3rd Granite
Year began with a warning...
Don't ask me, how this guy even made it in here...
dawnofdarkness made sure he wouldn't get out again.
20th Granite
Good news!
21st Granite
Bad news!
Only 3 migrants before this annoying trader showed up.
24th Granite
Well, if this would have been finished a month earlier, we could have buried kamikazi in this one. But now we won't open her tomb again. So I think, this will be the place of my own final rest. It is somehow sad, that a coffin is the most useful artifact made here in Becordobar.
21st Slate
Only one more set of mechanisms...
Then finally the Seesaw of Armok would be completed... Or so we hope. Meph already started celebrations, but then Palu again rushed in...
There is a mistake in the construction! She talked something about bridges activation delay. Whatever she meant... It didn't sound good.
OOC: Seriously... Just when the last set of mechanisms is about to be completed, I see the flaw in the construction... I completely forgot that drawbridges have a 100 tick activation delay, which completely screws any synchronization with the hatches.
22nd Slate
Arcvasti now also joined the discussion... She, while holding her fifth child on the arm (who is the father of all those? The groinless ColdBones?) stated, that the system would still work... just in very unintended ways, but in the end it would work as planned... What am I supposed to believe, if even our engineers have no idea?
OOC: Uhhhh... I think it can work... the minecart routes will be completely fun, but the final result will be as originally intended... I really have to test it
If it doesn't... ARGH... Sorry for confusing you, but as mentioned earlier, I write as I play ^^
24th Slate
I heard screams from the dining room. What had happened? I went to look. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?
HOW??? How did it get there....
Wait... Why isn't it attacking us? What? What is this?
Suddenly Roduk, the ice mage came in.
„Why all the panic? Don't like our new friend?“
This insane mage... When I looked down to the surface area I saw it. He had built a warpstone pool... and obviously started experiments with some of the warpstone our miner had risked their life for...
Now we had a pet forgotten beast... sitting in our dining hall...
And he explained, he would try to create more...
OOC: I didn't know the reaction runs automatically... I just build the warpstone pool and suddenly there was the FB...
27th Slate
The Seesaw is completed. But we decided to delay the tests until midmonth... This way we can do them live on some opponents.
3rd Felsite
We now have a second forgotten beast...
9th Felsite
I forbid the creation of further beasts... Looks like Roduk is now turning moleweasel into changelings... Well... I don't mind that.
14th Felsite
Even though we hadn't spotted any attackers, we had ordered everyone inside... It is about time...
15th Felsite
IT WORKS!!!! The Seesaw of Armok works!!!
We do not yet know about it's damage potential, but in any case, this is a masterwork of dwarven engineering! Everyone assembled in the dining hall to celebrate, and the 3 mechanics provided a quick explanation how the Seesaw works.
In general the Seesaw is made out of 10 lanes with 2 tracks each, which are mirroring each other, so overall all 20 tracks are identical. Details will be explained at only one lane here.
First the layout (in the active state):
z+2: (launch level)
z+1: (mid level)
z+0: (seesaw level) with minecarts here
While inactive there is a steel balded minecart sitting on each closed launch hatch in the launch level. The drawbridges in mid level are opened. The lever is connected to ALL launch hatches and drawbridges. When pulled, the minecarts get dropped into the seesaw level and the bridges raise (* here comes the issue I noted earlier, but will explain this later). The minecarts now bounce on the two ramps in the seesaw level, as the northern ramp is roofed over, and the southern way out is blocked by the raised drawbridge. This way each of the 2 ramps works as an impulseramp, always alternating the minecarts speed.
Now when the system is turned off by the same lever that started it, the launch hatches close and the bridges get lowered. Now the minecarts can actually leave the seesaw level, as the southern ramp does not work as an impulseramp anymore. The minecarts travel south over the pressure plate, which is connected to the switch hatch. The switch hatch opens, and with help of the impulseramp the minecart makes it up to the launch level. The minecarts continues southwards, but gets turned around by the ramp there (as it is roofed over it now works as another impulseramp) When going back, the switch hatch is now closed (** this again is not exactly true, explained later) and the minecart travels northwards to it's initial position on the launch hatch, stopping there. The system is now completely reset and requires no additional manual labor. It is all done by a single lever!
