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[Quicunque]

I have searched the wiki & the fora, and I cannot find any !science! regarding trap components. I am wondering which you have found most effective. Do giant axe blades or serrated disks deal more damage? What is your favorite, and why?

[Zydramir]

Axe blades hit like a truck, but they do it all at once.  Serrated discs hit 3 times each and sever limbs like no one's business.  A few years ago, I would have told you to do discs and never look back.  With the weapon changes though, and edged damage that doesn't penetrate being converted to blunt damage, the question becomes one of material.  If you don't have steel or iron, axe heads or spiked balls is almost certainly a better bet.

Spikes/corkscrews are huge depth penetrating for BIG BOIZ and the circus.

Best trap is cage trap.

(Insert your own joke about the best penetration trap being from Thailand.)

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

They say that quantity has a quality all of its own.

[Xyon]

I usually fit weapon traps with 2 each of the 5 different trap compoents, the disks, axes, corckscrews, spikes, and spike balls. Variety is the spice of life after all

[muldrake]

Spiked balls because they can turn wood into something worth more than its weight in gold.  As well as actually being used in traps.

[Starver]

Cage.  Built in depth. Not necessarily contiguously, and on accredited caravan routes (external amd internal) they're built out from alternate sides to allow them to route round but still catch the incautious invaders' straight-pathing.

Not immediately damaging (that needs collection of the tripped cage after the fact) and not automatically repeating (hence the in-depth requirement, which is necessary anyway if invaders wise up to the trap presence) and it's useful to combine with other defence options (like murder-holes and architecturally constructed entrapment mechanisms to deal with both aimlessly milling and fleeing enemies) but I tend to rely on cages more than weapon or deadfall traps, with a sideline in retracting floors above a drop and other switchable-labarynth elements that help me contrive to route attackers on a forlorn hope charge (and retreat).

Not answering your actual question (I think I have heard most good things about green glass serrated discs, at least on the 'value for money' basis), but it's my own approach to the problem, FYI.

[PatrikLundell]

Like Starver, I'm firmly in the cage trap camp, using serrated discs only for necro experiments (and that's rather infrequent). However, Zydramir's attempt to use regular traps against "BIG BOIZ and the circus" are doomed to fail, as those are trap avoiders. For them, I use minecart repeater driven green glass menacing spikes, with cave-ins for the ones that are too hard to be damaged by those (such as ones made out of green glass). Also, I haven't decided on how to deal with circus troupes made out of fire, as the weapon component damage introduction seems to cause green glass spikes to melt when killing fire FBs.

[Zydramir]

Like Starver, I'm firmly in the cage trap camp, using serrated discs only for necro experiments (and that's rather infrequent). However, Zydramir's attempt to use regular traps against "BIG BOIZ and the circus" are doomed to fail, as those are trap avoiders. For them, I use minecart repeater driven green glass menacing spikes, with cave-ins for the ones that are too hard to be damaged by those (such as ones made out of green glass). Also, I haven't decided on how to deal with circus troupes made out of fire, as the weapon component damage introduction seems to cause green glass spikes to melt when killing fire FBs.

Get a GCS to spray webs on the traps. It's not the hardest thing to set up.

[PatrikLundell]

Like Starver, I'm firmly in the cage trap camp, using serrated discs only for necro experiments (and that's rather infrequent). However, Zydramir's attempt to use regular traps against "BIG BOIZ and the circus" are doomed to fail, as those are trap avoiders. For them, I use minecart repeater driven green glass menacing spikes, with cave-ins for the ones that are too hard to be damaged by those (such as ones made out of green glass). Also, I haven't decided on how to deal with circus troupes made out of fire, as the weapon component damage introduction seems to cause green glass spikes to melt when killing fire FBs.

Get a GCS to spray webs on the traps. It's not the hardest thing to set up.

There are still web spewing trap avoiders...

[Leonidas]

Against the circus, I like dropping boulders down long vertical shafts. And repeating spikes. I tried minecarts, but they kept falling over.

Spiked balls because they can turn wood into something worth more than its weight in gold.  As well as actually being used in traps.

I don't understand this.

[Pirate Santa]

Spiked balls because they can turn wood into something worth more than its weight in gold.  As well as actually being used in traps.

I don't understand this.

Referring to trap components being a high value basically weightless trade item. Spiked wooden balls are dirt cheap to make on any map with trees and start at 126 dorfbucks each, compared to the 3 bucks each log is worth. A decently skilled carpenter will soon start pumping out masterworks worth around 1500 dorfbucks each. Like prepared meals they're valuable to the point of being exploity.

[CyberianK]

When I was in a high tree growth area I did a mix of cages and corkscrews plus a few wardogs on restraints.
Now that I am in sparse vegetation I use lead cages and silver warhammer weapon traps. Basically because I have too much silver so I put the non-masterwork weapons into the traps. I could melt them but that labor is reserved for melting iron/steel items and such.

As for what the most effective is if I had to take a bet I would say steel/candy large serrated disk. Sure its a waste of material and you can get same results with having more traps of a lesser material but stat wise steel serrated disks should be better than the other options.

[Khthon]

Spiked wooden balls are dirt cheap to make on any map with trees and start at 126 dorfbucks each, compared to the 3 bucks each log is worth. A decently skilled carpenter will soon start pumping out masterworks worth around 1500 dorfbucks each. Like prepared meals they're valuable to the point of being exploity.

Speaking of exploity: a magma glass furnace with a sand source will easily outdo wooden balls, though it's certainly more effort.

On that note, do glass trap components do much of anything against armored targets?

[PatrikLundell]

:
On that note, do glass trap components do much of anything against armored targets?

I can't say for sure, but I expect them to. Menacing spike traps on repeat kill all my FBs except those made out of glass or harder materials (various kinds of stone can be overcome, for instance). Even if an invader is fully armored, there's still a chance to hit the face, and glass should be better than wood for blunt damage. If nothing else, glass should cause armor wear.

[Leonidas]

On that note, do glass trap components do much of anything against armored targets?

If I'm reading the Wiki's Weapon#Material chart correctly, you wouldn't want a spear made of glass because it has low Shear Fracture. Which is to say (I think) that it's brittle. It'll break under stress.

Skyrim took a different view on this, of course. But historically I think Toady is right. The Central American natives used obsidian in some of their weapons. It was extremely sharp against soft targets; a single skillful blow from an obsidian sword could nearly decapitate a horse in combat. But the same weapon would chip or shatter against armor.

Looking at that chart, I bet that Toady will some day give us weapon wear, heavily based on material characteristics. The math for such a system is all right there.

The advantage of green glass spikes is simply volume. You can churn them out by the hundreds, and they won't (yet) shatter against armor. Attack a target dozens of times, and anything short of a bronze colossus will eventually get impaled.