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[brenbot]

Hey, i haven't seen one of these around yet, (maybe i should have looked more, but whatever,) and i just thought it wold be cool to create a topic where other Dorf fortress players could put down some interesting thigns to try, and how to go about doing it.
Share your traps, design schemes, fortress blueprints, etc. here if it please you. Hopefully we can get a good amount of interesting stuff here. Have at it!

[thepuska]

I was thinking of a device to entertain some captured goblins a while ago, but never got to actually make it.

Code: [Select]

goblin              cage trap
 |                      |
 v                      v

+---------------------------   
|gX^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  c        in this end there could be a chained
+---------------------------     dog to attract the goblin

  ^              ^
  |              |
floodgate   upright spike
           traps linked to
         their corresponding
           pressure plates


water  pressure plates
 |            |
 V            V

----+--------------------+
~~~~X^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^#| <- grate to drain the water
----+------------------O-+

    ^                  ^
    |                  |
floodgate       maintenance door


Both floodgates are linked to the same lever. I don't know about the pressure plate settings.

You could also make the pressure plate tunnel a little longer, create a gap between the floodgate and the first pressure plate to make sure that the goblin will start running before the water starts triggering the traps.

[Dadamh]

Ha!  I like that.  Expensive/timeconsuming to set up, but it looks fun.

[Bryan Derksen]

My current project, which I'm still just scouting out locations for, is to dig out an enormous multilevel "underworld" region complete with tower cap forests, open streams, ponds, and perhaps a lower level with flowing magma channels. Perhaps throw in some "ruins". Once it's complete, I'll seal it off from the outside world and from my fortress' living areas.

Then I'll set up a pressure-plate-triggered system of retractable bridges to drop any and all comers down there. Attackers, traders, immigrants, wild animals, my own dwarfs who wander into the wrong spot - anyone. I'm curious to see what sort of ecosystem eventually develops down there. My only concern will be whether most of the creatures will ever move from the spot where they're dumped, since there'll be no clear path from there to my fort. Hopefully the wild animals trapped down there will help spur some movement.

[sorbius]

There are also various challenges you can try:

like the one pick, axe challenge
(start in a terrifying area of you choice with 7 untrained dwarfs and only one pick, one axe, and some plump helmet spawn.  no booze or food to start, no dogs)

Swamp dwarfs
(build an above ground fortress made of wood on stilts above a swamp no mining at all so you'd need to harvest outdoor crops.)

Those are two I saw somewhere on here, or were heavily inspired by challenges I saw on here, do  forum search for challenge and you should get plenty of ideas.

[Muz]

Anyone ever played Evil Genius? I'm trying to base my fort off the one I made in that game.. which was truly evilly designed as some of my friends and siblings say. Basically it had a maze of traps and doors and plenty of bait around the dead ends. Any invader coming in would be confused by all the doors and traps and by the time they got through, they'd be so beaten up from the traps that all my evil minions would rip them to shreds.

But first... I got to get the hang of this game. I just found out how to use water from a stream to make an underground reservoir... sounds like a great idea for a pit trap - drop them in a pit then turn on the water. 

[mossomo]

Killing fields

I usually set up an area near my fort's entrance that serves as a killing field. 

Basically use channels to create an island like land mass.  Make sure that access to your front entrance channels people through this choke point.  I construct walls around the channels to protect from ranged attacks.  One bridge in, one bridge out.  I have a lever to retract the bridges, i manually pull it.  I have a string of catapults along the flank of the killing field.  No walls on this side, fortifications tho... i guess i make a wall first then carve a fortification.  I make the channel extra wide.  The catapults are usually built into the side of mountain (dwarves stay inside).  Along with stone ammo piles.  I keep a passage open to access the catapults from within the fort. 

Goblins enter the killing field.  Pull lever.  Now they are trapped.  Catapult away.  Put a ballista in the mix.. carnage.  For added fun, keep a cage full of war dogs on the island...  Thin them out with siege weapons then release the dogs, then pull the bridge lever and have the military clean up for the win and some exp.



       

[XmasApe]

