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[Bumber]

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.

In fact, it's already implemented. Silver war hammers probably don't last as long as steel ones anymore. Wooden shields break very quickly*.

*When used as a weapon. I don't think shields take any damage from blocks yet, due to the same magic that lets them deflect dragonfire.

[Leonidas]

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.

In fact, it's already implemented. Silver war hammers probably don't last as long as steel ones anymore. Wooden shields break very quickly*.

*When used as a weapon. I don't think shields take any damage from blocks yet, due to the same magic that lets them deflect dragonfire.

Huh! I hadn't noticed. Does that apply to weapon traps and repeating upright spikes?

[wierd]

Do circus troupes still die instantly on obsidian casting?  My brain... it somehow tickles that this was nerfed.

[Saiko Kila]

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.

In fact, it's already implemented. Silver war hammers probably don't last as long as steel ones anymore. Wooden shields break very quickly*.

*When used as a weapon. I don't think shields take any damage from blocks yet, due to the same magic that lets them deflect dragonfire.

Huh! I hadn't noticed. Does that apply to weapon traps and repeating upright spikes?

The bug with traps which was causing a crash for over a year (version 0.43.05, though I think the bug was introduced in 0.43.04), was due to the weapon trap components damage from wear. Including glass components. Apart from causing a crash after break, they were wearing out very fast, so I stopped using them even when they were supposedly fixed.

Both weapon and armour wear when used in combat, though to me armour wear is the most aggravating. Especially as adventurer, when a GCS can shred your clothes and armour to pieces in seconds, which reminds me of playing Gnomoria (except in DF you cannot collect the remains and reassemble, because there's nothing left).

[Leonidas]

Both weapon and armour wear when used in combat, though to me armour wear is the most aggravating.

I agree. If armor is going to wear out this fast, then Toady should add 1) a stockpile option to forbid/allow worn items, and 2) a forge task to repair metal armor or weapons.

[PatrikLundell]

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.

In fact, it's already implemented. Silver war hammers probably don't last as long as steel ones anymore. Wooden shields break very quickly*.

*When used as a weapon. I don't think shields take any damage from blocks yet, due to the same magic that lets them deflect dragonfire.

Huh! I hadn't noticed. Does that apply to weapon traps and repeating upright spikes?

I haven't seen any wear on my repeating menacing glass spikes. They were destroyed on killing FBs composed of flame, though, but I've seen no wear from thumping on a green glass FB for months (it didn't cause a dent in the FB either), and killing one made of some kind of stone (softer than glass, obviously) didn't result in any damage either. It might be an oversight in the trap wear logic, though, so I'd expect damage on other glass trap components (but haven't tried myself).

[Xyon]

I'm not sure how fast metal or glass items wear out, but didn't archcrystal finally have some buckets disintegrate after 400 ish years?  If wood wears out faster than glass/metal, then you might not have any short-term problems with those items wearing out?

[PatrikLundell]

Wear due to time is something completely different from wear due to physical abuse, but similar to wear from wearing. The first and last are continuous wear processes of susceptible materials, while the middle one is a result of an abusive event (being on fire is an ongoing series of such events, that may be stopped by with water). Of course the abusive event may be one in a series of such events, such as a GCS repeatedly biting the helmet of an immobilized dorf, or destroying a bait door, but once the cause of the abuses has been removed, that kind of wear stops accumulating.
Glass shouldn't be subjected to wear through time, as any rate ought to be too low to be of significance. It doesn't seem to have done much over the time of human history.

[gchristopher]

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?

Yes. A green glass spiked ball hallway will take out most all non-trapavoid attackers, armor or not. Your biggest problem will be bodies jamming up the traps and requiring clearing.

If you want something of similar deadliness, but without needing maintenance, a series of 2x2 or 2x3 impulse ramp circles connected at the corners with minecart grinders will run forever. If you ever want to recover the contents, you'll need bridges or something to allow the carts to exit.

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.

If we're not strictly limited to "trap component" in our answers, then I'm going to stick with a Squirt Gun as the answer. Flesh-bodied clowns tend to be the best survivors there, because the single-material procedural ones lose limbs too easily. I've never gotten diamond or steel clowns, (but every game I hold out a tiny hope) so maybe those would be tougher? Can candy clowns even happen? That would be fantastic. The biggest downside is that it's large and moderately high effort to construct.

[Leonidas]

If we're not strictly limited to "trap component" in our answers, then I'm going to stick with a Squirt Gun as the answer.

I had never seen the Water Gun before. That's what I love about DF: so many ways to kill clowns. Right now I'm trying to decide on some combination of 1) webbed cage traps, 2) cave-ins with cage traps, and 3) an army of the undead comprised mostly of trolls and beak dogs donated by a local goblin civ.

[Sutremaine]

I've never gotten diamond or steel clowns, (but every game I hold out a tiny hope) so maybe those would be tougher?

Steel, yes, but diamond acts a lot like any other gem. Gems can have differing densities and reactions to high temperatures, but otherwise they all use the base stone template.

[random_odd_guy]

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.

Okay I've been wondering this for ages: how the FUCK do you get a giant cave spider to spew webbing on specific tiles? And wouldn't the dwarf it was spraying just get caught by the trap, thereby ruining the setup?

[Leonidas]

Okay I've been wondering this for ages: how the *** do you get a giant cave spider to spew webbing on specific tiles? And wouldn't the dwarf it was spraying just get caught by the trap, thereby ruining the setup?

Read the Wiki on Silk Farming.

[Ninjabread]

Okay I've been wondering this for ages: how the *** do you get a giant cave spider to spew webbing on specific tiles? And wouldn't the dwarf it was spraying just get caught by the trap, thereby ruining the setup?

Read the Wiki on Silk Farming.

Wiki on silk farming is out of date, I'd update it but I'm not entirely sure how, tame GCSs are totally ok with webbing invaders now as long as they're in range, they don't bother with wild animals yet though, even wild hostile sentients like cavern trolls. I didn't manage to test FBs or megabeasts when I figured this out, and also I didn't have the opportunity to see if elves are exempt from webbings because of their whole alliance with nature thing, but naked goblins behind fortifications work as bait, as long as they're unrestrained, just give them a door to run to with another cage trap by it so the spiders spray a good portion of the cage traps.

As for my opinion on the best trap, I find cage traps so effective that they feel cheaty, they seriously need rebalancing cause get a couple cage traps around your entrance and you basically don't have to deal with megabeasts unless it's an FB or a titan, or if you made them outside then a roc, and you use the same cage for a giant elephant as you do for a cavy. So best in terms of effectiveness, sure, cages, but best in terms of having fun, depends on where they are, how much fun you want, and what materials you use. I tend to go for ordinary weapon traps, silver spiked balls, make things go splat. Generally you don't have bits flying off so you don't need to do as much in the way of cleanup, and it's fun when things get propelled by the force of the blow into other weapon traps. It's not so effective against big bois but they only usually come one at a time, so they tend to get hit by all of the traps, making them more manageable for my militia, or they're of the randomly generated variety, in which case, I wish my militia good luck.

[Leonidas]

I followed the wiki's instructions for a high-volume silk farm, and it worked perfectly with my web-shooting FB. The only drawback is that it works too well. Within a few months I had 1000 thread. If you set one of those up and let it run too long, it would grind down your FPS.