While an equally valid (and even quicker) solution, how well the water pushes might depend too much on how large the room is compared to the entrance point of the water. If the water spreads too much, a one-wide water entrance might not provide the force needed to push him, say, from the middle of the room to the 'éxit' out the back... I like your idea, quick and just get the corpse at the bottom of the cliff, but if it doesn't work at first, you may need to modify so that the connection to the reservoir (and the dumping into the room) is as wide as the room itself. Also, once the dwarf is flooded in, it may be that the dwarf will not be pushed out the back door because water flow, once the room is entirely full, would be too little. So if he got into a corner, he could survive (though inevitably he would drown). To remedy this, I recommend making the back wall all floodgates too. Thus you have a nice even flow from reservoir to the back of the cave which ensures pleanty of force at all points, no slower areas to get safely trapped into, to push the dwarf out no matter what.
I could be wrong, of course. I haven't every used water to push dwarves around. But water in the game works nicely like real water when considered in large quanities (low quantities do silly things sometimes, but no harm done, I figure it's probably statistical)... I will have to keep note of your findings as a makeshift trap for future use, please tell how it comes out. I wonder if the speed of entrance depends on the pressure like in a real world setting. If this is the case, then the pressure will be determined by the height between the surface of the reservoir and the bottom, independent, of course, of the path it follows, where it flows into the room, in which case if your rooms are a few down from the top of the cliff, you could get some serious pressure right away. I will have to experiment with water dynamics a bit when I return to the US.
If water pressure does have this property, a 'water cannon' consisting of a very high thin tower full of water (a... water tower? ^.^) would be able to push things around like nobody's business. Combine with a floodgate and one of those step pannel triggers (forgot the name) and you have a powerful anti-foe weapon. Add a second pannel that will turn it off when any water hits it, but place this at the edge, and you will have a rapid-fire water cannon triggered every time some creature tries to advance, shutting off once it has served it's purpose. Add a water wheel in the river to power a pump to pump water up to the top level (avoiding the self-powered pump-waterwheel cheat, of course), and you have a self-reloading water cannon of instant death-by-falling off a massive cliff.
In other words, I like your idea. A lot.
[ January 19, 2008: Message edited by: Pickerel ]
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Topic: How do you kill dwarves? (Read 1602 times)