The Walk of Thunder - 45 tiles alternating stonefall trap, catapult from the right, catapult from the left. Channels to either side collect stone and any survivors (the stone receiving areas across the walk are ramped into the pit), which is also home to two champion wrestlers dubbed "pit guards" who dwell in a small stone structure directly under the bridge.
It's far from efficient, but I like the idea of the approach for invaders being almost three hundred feet (I assume tiles to be ~2m square in terms of walking space) of stone crashing from both sides and the roof, and anyone unlucky enough to survive the strike and fall is broken and strangled by a pair of dwarves whose lives consist entirely of exercise (unattached pump), drinking, sparring, and killing.

[DanielLC]

I was thinking about an auto-resetting cave-in trap. It's pretty complex, so I'll also describe what happens too.

Level 1 is the top.

Code: [Select]

level 1:
+---- ----+
|%%pX Xp%%|
+---- ----+

level 2:
-+       +-
w|       |m
-+       +-

level 3:
     h
     f

level 4:
-----------
    pr
-----------
legend:
screw pump: %%
pressure plate: p
flood gate (or door): X
water: w
magma: m
hatch (currently open): h
top of obsidian rubble: f
obsidian rubble: r

1. A hatch closes between a wall and the top of a block of obsidian rubble (or whatever remains after a cave-in).
2. A pair of doors open.
3. A single unit of water and a single unit of magma are dropped from the doors onto the rubble.
4. The lava hardens into obsidian.
5. The doors close.
6. The screw pumps turn on until the spaces above the pressure plates are 3 units deep.
7. A dwarf must be sent to clear obsidian rubble (the obsidian above it is left on top). This step can be done at any point.
8. An enemy walks onto a pressure plate.
9. The hatch opens, leaving the obsidian wall with nothing holding it up.
10. The obsidian wall falls next to the pressure plate.

Unfortunately, if the wall falls onto the pressure plate, it will destroy it. Fortunately, it will knock the enemy unconscious so they can be killed easily.

Setting up the computing is left as an exercise for the reader.

I also thought of a fishing area.

Code: [Select]

level 1:

   S

level 2:
  +--
 h|FW <evaporation room>
  +--
level 3:
+---+
|www|
+---+legend:
same as last time with added
Water source: S. The entire first level can be a river; the point is that this is where it goes down. A hatch can be added if this goes to fast. This would be connected to a pressure plate in the evaporation room.
Floor grate: F.
Wall grate: W.

The idea here is that fish could come in through the water fall, but not go out. This way, when someone fishes there, there'd be tons of fish. You could modify it so you can drain the water out and just pick up the fish after they suffocate, but the turtles would survive. You may want to add a room between levels one and two to take advantage of the waterfall.

EDIT: I thought of another one.

Lock down.
There are two basic ways to do it. The simpler one must be planned from the beginning:
Build a door on every room. Hook them all up to a single Main Lever. The room the level is in will have access to every room through an alternate hallway. Along that hallway, there will be a Room Lever next to each room to open a door to get in. When there's a tantrum have someone pull the Main Lever, the Room Lever for the room the jailer's in, and the Room Lever for the person tantrumming. After the tantrummer is arrested, pull the Main Lever and Room Levers again. This process should limit the damage of tantrums and keep the fortress from falling into chaos.
The more complex one:
Every room has a door to it. Every door is connected to a pressure plate. Every pressure plate has a Plate Door (normally closed) next to it, which is connected to a Room Lever. On the other side of the door is an area that can be filled or drained of water using two Main Levers (Fill Lever and Drain Lever). This area is normally filled (This is arbitrary, but I'm going to stick with one way for simplicity.) When the Drain Lever is pulled, the water will drain off of all the pressure plates. The Room Lever corresponding to the room that must be locked down is pulled. This closes the Plate Door. The Drain Lever is pulled again, followed by the Fill lever. Every door opens again, except for the one corresponding to the Room Lever pulled. After the jailer goes to that door, the Room Lever is pulled again to open it. The Fill lever is then pulled again to allow the area to be drained again on the next use.
The drain lever can either open a door or hatch to let the water out, or it can be linked to a dwarven atom smasher. If the latter is used, the Drain Lever doesn't need to be pulled the second time.
If tantrumming dwarfs can destroy doors, you can use hatches for the same effect. Just switch opening and closing.

I also thought of using the exploit that creates water with a screw pump along with the dwarven atom smasher to build an artificial river. It's pretty pointless, though. If the water creation exploit has been fixed, you can use an aquifer instead.