putting traps in the holes?

Wait... walls... path... depot... holes... traps... Huh?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Ah.

knutor, have you tried building walls to form a path to the depot, putting one-tile "holes" in the walls, and putting traps in the holes?

Wait... walls... path... depot... holes... traps... Huh?

Alright. Make a trade depot. Make sure its only exit is through a three-tile path with walls on either side. Deconstruct some walls and put traps where the walls were. Now enemies should path through traps, especially if you put extra traps just on the outside of the "holes." Maybe tie up some kittens or something just inside--restraints don't block wagons.

[knutor]

This doesn't have to do with trap design, however, I do admit I did bring it up for a comparison.  But I brought it up, because Fortress play feels wrong.  Better examples to follow...

If a tame dragon can slither over a pressure trap with all its girth and belly rubbing ground quaking, and even to some extent cause dust devils of mini hurricane proportions with its enormous bat wing span, a lite weight, unladen cart should be able to also. 

Unless of course we are to imagine Toady's dragons as pink puff the magic dragons.  Potbellied and weak, and supernaturally light and nimble moving about their blubber with fairylike ambivalence.  Traps stopping carts, feels like a bug, not a feature.  I'm not the only one who has said this.

My concern is this new edible shit falling out of Toady's new trees.  And from his pictures, the broadening of the leafy canopy is getting quite broad indeed.  How will this effect the embark map depot access?  Indubitably theft capable entities are not progressing accordingly as right now they walk right into a fortress, with an open 3x3 gate. 

Thief capable entities get crazy skills later in Fortress mode gameplay 15-20+ years.  Things just start poofing.  Dogs and Cats cannot detect um, their Observation is too weak at this point in play.

We cannot time the arrival of caravans, unless I am mistakenly missing a timestamp game mod, somewhere. 

Solution: A scout could come early and alert us to lower our drawbridge, that to me makes sense, however, I still wish to rehash carts tripping traps.  As that doesn't completely make any sense. 

These 3 inch wide cart wheels?  They spring a trap, when a dragon with a size 24 claw and size five foot, well, foot doesn't?  Enormous flapping bat wing doesn't trip a trap, either?  A swaying 30 foot tail, now thats gotta hit a pressure plate, heck no... Makes no sense, none to me.  Tame Dragons walk right over traps.

Wheres the logic in it?  Show me the math, and I'm fine with it.  Actual math makes me comfy, not blind leaps of faith, that makes me stressed out.  Know what I mean?  I'm not being too critical, I just would like an idea of the direction of the game.  Oh well. *sigh*

[Trif]

Well, I've always thought about it like this:

Traps are hidden in the ground, and will be activated if a creature steps on some sort of trigger. Dwarfs know where they put the triggers or how to recognize them, that's why they can step on a tile without being harmed. And because dwarfs are nice, they also teach their animals how to do the same - however that would work.

Diplomats and traders are informed about traps. Maybe that's part of the trading agreement. So merchants and their pack animals know the secret steps that have to be taken to avoid skewering. Wagons, however, are too big to use the safe steps, so driving a wagon over a trap would definitely trigger it, or maybe in most cases. Either way, the merchants don't take that risk and leave their wagons outside.

Or you could see it from a meta-gaming perspective. Toady said many times that traps are way overpowered and that they'll be fixed sooner or later. Sending a siege through a trap-corridor was the easiest way to dispose of it with little risk and player involvement. Now there is a choice - easy siege disposal or large-scale trading.

I don't really see the connection to fallen fruit, though. Why should fruits block depot access any more than goblin socks do now?

[knutor]

A game bug.  That's the connection.  If penalizing Depot Access is a trap nerf, its not functioning properly.  Because its a nerf to Civilization relations, and NOTHING else.  Traps still are as potent as ever, if NOT more so.  I urge you to read a stone fall trap battle log, the new mass on chunks makes them VERY efficient.  I cannot see this being a nerf to traps, no matter how its sliced.

Trap tripping carts is a nerf to Observation and Civilization relations.  And possibly the trade economy. 

If a trader never leave the Depot hows the new carts going to setup.  I'd like to know why that doesn't prevent the carts from visiting the embark map.  See what I'm saying is, this...  Its a convenient fix, not an premeditated fix as a result of the reintroduction of carts. 

Logic shoots the essence of the traps down.  Imagine the other possibility.  The sharing goodhearted dwarfs share their trap info with others.  Umm!  Why put a trap down if your not going to keep it a secret.  The essence of traps is surprise.  What surprise is there, in something which is known ahead of time. 

I cannot see any non-sentient 'knowing' or being taught, to side step something.  Especially a dog.  There nose gets them into all kinds of trouble.  And if this were the case, why then would they still pass out on top of them, if they 'knew' it was there.  Nope, that can't be the way of it.

