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[ImagoDeo]

I like the sound of that. I'm envisioning a carbon freezing chamber for misbehaving nobles.

Carbon freezing? You'd have to do magma/water for that, I think. Still a workable idea, but if you intended to use the winter sky, then it's more of a flash-freezing chamber.

[itg]

Eh, neither method's a perfect match. Ice may not be "carbon," but obsidian casting isn't freezing. I like the ice idea since it could be done in an open area without a lot of bulky pipes, and having a block of ice spawn almost instantly over the guy is more thematic than dumping some water on him, then pouring magma on him a bit later.

[ImagoDeo]

I just adapted your method to a magma landmine system. It's working perfectly. Incinerated a few goblin squads from a siege with it today.

Now my only remaining problem is coverage. I have five mines so far, but it's not enough. Only the lower right quadrant is under the shadow of doom.

[Urist Da Vinci]

When you are thinking about ice systems, remember that freezing occurs when water is exposed to the sky/light. Dug (natural) down stairs block light but permit water to flow. The room below doesn't have to have a matching up stairs.

With careful planning and water pressure control, you can form instant ice circles or long lines to seal enemies in or out.

[wierd]

A combination of one of these bridge barriers, and a minecart squirtgun on a freezing biome would result in some pretty spectacular ice boulders getting shot with considerable force, with little to no collateral damage.

[CyberUrist]

itg, you genius. I see a lot of potential for this invention. Seconding a compendium for all of your !!SCIENCE!!. Also, is your avatar from xkcd?

[itg]

itg, you genius. I see a lot of potential for this invention. Seconding a compendium for all of your !!SCIENCE!!. Also, is your avatar from xkcd?

Sounds like I'll be making a compendium post soon, then.

Yep, my avatar is from http://what-if.xkcd.com/71/. I just cropped it a bit. Original alt text is, "Am I making tea wrong?"

[Dwarf4Explosives]

I think there might be a simpler way to make an auto-resetting system: set up the system so pressurized water flows out of the bridge, over two pressure plates and then draining away, out of the chamber. Link one of the pressure plates to the bridge so it resets, the other to whatever you want to power. How long the "external" pressure plate is held down can then be adjusted by simply changing the distance the water has to travel to the "internal" pressure plate.

[CyberUrist]

itg, you genius. I see a lot of potential for this invention. Seconding a compendium for all of your !!SCIENCE!!. Also, is your avatar from xkcd?

Sounds like I'll be making a compendium post soon, then.

Yep, my avatar is from http://what-if.xkcd.com/71/. I just cropped it a bit. Original alt text is, "Am I making tea wrong?"

Oh man, I love xkcd What If. Props man. Also, I think a simple way to reset the system would just be another bridge or a minecart on a loop.

[itg]

I've just created a player-operated switch which is functionally identical to a lever. This one is fluid-powered. To build it, you'll need a water source, like a river, and drainage space.

The red pressure plate is linked to both bridges, and the cyan pressure plate gives the output signal.

To start, both bridges are raised. To put the switch in the ON state, "activate" the green bridge. (by "activate," I mean do the deconstruct/cancel thing). This allows water to enter the mechanism, filling it up to 7/7, tripping the cyan plate.

To turn it off, activate the blue bridge. This releases water from the mechanism, dropping the level on the red plate below 3/7 and lowering both bridges, as well as dropping the level on the cyan plate (output plate) below 7/7, causing it to send an OFF signal. Water continues to flow in through the green bridge, bringing the water level back up above 3/7 fairly quickly on the red plate. This causes the bridges to raise again, but the cyan plate does not send and ON signal, because the bridges raise before the water level hits 7/7.

Level 0



Fortifications
OFF bridge
Pressure plate, triggered at water levels 3-7
Pressure plate, triggered at water level 7
ON bridge

Level 1



Directly above ON bridge

[Dwarf4Explosives]

If it's okay with you, I've posted some info on the wiki about this model of magma landmine, under "Trap Design".

[milo christiansen]

I hate to tell you this but when I tried to build your switch it failed to work, only when I used DFHack liquids to set the water to "updating" would it recognize that the bridge was disabled, and the reset mechanism failed to reset it until I manually shut off the flow of water.

What is your water source? I was using an aquifer breach on the level above and draining via map edge fortifications.

[itg]

Hehe... I think that might be because I forgot to mention that the water source is actually right above the up/down stairs (brown X) in the last picture, and it flows through a fortification I hadn't carved yet before reaching the green box. Sorry about that. I guess that's what I get for posting late at night. I'll update the picture when I get the chance.

I also should have made it more clear that calibrating this switch to the water flow was a very finicky process. Basically, you need the flow to be light enough that you can quickly drop it below 3/7 (or whatever you set that plate to), but strong enough that it will fill back up despite the drainage. I got it to work consistently with my aquifer, and I think anyone should be able to make it work with an aquifer if they build it just like I did (I know, it would help if I give accurate pictures), but it might be slightly different if you use a river or cavern lake.

[milo christiansen]

How do you keep the water in the updating state so it recognizes that the bridge is disabled?

Also I built one of these off the side of a volcano (so it used magma) and had the same trouble with not resetting/not updating.

[itg]

Man, I totally forgot about that issue. I never tested the design after saving and reloading, so I just didn't notice the problem. One possible fix is to put a door somewhere in the same 16x16 map "chunk" (not necessarily connected to the switch), then hook it up to a pressure plate in a high-traffic area. You only need to activate the door once after reloading, but that's an easy way to force that section of the map to update without you having to think about it.

Perhaps a better option would be to create a constant drip of water nearby--again, not necessarily connected to the switch. That way you stay dwarf-independent.

Edit: hmm, it appears you need to create the update AFTER disabling the bridge. It still needs to be done only once, though. Given that information, the water drip method is probably best. I still need to test it, though.