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[Cypherwulfe]

For stone fall traps, and weapon traps and the like, do you need pressure plates or triggers? if so, what is the distance between said trigger and trap? can I put the right next to each other, or does there have to be a square or two for delay?

Thanks for the help.

[Daniel Charms]

For stone fall traps, weapon traps and cage traps, you only need mechanisms (plus a stone, weapon or cage). Pressure plates are only required for the fancy things some people like to build - corridors filling with water and so on.

[Aspartic]

Speaking of complicated traps:

Is there a way to set up an automated system that will continuosly raise and lower spikes? Only thing I can think of involves a very complicated system of floodgates being opened with water pressure...

[BurnedToast]

You could just link them to a lever near the bedrooms (or meeting area if you have one) and set it to repeat. some dwarf will always be nearby to pull it, and once he goes for a nap or a snack, someone else can take over with little downtime.

otherwise... I can't think of anything that's not horribly complicated offhand.

[Khosan]

Also on the note of traps, does the 'reaction' speed of the trap depend on the quality of the mechanism used?

I ask because I've noticed that thieves running through my carpet of cage traps don't get caught a great deal of the time, and they just run on through.

[Karlito]

thieves are immune to traps.

[Merlon]

quote:Originally posted by Aspartic:
Is there a way to set up an automated system that will continuosly raise and lower spikes? Only thing I can think of involves a very complicated system of floodgates being opened with water pressure...

In this design I'm currently working on I've put a watersensitive pressure plate in the suctionarea of a screwpump. Since the input of an active pump is almost always flickering between 0 or 1 water it should cycle the connected trap continually. Hopefully...

[Eagle of Fire]

You could trap one or a few pets in a room filled with pressure plates...

[Skanky]

quote:Originally posted by Khosan:
<STRONG>Also on the note of traps, does the 'reaction' speed of the trap depend on the quality of the mechanism used?</STRONG>

I'm not sure about stone fall traps or weapon traps, but the reaction speed of objects linked to levers does depend on the quality of the mechanisms used. With low quality, there is a large delay between pulling the lever and the object reacting. With higher quality mechanisms, the object reacts much faster.

Also, traps do work on thieves, they just have to be spotted first (by chained guard dogs, for instance).

[ERoberts]

Really? I had no idea!

now if I can just get my dogs to stay on a rope when I put them there...

[Captain Mayday]

Traps work on thieves regardless of whether you can see them or not.

[Wolfius]

quote:Originally posted by Captain Mayday:
<STRONG>Traps work on thieves regardless of whether you can see them or not.</STRONG>

Goblin thieves, yes. Kobold thieves don't trigger traps.

[Shadowlord]

quote:Originally posted by Aspartic:
<STRONG>Speaking of complicated traps:

Is there a way to set up an automated system that will continuosly raise and lower spikes? Only thing I can think of involves a very complicated system of floodgates being opened with water pressure...</STRONG>

Yes, you can. I made two designs, the first of which didn't work at all. Which leads us to:

 

quote:Originally posted by Merlon:
<STRONG>
In this design I'm currently working on I've put a watersensitive pressure plate in the suctionarea of a screwpump. Since the input of an active pump is almost always flickering between 0 or 1 water it should cycle the connected trap continually. Hopefully...</STRONG>

I tried that. The pressure plate never activated, even though the tile was flashing 7/7 momentarily as water dropped on it from below. The system in question consisted of a 1x1 room with a water 1-7 pressure plate, a pump pumping water out of that tile, another pump taking water from the first pump's output and outputting it two z-levels above the 1x1 room, creating an endless cycle. (The pumps were powered by windmills above) The only problem was that the pressure plates never triggered.

My second design requires only one pump, and actually works. It's hooked directly to a river or murky pool or the like. A floodgate allows water into the system on the bottom level. A pressure plate detects 4-7 water and opens a hatch above it. There is a pump on the next level to take water from the pressure plate's tile, but it can only do so when the hatch is open. The pump drops the water back into the source. The pressure plate is also hooked to additional devices, such as bridges, to be toggled repeatedly. (For clearing out the system for work, the floodgate is hooked to a lever and the hatch is hooked to another lever, so we can turn off the input and then open the hatch to help drain the bottom level)

I've recorded a movie which shows it in operation, but the movie wasn't made to demonstrate it; It was made to test whether the quality level of mechanisms used to link bridges to pressure plates affected their reaction time, which brings me to this post:

 

quote:Originally posted by Skanky:
<STRONG>
I'm not sure about stone fall traps or weapon traps, but the reaction speed of objects linked to levers does depend on the quality of the mechanisms used. With low quality, there is a large delay between pulling the lever and the object reacting. With higher quality mechanisms, the object reacts much faster.</STRONG>

With bridges linked to pressure plates, at least, the quality level of the mechanisms used to link the bridges to the pressure plate has NO effect whatsoever on how long the bridges take to open or close in response to a signal from the pressure plate. http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-202-mechanismqualitypressureplate-bridgespeedtest

You might wonder if perhaps they were only toggling at the rate of the slowest one because they're all linked to the same pressure plate, but I doubt that since the hatch, which is linked to the same plate, opens and closes much much faster than the bridges.

(If you have any evidence to back up your claims, please present it so we can figure out what's going on with it)

[ December 01, 2007: Message edited by: Shadowlord ]

[Merlon]

quote:Originally posted by Shadowlord:
I tried that. The pressure plate never activated, even though the tile was flashing 7/7 momentarily as water dropped on it from below. The system in question consisted of a 1x1 room with a water 1-7 pressure plate, a pump pumping water out of that tile, another pump taking water from the first pump's output and outputting it two z-levels above the 1x1 room, creating an endless cycle. (The pumps were powered by windmills above) The only problem was that the pressure plates never triggered.

Depending on your design the triggerpoint which the waterlevel oscillates around will vary. It's all about building it and observing (or trial and error). I like how you've left out chance in your trigger though, with the hatch and all.

At the time of posting earlier in this thread I hadn't tested the design as upon hooking the pumps up to the windmill I discovered my testmap had no wind. I did however find time later on to power it by waterpower and it works (impaling packs of mandrills). The rather crude automated trap looks like this:
   
From left to right:
Z+1
A waterreservoir with floor hatches covering the left part. The hatches are triggered by creature on the floor below.

Z+0
A bit of bait to the south. Any creature triggering the plate will wash into the channel on the right. A trapfence extends in both directions to herd animals and creatures through. The door is usually locked unless the trap is used in said trapfence configuration. The bridge to the north retracts as a wall once the trap is sprung to reduce leaks.

Z-1
3-5 wooden spikes per tile, all triggered by the plate on this level. The plate keeps triggering as long as there's still some water left on the level. Ignore the righthand side of this level as the change of powersolution caused a waterleak coming in through the gears from above.

The original idea of the trap was to sweep creatures into a tunnel where the only exit of the tunnel went through my fortress. That way if I placed weapontraps at my end of the tunnel I wouldn't have to haul creatures very far at all, they would come to me, and there would be little risk of injury. A bit like the elephant farm someone had in the previous version.

There's alot of room for improvement on this design. The middle level could have more plates installed to only open relevant hatches for instance. The bridge to the north could be replaced with a grate to encourage more creatures to enter even when the trap is processing a victim. Also, the bait (a wooden corkscrew) could be expanded to contain an animal in an inner room to also attract siegers if placed along the edge.

[ December 02, 2007: Message edited by: Merlon ]