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[PsychicKid]

So, I built a 30 story straight plummet down from my main entrance hallway down into the cavern depths. Considering I have 4 necromancer towers nearby, I had to have SOME form of protection. I decided to test the effectiveness of the drop on a few migrants and I noticed something interesting. Test subjects that skidded or collided with the wall before hitting the bottom had a tendency to hit the ground and not explode. Those that free-fell without touching the sides exploded on impact. I didn't cary very many tests (mostly because I didn't want to screw my fort up even more what with the undead randomly sieging before I get military up), so I can't say for certain, but it seems that maybe there is some form of friction in the game? That is, the Dorfs hitting the side of the pit slowed them down somehow to prevent insta-gib?

Has anyone else seen this, or was it just a fluke of random chance?

[Urist Da Vinci]

The game does have friction for skidding creatures, but this is the first case of vertical friction that I've seen.

At any rate, it makes sense that touching the wall will slow them down.

How are you dropping the migrants? Retracting bridge?

[PsychicKid]

The game does have friction for skidding creatures, but this is the first case of vertical friction that I've seen.

At any rate, it makes sense that touching the wall will slow them down.

How are you dropping the migrants? Retracting bridge?

Yes, it's a retracting bridge. It seems to launch them somewhat, which is why sometimes they will collide with the wall 5-10 stories down. I can't wait to test it on zombies! I haven't done many tests with it though, so I can't attribute it yet to either veritcal friction slowing the Dorfs down (or otherwise recalculating the fall since they "hit" a surface) or just the randomness of falling damage.

[Tally]

Why does this thread make me want to try a catapult transport system? These forums are messing with my head too much.

I look forward to the results of your !!SCIENCE!! either way. I also look forward to the story of your fortress's ruin at the hands of the necromancer who survives the fall and raises your test subjects against you.

[PsychicKid]

Test 1:
Dropped an engraver down the pit. He free-fell about 25 stories before colliding with the wall. Basically, a bunch of crap was broken, arms, legs, hands, hips, etc, but he didn't die. I notice it somehow ejected his blood out of his body and it was raining invisible blood in the tiles surrounding him. He landed, but did not die, nor did he seem to sustain any (significant) injury from the impact since he only had 3-5 stories left to fall after hitting the wall. He died of his wounds after a few days.

Test 2:
Managed to get a Dorf, the Dorf's babby, and a cat into the mix. Two stories down, the Dorf hit her head on the side, jamming the skull through the brain, instantly killing her. I definitely noticed that the body's rate of descent slowed for a few extra frames as I advanced forward one step at a time. The baby landed after free-fall, the head, and left limbs all exploding from the corpse in many directions. The cat followed suit. The cat's head even cleared the wall I set up, seperating my drop from the rest of the caverns! It appears that the Dorf that died mid-fall also gibbed somewhat, but it's getting hard to tell pieces apart now.

I would post pics but imgur is being lame.

[laularukyrumo]

So it looks like the solution is twofold.

Make the pit wider so walls are hit less often.

Dig another 30 stories down!

EDIT: also upright spikes at the bottom for great justice

[thrush_titan]

just a warning from experience.. if you make pits into caverns, flying FBs will go up them.

[Loud Whispers]

just a warning from experience.. if you make pits into caverns, flying FBs will go up them.

Just chuck some Dwarves down the chute, it'll clear things out.

[Deon]

The skidding along surfaces and better flying physics were added with minecarts. Now setti g up fall traps is a bit more tricky.

[Bordellimies]

If you could build upright spikes on the walls, that would solve the problem.
Someone should mod upright wall-spikes into the game.

[killerx243]

Wouldn't you want blades instead of spikes? The body would hit the spike and have the chance to either rip it off or stay attached to the wall, blades would cut them into cubes.

[misko27]

Wouldn't you want blades instead of spikes? The body would hit the spike and have the chance to either rip it off or stay attached to the wall, blades would cut them into cubes.

Because, if you have zombies, cubed meat is baaaaaaaad.

[Loud Whispers]

Wouldn't you want blades instead of spikes? The body would hit the spike and have the chance to either rip it off or stay attached to the wall, blades would cut them into cubes.

Because, if you have zombies, cubed meat is baaaaaaaad.

Better than whole zombies if you're talking about the big meat.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Someone should mod upright wall-spikes into the game.

Impossible.

[HiEv]

I recommend checking out these two threads:
"Specialsurprise", The Medical Experiment - For SCIENCE!
Falling damage nerfed?

They too found that creatures "skidding" along the walls during a drop caused them to suffer less damage.  It also found that hatches didn't impart any horizontal momentum, so creatures dropped from hatches would fall straight down, and wouldn't skid along the walls.