Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tacomagic]

So, I've got a pair of Giant Sponges on my map that I'd like to capture; however, due to their lack of movement, I'm not entirely sure how to go about capturing one.

My idea is to channel out a canal next to it, set up a pump with a return to the river and put a drawbridge over a cistern next to the inlet of the pump.  The idea being that drawing water rapidly down the channel will cause the flow to suck the Sponge toward the bridge.  Once I have it on the bridge, pull the lever and drop it into the chamber below.

This sound feasible?  Is there a better way?  What do you all think?

[Button]

They're too big to be sucked in very fast, if at all. There's a good chance the sponge would drown before it's been sucked under. Maybe if you dropped the water back in to the river right above the sponge?

I've thought about this before, and the potential solution I came upon was to use a controlled cave-in ring. The idea being, to create a 3x3 ring of floor tiles with the empty center over the sponge; dig a 3x3 square out under the sponge, with a cage trap in the middle; and then drop the ring. Don't know if that would work, but it's another possibility.

[FoiledFencer]

They're too big to be sucked in very fast, if at all. There's a good chance the sponge would drown before it's been sucked under. Maybe if you dropped the water back in to the river right above the sponge?

I've thought about this before, and the potential solution I came upon was to use a controlled cave-in ring. The idea being, to create a 3x3 ring of floor tiles with the empty center over the sponge; dig a 3x3 square out under the sponge, with a cage trap in the middle; and then drop the ring. Don't know if that would work, but it's another possibility.

Do cave-ins break traps? I don't recall if any science has been done on this.

[Tacomagic]

They're too big to be sucked in very fast, if at all. There's a good chance the sponge would drown before it's been sucked under. Maybe if you dropped the water back in to the river right above the sponge?

That's kinda what I was worried about.  I know they can be moved with flow, as I had the in-flow half the river freeze and noticed that the flow as it drained was pushing the sponges around.  So I have hope that a flow-based solution is workable.

It might work better if I put the pump on a slow repeater and make the bridge close to the river instead of close to the pump.  Wouldn't have to move the sponge very far to get it onto a bridge near the river, 3-4 tiles at most.

Alternatively, I could set up a large number of pumps that I could fire off with a lever.  Queue up 2 pulls of the lever to activate and then deactive the pumps.  That would cause a cistern to empty almost instantly and then fill under pressure from the river.  That would cause a high amount of isntantenous flow but would probably not cause a dry area long enough to suffocate the sponge.

I think it might be time for SCIENCE!

[Button]

They're too big to be sucked in very fast, if at all. There's a good chance the sponge would drown before it's been sucked under. Maybe if you dropped the water back in to the river right above the sponge?

I've thought about this before, and the potential solution I came upon was to use a controlled cave-in ring. The idea being, to create a 3x3 ring of floor tiles with the empty center over the sponge; dig a 3x3 square out under the sponge, with a cage trap in the middle; and then drop the ring. Don't know if that would work, but it's another possibility.

Do cave-ins break traps? I don't recall if any science has been done on this.

I'm pretty sure a caved-in floor won't break a building. Wait, no, it totally does. Crap.

Well, I guess you could put a trap down, assign only a single worthless heroic peasant the mining labor, and then designate the tile the sponge rested on for channeling? Dwarves will channel from below even if they don't have a stair or ramp to stand on, right?

[Girlinhat]

Sponges are difficult to capture.  I've done some thought on this in the past.  You've basically got two options.
1: Divert the entire river, briefly, then un-divert the river.  Sponges don't move in 7/7 but they will sometimes in 6/7-7/7 eddies.  You want to disrupt the water enough to cause a flow change, but not enough to air-drown.
2: Set cage traps nearby, and then cause a cave-in that does not hit the sponge or the trap.  The cave-in will throw the sponge aside, into the cage, and capture it.  Probably.  This has its own hurtles.

