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[amjh]

One simple suggestion, about balancing traps: Change it so that it's not safe for friendlies to pass them, instead making them avoid the trap tile. That would make completely unavoidable trap corridors unusable as entrances.

[Starver]

Given how pressure plates are able to tell between friendlies and hostiles (give or take), I suspect there's some secret dwarf-sign saying "to walk past this trap/plate, don't step on the black cobbles" or suchlike.  Although it also appears to convey protection to dumb animals, non-dwarf traders, etc, and (I think) if these 'safe travellers' ever become hostile (also dwarfs that have fallen foul of a loyalty spiral or justice?) they seem to forget how to pass them safely.

RFID.  Definitely RFID.  Or components sensitive to certain anti-dwarf brainwaves. *nodnod*

Anyway, if traps become indiscriminate, all the interesting solutions need to be used.  e.g. setting up a chessboard system of traps and setting high and restrictive priorities could seem to be the answer (at least for one's own guys, so maybe make them cage traps or trapdoors so traders and liaiaiaiasons can at least be freed with a quick apology).  At least until the gobbos learn to sidestep a lot.


With some form of Improved Pathing, however, the system I'd use is the semi-automated airlock method.  Dwarfs (and others) can't actually path in and out of the complex (or would, at first sight, appear to be required to pass through a such Corridor Of Inevitable Fatal Occurrences, instead) as the map stands at any one instance.  But by learning/knowing that walking into an apparent dead end a door/floodgate/bridge would cut off their retreat and yet something similar in front of them would (normally) open to allow them through (all the while with the beady eyes of archers, or at least the player, looking in upon them, ready to alert everyone to the danger, allow the lock to be sealed at  both ends and then rain down pointy, watery, fiery or cave-inly death upon the intruder (or otherwise unfortunate guy), the wiser dwarf with a more flexible routing algorithm (or, indeed, the wiser kobold, if he evades detection at the pinch-point) could gain safe passage where the current AIs would baulk.

[PhantomXD]

Pipes s i can pump water and magma int a steam generat0r 

[Uristocrat]

I know that fire is on the list, but it would be cool if we could trigger a fire via mechanism.

The tech level should be equivalent to the supports we already have:  i.e. having a collapsible support under something burning, which starts things on fire.

Technically, I guess we can already do this with magma engineering, this would just be a lot simpler.

[JohnieRWilkins]

This list needs these two mechanisms:

Floor bar/Grate pressure switch. Allows liquids to pass through. When a large enough object makes contact, signal is sent. Maybe even allow for these to trigger on a specific force of the flow.

Vertical bar pressure switch. Same as the floor bar, but for walls.

[Uristocrat]

This list needs these two mechanisms:

Floor bar/Grate pressure switch. Allows liquids to pass through. When a large enough object makes contact, signal is sent. Maybe even allow for these to trigger on a specific force of the flow.

Vertical bar pressure switch. Same as the floor bar, but for walls.

Couldn't you just build the pressure plate below the floor bars or past the vertical bars instead of needing them on the same tile?

[Granite26]

I think what he wants is a filter, so that when something gets stuck on the grate, the alarm goes off.

[JohnieRWilkins]

I think what he wants is a filter, so that when something gets stuck on the grate, the alarm goes off.

Yep. The applications of this are numerous, but mostly for the fishing industry, or the goblin fishing industry.

[Granite26]

or even better, a timer goes off, and after the goblin is good and drowned, the flow turns off and the door opens for your dwarves to go in to loot it.

[RabidAnubis]

Really, no tech trees.  That would ruin the game, and some of the fun opening strategies.

[JohnieRWilkins]

or even better, a timer goes off, and after the goblin is good and drowned, the flow turns off and the door opens for your dwarves to go in to loot it.

I was thinking more along the lines of open intake floodgate -> water creature gets sucked in and strikes the filter grate, activating it ->

Code: [Select]

╠X╗
X #
╠^╝
 |
The arrow below is a moving fortress section that pushes up. The grate leads to chasm. The top flood gate leads to 10z drop on a refuse stockpile. The left floodgate is ocean interface. When a creature flows in from the ocean and strikes the grate, the ocean floodgate closes, the drop floodgate opens and fish is pushed by moving fortress tile into the drop. Then the mechanism is reset.

[Sunken]

Wouldn't that be more easily accomplished by having a floodgate in the floor?

[Starver]

Wouldn't that be more easily accomplished by having a floodgate in the floor?

i.e. a hatch?

Personally, I don't see why it shouldn't work, except that I've had difficulties with hatches in the past[1] which means I avoid them[2].

Alternatively, a retracting bridge should work much the same.  (Minus time for workshop construction of hatch, plus time for architectural design of said bridge.  Either way, a little extra effort, but then again the bridge cannot be designed ahead of time, whereas a hatch can be manufactured just about as soon as one has the inkling it'd be needed.)

But, either way, you still need the "on entity striking hatch, operate something" switchy-thing.  Unless you go the 'dumb' route and just hook the respective mechanicals it into a longish-period repeater, of course.


