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[WanderingKid]

Undead are some flakey creatures.  Some science testing:

No, undead won't purposely path through magma.  Guess that's too easy.

Trapavoid creatures apparently remain trapavoid on death.  This is odd to me, as the titan is no longer a building destroying web shooting nutjob.  I guess trapavoid is valid.  AKA: All those goblin thieves the undead kill off on the surface?  They're your worst enemy now.  Whatever you're using as your repeater get a LOT of spikes on the pathing too.  A full cycle of spikes is 180 tics, if you hit it perfect on your repeater.  This is FAR more than the kobolds need to cross even a long run of them.

Also, pieces of trapavoid critters also get trapavoid.  Neat, huh?

Try and chain a dog or something in the wall, too, where they can't reach it, so you can spot anything trying to sneak in.  I've found corpses randomly in my fortress.

Undead dodge very rarely.  Incredibly rarely.  I think they like whirling balls to the noggin.

The whirling spiked balls DO however throw the undead around a bit and *eventually* they will splash into the magma... until they break the weapontrap (somehow... haven't nailed down the cause yet).

If you make a snaked path, don't bother trapping the corners.  The pathfinder will diagonal the enemy anyway and it's a waste of material.  Might as well dig them out (when you can, don't accidentally cause a cave in) for a better chance at dropping the enemy down into the pit.

Final note for now: Dwarves and their love for socks are... rediculous.  I just lost 40+ dwarves on the spikes, each trying to collect the last dead dorf's goods.... and one of them just wanted a breath of air... no job, just walkin' out over the spikes...  *facepalm*.  You'll have to burrow the little beards while you run these things unless you want a crapload of dead dwarf.

[smjjames]

I think you mean kobold thieves, I've gotten goblin thieves caught in my cage traps. Heck, they have gotten caught while sneaking and you get the snatcher message when they trigger the trap.

[jcochran]

Just had a thought on how you can get the water flow you originally wanted without having to worry about it being too much, or too little. But it will take a bit of work and the magma plus spike traps is likely to be far more effective..

But for the water issue. Have a closed loop and provide flow via a bank of screw pumps. As long as the loop isn't full, then you ought to be able to maintain a flow of water that would provide the required push.

[WanderingKid]

I think you mean kobold thieves, I've gotten goblin thieves caught in my cage traps. Heck, they have gotten caught while sneaking and you get the snatcher message when they trigger the trap.

As have I, but they dodge a LOT more and I usually have full on militaries at the time instead of a bunch of near naked wrestlers.  Undead thieves just roll up on you and barely dodge at all.  Also, you can't leave a military posted near a device like this without significant sight-line controls.  Once the enemy comes near your dwarves they'll run across the spikes to greet them, and even small airlocks allow for slippage.  Once the slippage starts and you get a recover wounded job, it's all over.

@jcochran: Good idea.  One way to control the volume would be to use a cistern that's purposely smaller than the area you need to flow through by say 1 block short for every 6 to use.  Close up the feeder (aquifer in this case), begin pumping, and make sure your drains work in case of resets.

[Crashmaster]

I've found that nothing can avoid cave-in repeaters. Previously I have only tried the MagmaHammer with great success but it relies on the enemy burning once on the magma flow tiles at the bottom of the volcano after which they and their items vanish.

Consider then the Dustbuster;

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=78399.msg2028060#msg2028060

It requires unlimited magma, water and a straight vertical path to magma flow tiles not covered by the magma sea. It should be adaptable to knock any creatures, trap avoid or not down off a catwalk path and into the spikes/ magma chamber.

[WanderingKid]

Further observations (now that it's not 3 AM and I'm making stupid mistakes in frustration)

Once you start killing them on spikes/balls, they pretty much end up staying right there (or reasonably close) until the trap breaks beating them back to death.  I'm thinking a slow continuous flow of lava over the traps would cure the issue, but then they wouldn't path over it.  Either that or a bulldozer of some kind. It'd be nice to be able to use water for that but obsidian would break the trap design.  A timed release for sweeping the area (which would drain down into the lower pit) may be the best solution for that.  EDIT: I should mention, if you don't have some form of 'sweep', eventually your weapon traps break down and the undead WILL get in.  They just don't fall into the pit below often enough.  /EDIT

Kobold Thieves move at around 1 square every 8-11/tics... at least when undead.  So, to make sure they eat at least one set of upright spikes (on perfect reset of 180 tics/cycle) your spike corridor must be, at minimum, 23 squares long.  That means you'll need at least 230 magma proof (if the above is used) spikes for your repeater to stop them, nevermind what is loaded into the region below it.  My current one is 36 long and I've seen them get to the 25-27 box area so this math isn't exact, or I may not be nailing down the timing exactly.

Not all undead are attempting to path to the fort.  There are plenty of undead just 'chilling' at the surface, some relatively close to the entryway I built.  The siege definately pathed in (and got ruined for it), the thieves pathed in.  Some dead dwarves pathed in.  A few beast corpses roamed in (aka: Undead pack animals).  Roaming flying wildlife is not (particularly the fliers) pathing in.  It's very... sporadic.  Smoke/ash seem to deter them too, oddly, but it also deterred a 4 squad goblin ambush from entering the trap system too.  I've got a !!horse!! that's just standing around, chilling out.  The ambush squads eventually ran out of ammo and got overwhelmed.

Weapon traps seem to simply break on their own after enough collisions.  My guess is this is them getting 'stuck' in some way.  Upright spike traps do not seem to have this problem.  I'm going to retest some design ideas.  There has to be a more efficient design.

[WanderingKid]

I've found that nothing can avoid cave-in repeaters. Previously I have only tried the MagmaHammer with great success but it relies on the enemy burning once on the magma flow tiles at the bottom of the volcano after which they and their items vanish.