The BIGGEST problem is that you want to build a cage trap nearby, but not so close that dwarves become frightened.  You may end up diverting the river several times in order to set up the cages and everything.  Something to consider:
Dig a channel 1 under the river, to the map's edge, and carve fortifications into the wall on the map's edge.  Add floodgates inside the tunnel.  Channel up into the river - the water will now divert downwards and off the map's edge, leaving everything down the river, dry.  MAKE SURE the sponge is up-river and still wet.
While the river is dry, add cage traps.
Close the floodgates, causing the tunnel to flood completely and the river to flow normally again.
Dig a bit further up river, to the other side of the sponge, and connect the tunnel, now drain the river so that the sponge is dry.
Resume the flow quickly, so that there's a disturbance in the flow amount and the sponge is pushed.
Keep draining and blocking the tunnel so that the sponge keeps getting pushed.
Collect sponge in the cage, as well as the dozens of carp you also captured because that's what happens when you trap an entire river.

[Slogo]

Ok here would be my plan of attack:

• Dig out a passage under the sponge (1 tile wide straight to the sponge)
• Directly under the sponge build a constructed ramp
• Over the constructed ramp build a bridge that opens back towards your passageway.
• Hook the bridge to a lever, but leave it down
• Build cage traps along the hallway in the direction the bridge flings
  
• Channel out the tile above the constructed ramp i.e. the tile the sponge is on

What happens is the constructed ramp leaves the above tile intact for the time being so you can build the bridge (which can be placed over constructed ramps). But even when the bridge is built the ramp still works as a platform to mine the tile above for the dwarf (even though the ramp is unusable it still allows the tile directly above it to be manipulated). So you channel the tile above dropping the sponge on the bridge and then can fling the sponge into a trap that way.

Even if you can't fling it, you may be able to do other mechanisms. For instant if you were to chain an animal 2 tiles away from where the sponge was going to be you could maybe goad it into attacking while having a cage trap between the sponge and the creature.

Edit... if the pivot of the bridge is under the sponge or the bridge is only 1x1 to begin with then the bridge should also serve to plug the hole you make and stop the flood of water.

[Tacomagic]

Been playing around with drain and catch methods.  Unfortunately I fogot that flow teleports, so it's not working out so hot.

Going to give Slogo's method a try next.

[Absentia]

Maybe I'm not looking at this from an appropriately ambitious perspective, but why on earth would you want to capture a giant sponge in the first place? They're not even unstoppable killing machines anymore.

[Tacomagic]

Maybe I'm not looking at this from an appropriately ambitious perspective, but why on earth would you want to capture a giant sponge in the first place? They're not even unstoppable killing machines anymore.

They're still very resistent to crossbow fire, making them relatively good for pincoushion training.

[Slogo]

Maybe I'm not looking at this from an appropriately ambitious perspective, but why on earth would you want to capture a giant sponge in the first place? They're not even unstoppable killing machines anymore.

"Because you can" sounds like a pretty good excuse for anything DF related.

[Tacomagic]

Been playing around with drain and catch methods.  Unfortunately I fogot that flow teleports, so it's not working out so hot.

Going to give Slogo's method a try next.

Slogo's method totally worked.

Didn't even need to try to fling, the flow knocked it right into a cage trap.  Also, the bridge did it's job in plugging the hole as advertised.  I now have a caged giant sponge to play with.

Now, time to flood a room with 4/7 water.

Also of interest, this method gathered quite a few of the nearby logs.  The could potentially be a method useful for sunken log recovery... if you ever needed wood taht badly.

[dwarf_reform]

I'm no epic spongeologist but.. can it breathe in 4/7 water?

[Tacomagic]

I'm no epic spongeologist but.. can it breathe in 4/7 water?

Pretty sure 4/7 is breathable for all aquatics.  That said, I haven't tested that since carp farming several years ago.

[Slogo]

Been playing around with drain and catch methods.  Unfortunately I fogot that flow teleports, so it's not working out so hot.

Going to give Slogo's method a try next.

Slogo's method totally worked.

Didn't even need to try to fling, the flow knocked it right into a cage trap.  Also, the bridge did it's job in plugging the hole as advertised.  I now have a caged giant sponge to play with.

Now, time to flood a room with 4/7 water.

Also of interest, this method gathered quite a few of the nearby logs.  The could potentially be a method useful for sunken log recovery... if you ever needed wood taht badly.

Yay! I'm glad it worked for you, share some pics or something when you put the sponge to use.