[1] They just don't seem to open when you want them to, and though I'm not totally sure I didn't forget to wire them up to the lever, I was left with the impression that they don't like opening when you have a high pressure of water upon them (say 10-20Zs worth of accumulated water).  But I'm fairly sure that they've not been designed that way, by Toady, so I'm still left with the possibility that, of all openable water-barriers that I use (floodgates, doors, raising bridges), I always forget to connect up my floor hatches to the appropriate levers before filling the huge cisterns they are at the bottom of.  (Yes, I could try to select a new connection, unfulfillable as it would be ("fillable" being the very problem), to see if it's allowed from that lever to that hatch and therefore not already been done.  For some reason, I've never bothered to check that at the time, always thought about it far later.)  It could just be that levers lock/unlock the hatch, perhaps?

[2] I currently just tend to use hatches in spots (rare, but occasionally necessary) where I've got vertically-from-below stairwell access into a channel occasionally flooded with water.  When I let my dwarves wander up into it, they'll let a splash of water through (typically the 1-2/7ths that remain after an actual flood) but, as long as the traffic isn't excessive, no real danger of flooding the entryway, because it doesn't keep dripping in when no-one is actively opening and closing the hatchway at the top of the stairway.

[peregarrett]

Sorry for necro.

I got some ideas with mechanic.
First of all, isn't it odd that single crunlde stepped on plate can force stone bridge 10x10 tiles to raise? Same for other mechanizabe objects.

So, first of my suggestions is - every mechanical stuff requires power to operate. The consumption depends on weight of object. For example, bgridge costs 5 units per tile, doors and hatches 5 each. Traps require power to reload - i.e. when trap is active, it has some kind of spring inside that makes those 10 serrated disc pop out of floor and cut indaders to pieces, but after it was activated, it requires power to re-activate. As for traps, it can be done by mechanic by hands, as it is now for stone and cage traps, or by connecting it to power source.

But, tranfering power directly to objects by axles is too hard, so we need another way. I suggest new building - Reductor. It consumes power by usual means - axles and gears - and dispatches power to objects, by direct linking to them. Each linkage has limit of power transmitted to final object - so massive bridges can require several such linkages, and uses chain to link to object. Reductor can be linked to lever to change it's state - like gear assembly works now. Also - it's important - it can be operated manual, like pump, so it's possible to raise bridge without waterwheel or windmill.
So, the behavior of bridge when it's powered should be as follows:
0) bridge don't have power attached.
1) enough power is transmitted to bridge. Bridge changes its state - raises.
2) power supply is cut, bridge loses power and ready to change it's state again.
3) power is transmitted again, and bridge lowers back. and remains lowered till power is cut and restored again.
i.e, object is operated with raising edge of power source:

Code: [Select]

power attached
         ______________________                __________________________       
________| State Changes        |______________|State changes back       |
No power                          State ready to change

And, the last suggestion, is the third (fourth if we count dwarfpower) type of power source - animal powered. It's kind of wheel pulled around by a horse, donkey, mule or such. Or even a prisoner - that's dwarfy cool!

[Starver]

I'd suggest a minor modification to your idea, in that something like a bridge should have a base state, from which it needs power, but no power is needed to return that way.

I made a previous suggestion (not sure if in this thread) that there be something along the lines of counterweights.  At design-time (your emplacement, prior to any architect or item emplacement intervention) a bridge might be designed to be held down by a severable weight against a natural tendency to raise itself.  In an emergency, any dwarf (much as with construction removal tasks) runs up and severs something, or disconnects an element, and immediately it snaps (or locks) open/closed as appropriate immediately, possibly even with cave-in effects.  It takes a mechanic (or other individual relevant to release method involved) to reconnect and re-set to a bistable state, plus possibly make repairs from damage (as yet unimplemented, apart from total Building Destroyer-destruction) sustained.

However, that's a just rehashing of the olded idea, made to illustrate that bridges (at least) shouldn't need massive amounts of power to go both ways[1].  Some forms of floodgate (side-hinged or centre-pole twisting ones, for example) might need effort in both directions, although apart from the absolute ease of switching either direction I tend to think of them as guillotine or floor-raising types, and there's certainly no directionality to indicate that they're in a 'lock-gate' format.

Given the mystical (or quantum-pairing) nature of lever/pressure-plate linkages to various working mechanisms (whether heavy work such as floodgate moving, bridge raising/lowering or the lighter tasks of merely disengaging a gear or nudging a support so that it reverts to a collapsed form), you could argue that the power exists 'in the aether', and possibly the build-up is what makes the reaction no instantaneous to the original action, so I'm not sure whether this complication would be acceptable  either to Toady or within the massed ranks of the player community, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth talking about....


[1] If finely balanced, a moderate amount of power might be needed equally in either direction, of course.  Perhaps the given Architect's skill could be applied to how well balanced (or favoured toward the required state, such that it responds effortlessly/immediately to the being sent in that direction) such constructions are.  That's a completely new suggestion (from me at least), so you might want to ignore that for the time-being.