Consider then the Dustbuster;

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=78399.msg2028060#msg2028060

It requires unlimited magma, water and a straight vertical path to magma flow tiles not covered by the magma sea. It should be adaptable to knock any creatures, trap avoid or not down off a catwalk path and into the spikes/ magma chamber.

This may be just what little Johnny needs to ruin the undead's day.  I wonder if I can get it to work with *only* ice in a 2z drop, meaning I'd merely have to spike the magma drop pit.

!!SCIENCE!!... or in this case, iceSCIENCEice.

[Hague]

Just make a series of really long bridges down a corridor. Make the bottom alternating floor spikes. Draw the zombies with a chained up pet. Lead them onto the bridge. Drop them into a lava pit with 3/7 lava or so and have a dwarf spam the lever to turn the spikes on and off. The parts that get severed will burn off, dead zombies will also burn. Seems pretty basic to me. Just gotta get the magma there.

[WanderingKid]

Magma's actually the least of my problems. I could drive down for the sea and use an impulse elevator to get back up.  With a drop chute and a bit of lucky exploration I figure I could drive that track within 6 months. 

My problem is keeping a path open that I can also activate the bridges properly along and on time.  Particularly with unseen thieves.  My concern is missing one.  Suddenly everything would go to hell in a handbasket, so I want an automated system that leaves the doors open so they'll path but will ruin them.

With only 9 dwarves and rarely any idle, I fear missing a level pull.  I don't want to create a system that relies on dorf power, and automating the bridges would allow things to slip through too easily if I keep it open long enough for pathing.  100 tics from a lever pull to dump the target, with a target that can cruise 15 boxes in that time, I'd have to make it HUGE (and I don't have the animals for that much detection).

[WanderingKid]

Has anyone done experimentation with ice cave ins produced by pump before?  I'm getting some really odd results and I'd like to pick your brain a bit.

When the pump was turned on, I'd have expected basically continuous cave ins if dug correctly.  It's not, it's just 'hanging' off the end of the pump.  If I go dig it out, it caves in (via bridge), but produces nothing (except converting the floor of the hole into ice).  If I floor to it, then deconstruct the floor, it caves in, so I know it's dug out to be able to cave in.  It's just not caving in on its own. 

Also, I have it dropping down 3 Zs.  I get the cave in report when I deconstruct the floor, but the ice wall stays intact and doesn't 'dust', at least not according to the dog who's chained up 3 squares away from the drop point.  Does anyone know how far down you have to drop ice for it to deconstruct/explode?

Update:
I've gone to 6Zs.  I still can't get it to dust/explode.  My dog is staring at it with that happy dog grin wondering why he keeps getting shifted down from floor to floor, but is simply happy someone's playing with him.  The ice drops as a solid unit.  Creates a floor above it (seperate from the block) that needs to be channeled out even if I dig the ice block out.  I suppose that makes some sense, but I'm hoping it'll help someone understand what I'm doing and what, if anything, I'm doing incorrectly.

Also, looks like I'm back to the drawing boards unless I want to start obsidian casting.

[itg]

I have a thought: how about a one-tile wide corridor which uses minecarts to bully the zombies toward the incinerator? Something like this:

Code: [Select]

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>vOX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXvXX
               XvX

X = wall
> = impulse ramp east
v = impulse ramp south (to cart return)
O = shaft to spikes & magma

In theory, the minecart will continually push the undead to the east. It's probably a good idea to put two or three carts in the circuit, in case some of the undead make it past the first one. The major potential problems are: 1) I don't know if the carts will push very large zombies, or if they will push things significantly at low-ish speeds. 2) I don't know how a minecart reacts to multiple creatures on the same tile. 3) It might be tricky to keep the cart from derailing and falling into the incinerator.

[fricy]

3) It might be tricky to keep the cart from derailing and falling into the incinerator.

Perhaps this could work? Fast carts jump over the pit, slower ones take the regular track.

Code: [Select]

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>¬O¬X
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXvXvX
               XvXvX

X = wall
> = impulse ramp east
v = impulse ramp south (to cart return)
¬ = corner track W/S
O = shaft to spikes & magma

[WanderingKid]

I had some intricate massive dwarfy plan the other night that seems overkill in retrospect now.  We'll see if I need it.

A minecart bully system seems reasonable.  There was another version of it that I saw that seemed extensive to build and required some major upkeep if the bridges broke.  This much simpler design should work quite nicely... I just need to be careful.

A cart with that much speed is almost guaranteed to jump and even a corner turn may not hold it on the tracks.  This will take some experimentation.  Also going to think aloud briefly about the design here for a second.

If you bring the undead in say 2 square before the hole you'll have the least chance of knocking them over the hole to the second line in case light ones really catch air.  You'll need two dug squares with magma after the turn, as well, to remove the undead being able to path in that direction.  Because of wierd diagonals and angling, it may be necessary to make the magma drop hole 2x1 (N-S longer) to make sure that things hit in the curve don't just keep bouncing off the wall.

I'll give this a go in a bit and let you know how it works out.  Thanks guys.

[cdombroski]

If you're going to play with minecarts and magma anyway, why not just make a magma gun? If I understand it correctly, the high velocity magma should do massive blunt force damage, followed by the standard burning damage once it slows down. So the zmobies get bludgeoned to death then the corpses catch fire and disintegrate... seems like a win/win to me.

[WanderingKid]

Undead don't die to magma (though they may from impacts) and my last 3 attempts at the water shotgun have gone horribly wrong.  Getting one that will have the firing rate I need (one shot every 150 tics or so) put together is outside my abilities at this time, sadly.  Dwarfy solution, but outside of my skills (and possibly available material) at the moment.