Print

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

[onodera]

Mechanisms are easy to make, are useful and are quite valuable.

Using 50 rocks and a mechanic, you can put 25 traps around your fortress.

Using 20 rocks and a mechanic, you can generate enough wealth to buy a lot of stuff from a caravan with wagons, though a craftsdwarf will do this better.

You can do all of this as soon as you start digging.

But have you ever seen a mechanism made of rock? Well, a small enough mechanism that a single dwarf can carry? Maybe the dwarves are that good at carving rock that they can make small gears and axles out of it, but metal mechanisms make more sense. Take a look:

1. They make troops much more viable. Now that you can't build dozens of traps without a robust metalworking industry, you need your troops to protect the fortress.

2. Mechanisms become worth their high value. If you decide to export some, this means you are exporting your hard-mined metal (or hard-killed goblins).

Different metals could affect the quality of the traps, for example. A weapon trap built around a steel mechanism would jam less often than the one built using a copper one (it should depend on the quality of the mechanism as well, of course). When proper sieges are implemented, a gabbro door kept closed by a pewter mechanism would not be very useful.

If even more advanced water pressure is implemented, very sturdy mechanisms will be required to open and close the floodgates that dam, say, a major river or a huge reservoir.

Some environments, especially those that lack either fuel/magma or ores, will become even more challenging, as the dwarves will depend on either the starting stocks or the caravan supplies to make all sorts of mechanical contraptions.

tldr: Metal mechanisms are good for the game.

[Immortal]

I dislike this idea. If I want to try a Haunted map first thing I do is make some crappy mechanisms and make stone fall traps. Without that ability I would die many times, due to the fact that, that in the game we dont have any dwarfs able to fight the skeletal elephants.
Yes im aware I can bring a dwarf trained in combat with me, but at the max of two they still cant hold off the undead hordes.
I think later in the game metal mechanisms are a good idea for super fast response mechanisms, and magma proof ones.

[Sheb]

I think kinda normal that a small group of semi-skilled dwarf cannot fight skeletal elephant. All you need is to dig in, seal you off the rest of the world, and wait for your dwarves to be good enough to strike back.

The current game lack challenge, and trap are a part of it (In my current fortress, I can't even use my military, because goblins get killed by trap far away from my castle.)

[Fieari]

Perhaps material could effect quality, and quality would mean something.  Just like wood weapons aren't as good as steel ones, rock mechanisms wouldn't be as good either.  Heck, different stones could have different values.

The question is, what would Quality effect?  I'm thinking things like speed of activation... sure, a stone mechanism COULD be used to make a weapon trap, but it'll take so long to activate that the enemy has probably moved away by the time it triggers, making it only useful if a horde is waltzing through.  Accuracy of the attack could also be effected.

Truth be told though, I'm not happy with the current trap system.  I think you should have to separate the trap part with the trigger part.  You'd build a pressure plate, and hook it to the stone fall on the level above, or to the crossbow set in the wall, or something like that.

[Neonivek]

If Mechanisms were only made of metal... then you might as well just attach a Game Over Sign to the game because I am not playing...

Stone Mechanisms make a lot of sense for what they NEED to do... They don't have to be small gears, they can in fact be rather large ones like the ones in real life.

Your not making clocks, robots, or calculators... Heck the Stonefall trap is most likely done with a plank attached to a large rock.

Anyhow the Dwarven ability is to make many objects out of stone that normally couldn't (Like Tuba)... while the Elves can make Weapons and armor out of wood that normally couldn't.

[Glutton]

Not perfect idea... but there is something in it.
I suppose there should not be such sctrict restriction like "mechs just and only from metal". For example stone falling trap from stone have no logic gaps. Also the stone pressure plate seems to be ok for me.
But I support the idea, that it should be possible to build more kinds of mechanism. At least  stone and metal (definetelly ofter "more machines bloat" will be in progress). And some aeasy mechanisms should be build from both of them (but some kind of devices can have better results if build from metal - metal gear assembly should consume lot less energy then the one from huge stone). But some more price device should require jsut the metal ones.

Stone trap from stones is ok. But the weapon trap from stone? Litle weird. So it iwll be possible to build most of the basics mechanisms even at the begginign of the game. But it ill be woth it to take the time and build from better metal.

[Neonivek]

Perhaps Metal mechanisms should allow you to make timed Pressure Plates and Levers

[Tamren]

The only advantage metal has over stone in regards to mechanisms is size and weight. Metal is stronger and you would not need such large components. And smaller metal components weight a ton less. However there may be cases where very large components are needed in which case you would make them out of stone because that much metal is hard to come by.

It doesn't matter how well you can shape each material because all you need is a sufficiently skilled crafter.

[Tylui]

It's not a terrible idea.

Perhaps the "fail rate" of traps, or things that mechanisms are attached to would increase depending on what type of mechanism it is.  As has been mentioned, metal is stronger than stone, and even metal mechanisms break IRL...

[Neonivek]

The True use of Metal as a mechanism isn't just that it is stronger then stone...

It is that Springs, Coils, and strips are only possible with Metal

[Tylui]

The True use of Metal as a mechanism isn't just that it is stronger then stone...

It is that Springs, Coils, and strips are only possible with Metal

Actually, a lot of things that springs do was done with rope in Roman times, and probably for a long time afterwards.

The reason that metal is used instead of rope is that it's more reliable, and stronger.  Same argument I have for stone vs metal.

[Neonivek]

Well this is a battle between Stone and Metal...

Lets not bring rope into this

[Duke 2.0]

Well this is a battle between Stone and Metal...

Lets not bring rope into this

 Mineral vs. Plant...

 Now we need to get leather somehow a part of this!

 Ontopic: I feel that stone mechanisms should be kept. Metal SHOULD have the ability to do stuff stone can't do. Like how iron doors can keep trolls away while stone doors would crumble. Stuff like that.

 So lets say stonefall traps could use stone mechanisms while more advanced weapon traps would need metal ones. Small bridges could use stones, while larger ones would need metal. You can attach 10 stone mechanisms to one lever, and twice as many metal ones.

 You know, make it so you CAN use stone, but if you want to do some major projects you are going to need metal. Perhaps stone mechanisms can only activate a trap once? Carpet the road with weapon traps with stone insides, where just a few weapon traps with metal insides would work just as well.

[mutant mell]

How about this:

Under the workshop menu, we have

make (s)imple mechanism
make (c)omplex mechanism

Simple mechanisms are made from rock.  They are used for pressure plates, stone traps, (cage traps?,) things that need heavy, large components.  They could also work as levers.
Complex mechanisms are made from a single metal bar.  These are used for more complex things that need the lighter, stronger thing, such as weapon traps and whatnot.

This means that the more advanced (and more powerful) traps need metal parts, but you can still fill a hallway with stone traps easily.  Also, it gives the lonely mechanics workshop more stuff.

[Neonivek]

Weapon Traps arn't complex...