Not seeing the relationship between Falling fruit and Carts?  Visit Florida.  The Car insurance companies have the local governments all sawing down their coconut trees, because of the HIGH frequency of damaged vehicles and damaged vehicle owners.  Some fruit grow to immense proportions, others drop in massive quantities. 

I've know a vehicle to wreck on something as minor as a wet pin oak leaf. 

A solution I can see that should work, is the scout solution.  Then all the difficulty in trap laying, and road building, and bridge opening/closing can still be maintained, but the player gets a heads up when to lower his drawbridge, in order to accommodate the carts.  Not every time we would need this, specially early on when our trade stockpile is so very low in volume.

[AutomataKittay]

Gee, if they knew it was there, why would they pass out on it?

Tell that to the dwarves suffering so much wounds and syndromes that they passes out on cages or serrated disc and gibs everywhere. It's certainly not special to animals. And rather moot anyway because only way they triggers traps is being stunned or wounded enough to pass out. Not that far-fetched to train animals to avoid traps, though I figure it's there to make gameplay easier rather than for realism.

It'd make for good diplomatic relations to let others that's allied to know where to avoid, and doesn't really matters with carts not being able to go through it, just like boulders. Traps' actually less potent currently than it used to be in earlier 31. or even 40d. I agree with cart not being able to go through the traps, since they're rather bulky and only comes occasionally, it encourages gateways and security posts to be set up. Way back in default DF's time period, travelling merchants were also how news got around to other places. It'd matter more if everyone else came with liaison that actually came with the caravans, instead of somewhere else on the map.

Of note, human diplomat could ( Or used to ) make your traps useless if you annoyed them enough to get them to siege, unless you rebuilt them all.

As for the op, the solution is to have a trading airlock, a trade depot between two raising bridges, of which only one is raised at a time. If you feels that's too gaming, then you can station soldiers at the gateway! Some advance notification for traders would be nice, I agree with that.

I don't think fallen fruits should affect access at all, falling things hurts people, but fruits are usually too small and soft to be a threat if they're already on the ground. Fallen tree could work on similar mechanism as boulders or trees themselves, though.

[Trif]

Well, passing out is not voluntary. Avoiding a trap is much harder when you fall to the ground from pain, therefore gibs. :P

[GreatWyrmGold]

A few thoughts:
1. WAGONS. THEY AREN'T CARTS.
2. Using dragons and other large creatures at this stage of the game just proves that tiles make physics wonky for now.
3. Wagons are probably too clumsy to avoid traps.
4. What kind of a host would you be if you didn't let your wanted guests know about the deadly traps in your lawn and sidewalk? It's not like you're sending engraved notes to every goblin tower. Or that they'd remember...
5. The game's in alpha. Some things are sorta odd right now, but that should be fixed by 1.0.01 and shouldn't be used to justify your argument. I suppose #2 falls under this.

[knutor]

4. What kind of a host would you be...

One that doesn't die when a refund is asked for and not produced. 

Loose lips sink ships. 

And when's the last time a Human shared trap designs with you?  An Elf?  It goes both ways. 

Are we supposed to keep reloading that crossbow trap, knowing the last batch of bolts, got stolen? 

This feels like it was something stumbled upon, and not designed. 

Since the game is playable, as it is, like you say, GreatWyrmGold, it'll just sorta stick around, I guess, patch, after patch, after patch.  I really don't mind, I just sorta wanted to discuss how the new trees were gonna effect visiting caravans.

Be nice if all three visiting traders would come and circle their wagons, during the harvest season, maybe in an embark map corner, or somewhere else.  Letting us watch as the Humans try and trade wood to the Elfs, and Kobolds steal wood from the Elfs.  Sincerely, Knutor

[GreatWyrmGold]

4. What kind of a host would you be...

One that doesn't die when a refund is asked for and not produced. 

Loose lips sink ships. 

You already share trap designs with humans. Traps human merchants have seen do not affect human sieges.

And when's the last time a Human shared trap designs with you?  An Elf?  It goes both ways. 

When was the last time you sent a diplomat to a human settlement, an elf used a trap, or that telling traders not to step there involved schematics of what would kill them?

[quotr]
Are we supposed to keep reloading that crossbow trap, knowing the last batch of bolts, got stolen? 
[/quote]
Huh?

This feels like it was something stumbled upon, and not designed. 

Since the game is playable, as it is, like you say, GreatWyrmGold, it'll just sorta stick around, I guess, patch, after patch, after patch.  I really don't mind, I just sorta wanted to discuss how the new trees were gonna effect visiting caravans.

First off, they're not patches. Patches fix bugs in a completed, released program. DF is still in alpha.
Anyways, you didn't really explain your ideas well.

Be nice if all three visiting traders would come and circle their wagons, during the harvest season, maybe in an embark map corner, or somewhere else.  Letting us watch as the Humans try and trade wood to the Elfs, and Kobolds steal wood from the Elfs.  Sincerely, Knutor

Alright, most of those A. Wouldn't occur on your map and B. Weren't implied very well in your OP.