Gnome year 2 : Summer, Fall and WinterThis year has been quiet, most of our time has been spent updating our home with defenses, water power and developing various technologies.
Updating our homeFirst to be finished was the hydro-power loop. The initial channel constructed last year now continues through the home and back to the river. Water wheels pull energy out of the high velocity river water and provides power to our factory machines. Once depleted, a windmill powered pump dumps the water back into the river.
Next we worked on the architectural layout of level 100 (the workshop and trading floor). The hallway and entrance on level 100 was west of our main hallway on level 101. Workshops and stone and bridges were moved to place the hallways in line with each other vertically. The seismic telegraph had to be disassembled to accomplish this, and we've yet to rebuild one.
After the hallway was moved, we started working on a trapped corridor between the trading area and the rest of our home. The outer layer of traps are cage traps, and the inner layer is filled with weapon traps and stone-fall traps. The weapon traps contain five serrated glass sawblades each. And as an aside, Nanoxytec is now a legendary glassworker and produces truly gifted glass serrated saw blades.
Automatic StonecutterSometime late in summer, we turned on the Automatic Stonecutter. It is fed by a minecart delivery system above, and dumps the blocks into a waiting pile below. The system is dangerous. We installed a lockable door to prevent any gnomes or pets from accidentally walking into the machine while it is active, however the pile of blocks below is still dangerous to access. Our leader, Nidrugear, was moving a block from the pile while the machine was turned on and was hit by falling stone. He was dazed by the first stone, but then hundreds more followed and broke nearly every bone in his body. The system was turned off (by turning on the power interruption clutch [quick aside, when the lever outside the machinery reads "on", the machine is "off"] and Nidrugear was recovered, but he eventually succumbed to his injuries.
The stonecutter remains offline, although we have successfully turned stone into approximately
fifteen hundred blocks. In the future, maybe we could link it to a furniture line and start producing rock furniture...
The elusive Arc FurnaceThe requirements for an arc furnace have almost been met. We need a dynamo, and we have most of the goods (including magnetized bars) necessary for its completion. It can probably be finished in the spring.
Fortress tour and detailed map of levers and what they control to follow...