*: Due to the delay of the drawbridge the minecart actually leaves the seesaw level, drives up again into it's initial position, but since the launch hatch remains open while the system is active, the minecarts drops back into the seesaw level and by now the bridge is also raised... Just takes an extra loop.
**: Again the 99 tick delay of the pressure plate disengaging screws this a bit. The time the minecarts takes to travel from the pressure plate up the ramp south, and back to the switch hatch is actually much shorter then this disengage timer. BUT... the minecart goes through the still open switch hatch, but immediately gets send back by the impulse ramp. Now it goes another loop bouncing between the mid level impulse ramp and the turn ramp on the launch level. In practice it takes 2 loops (I think), but the only important thing is, that the minecart is on the upper level, when the hatch finally closes. In my tests this was always the case, only thing disturbing this could be a heavy enemy somehow getting into the system (which is almost impossible pathing wise) and massive lack of luck (as the distance the cart travels above is much longer then the one below the hatch)
16th Felsite
Elves!!! And they aren't even hostile. They will never learn it... Whatever... I doubt they will make it to the depot, considering they came from the north. Surely enemies are already waiting for them, yet unseen.
17th Felsite
Here they come! Warwolves!!!
But the Elves may make it to the depot first. Surprising. A single Elf speardancer sacrificed himself to save the merchants. Whatever... We need testobjects for the Seesaw! And the Warwolves are going for it!
18th Felsite
OH MY GOD! The Seesaw of Armok really deserved the name of the blood god! The gore, the pain, the violence.
Originally there had been 16 Warwolves and one grizzly bear.
One Warwolf reached the second pair of tracks (the fourth track actually).
4 more reached the second track of the first track pair, and 9 had died already on the first track, plus their grizzly. The 4 remaining Warwolves were now waiting outside, not daring to come any closer. Tons of bodyparts were littering the area. While the minecarts had a lower speed compared to the Heartgrinder, the insane hitting frequency and being smashed into the platinum walls constantly caused devastating results. And even more impressive was the fact that still all minecarts were moving synchronously. The impacts had not caused any problems at all. This would be our new ultimate doom trap!
(all battle logs look like this one...)
While I was still watching the spectacle, dawnofdarkness rushed at me... Out of breath she explained me: There had been more migrants later, unnoticed.... and among them... was another sorceror... An arcane protector! He had casted a spell at dawnofdarkness.
Well... a healer would have been more useful. We have no intention of direct battles, and even less do we want to field mages. But maybe he could still be useful at some point.
OOC: INSANE... first the Seesaw works at first try basically, and is completely destroying anything... 20 lanes is total overkill... wow!!!
And then I notice a second highend wizard... I never had any final tier mages migrating into my fortress... and now I get my second in this fortress, when I don't want to use them...
22nd Felsite
As we had no intention to engage the Warwolves in close combat for now, we took care of the Elves first. This almost got routine and was done quick. Meanwhile another Warwolf had stepped on the tracks, but quickly regretted this move.
23rd Felsite
Another Warwolf died to the Seesaw. With only 2 left, we decided to turn the whole thing off for now. Hopefully this would work as well...
24th Felsite
It worked!!!
All the carts are in their initial position, ready for another round. This is truly marvelous! Everything worked in our first real test. Brilliant!!! Still, now there was only one Warwolf left... dawnofdarkness and Cpt Crunchy started a race...
25th Felsite
They reached the Warwolf at the same time. While it was CptCrunchy that got the first blow on the last foe, it was dawnofdarkness blade that got the final strike.
None of the Warwolves had survived... That would teach them!
1st Hematite
Spring is over, and it was a good start into the year. Not only we were finally getting migrants again, but also we had finally completed the works on the Seesaw of Armok. And it worked perfectly without any failure, and it had destroyed the Warwolves... Now with the Seesaw being able to defend us, we could start the repair of the Heartgrinder. During spring, most of the masons were busy with my new rooms, which had progressed nicely but were far from completed. And then we had also gotten our two new pet forgotten beasts and a changeling. When I talked to Roduk, he grinned and told me, he could always make more... forgotten beasts or changelings... And then there were rumors about the sunsail. But I wouldn't put too much into them... We will see, what happens/if something happens.
Author
Topic: V.4h Becordobar - Mastermind Dwarf Challenge (Read 26267 times)