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[Align]

Now that you mention it, why not flaming arrows and bolts?  Why not fire in general, torches and oils and heaven knows what else?  We have the opportunity to drown our dwarves with careless water use, so why not give the world dwarven arsonists?

Because that one flaming arrow will slowly but surely ensure the doom of your fortress.
Maybe once the dwarves are a bit more intelligent about handling burning items. Or rather, NOT handling them.

[Lalandrathon]

Yes, but there is a disturbing lack of options for lighting stuff on fire as it stands.

I for one can't wait to build a flaming booze moat trap.

[i2amroy]

I personally would love to see a way to create or functions. Like if you could set it at a floodgate so that instead of opening when triggered, it closed. This would be a really cool thing to have in some situations, and would be a lot easier to create and more reliable than those fluid based or functions.

[Granite26]

Added sections for fluid dynamics, fire, tripwires and siege engines.

What would tripwires do that pressure plates wouldn't?

[Othob Rithol]

I've got one I could really have fun with (and an easy one to add too):

Ability to place a gear one z-level beneath an upright spike. When powered, the spikes raise and lower at about the frequency that a screw pump cycles.

That way, any goblin that actually survives the five level fall on to a dense field of spikes won't be around much longer. My current version has a lever set to repeat, but that just seems lame. I call it the Grinder (body parts make it all the way back up to the surface sometimes).

[Granite26]

How about if we say a new powered device that flips every few seconds?  Then you could hook it up to your spears, to floodgates, whatever.

[The Dark Bunny]

A few ideas of my own I want to throw out there...

If we're going to have more ways to use machine power, we should have more ways to control it.  Assuming everything isn't hooked to a lever network, the current mechanical system can only run at full power or a dead stop.  I propose the following ways to keep vital fortress equipment running when there's not quite enough power available:

Gear assemblies that can be set to disengage when the system isn't capable of supplying the needed power.  Some sort of random (quality-based?) delay (or manual reset) would have to be put in place to prevent constant thrashing in multiple-switch situations, but it's workable.

Auto-queued emergency animal power.  If we get an 'animal power source' building, it should be settable to only provide power when power is needed.  Again, random delay or manual shutdown would be needed to prevent thrashing.

Power-storage devices designed to supply emergency power as needed to failing mechanisms.  In my mind's eye, storage capacity would be measured in units*frames, providing exactly as much power as needed until it is no longer able to do so.  For the purposes of the above emergency-power systems, make emergency shutoffs and animal-power systems engage when the storage devices kick in.

[Silverionmox]

Sliding walls and secret doors would fit on the list too. Isn't boiling oil already mentioned?

It would also be great to be able to combine a pressure plate and a trap/trapdoor on the same square, or to have a weapon spring out of an adjacent wall.

[Mohreb el Yasim]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Class A:  New Systems
                 Steam - No
               
                 Electricity - No
                 Conservation of Energy (No perpetual motion machines) - Yes
                 Gravity damage (ability to drop things on people for damage) -Yes
                 Moving Objects and Inertia (Giant Rolling Boulder) - Yes
                 Tech Tree - No
                                  Allow dwarves to build anvils without an anvil, picks without first mining.
                                  Assign Techs by Civ, Research new ones over time.

Class B:  Power Providers
                 Steam Turbine - No
                 Kinetic Battery (Hanging Stone) - Yes
                 Chemical Battery -No
                 Capstan (Animal Power) - Yes, if animals will eat
                 Furnace/Incinerator - No
                 Archemides Mirror - No


Class C:  Power Transfers
                 Pipes (For liquids and gasses) - Yes
                 Waterproof Axle Section - Abstaint


Class D:  Power Users
                 Heavy Doors (require power to move) - Abstaint
                 Clocks - Yes
                 Bells - Yes
                 Rock Grinders - Abstaint
                 Workshops (Increased efficiency?) - No
                 Fans - No
                 Scissors Lifts (Really Mechanical Lifts of any sort) - Yes
                 Power Drills (Hydraulic, multisquare, digging straight down) - No
                 Dwarf Trainers (Sparring Partners or exercise machines) - No


Class E: Flow Controllers
                 Vertical Pump - Yes
                 Spiggot - Yes
                 Pressure Equalizer - No
                 Internal (pipe) Pump - Yes
                 Misters (Water Pressure = Mist) - No
                 Dams and other depth controls. - Yes


Class F: Existing Constructions Improvements
                 Pressure Plates - Yes
                                  Make them not traps
                                  Make them weight sensitive (rather than creature size)
                 Weapon Traps - Yes
                                  Make them take up space (Put them in walls, floor, ceilings)
                                  Make them require power
                                  Give Ranged Weapon Traps range
                                  Allow some traps to hit more than one square (Large Serrated disk)
                                  Reduce maximum weapons in one trap (to 3)
                 Stone Traps - Yes
                                  Make them require ceiling
                                  Big stone trap (blocks path)
                 Drawbridge - Yes
                                  Make non-instantaneous
                 Mechanisms - Yes
                                  Make out of Metal
                                  Make ONLY out of Metal
                 Levers - Yes
                                  Ability to close a door and open a window with one switch
                 Traps - Yes
                                  Separate Trigger from Trap in most/some cases
                                  Separate Power from Trap in most/some cases

edit spoiler added ... but it is not a real spoiler you can read it (to be honest spoiler should be used for ... well spoilers ...i think)

[Granite26]

First things first:  Please refrain from reposting the entire OP with only 'yes' or 'no' next to the entries  It makes the actual comments hard to read.  If you like something, say why.  If you don't like something, say why.  If you don't like electricty or steam or other things that are too high tech, too steam punk, or whatever, say 'I don't like things that are ...'  Honestly, I think the debates have been going on long enough that we know there are people who like the ideas, and we know that there are people that don't.  Whether they get added or not, whether they are good ideas or not, they need to be on any list that has any claim to completeness.  If you really must put a yes or no next to every single idea, please have the courtesy to wrap it in spoiler tags..  Thanks

On a second note, I've added fuses (devices that kick on at low power), flipflops (powered switches that flip themselves every so often), and mechanisms that can be shut off without losing support.  I also put in 'disguissing walls' for the secret doors stuff.

I think all the talked about stuff can be done with just that. 
    Can't you construct a pressure plate on top of a floodgate that turns that floodgate off?
    The weapon traps in adjacent squares is why we want to decouple the trigger from the trap.
    Storing power is included with the kinetic batteries.

Imagine.  Your power runs low, the fuse trips the floodgate, water starts flowing from the resevoir down the channel, and the waterwheels pick up the slack.  (actually, that's a perfectly functional kinetic battery).
   

[Othob Rithol]

It usually gets kicked out of discussion for being too hard to implement (it only took 3D FPS shooters about 10 years to figure out) but having the ability to actually move an area of built floor/walls with enough power. I'd love to have a rotating bridge that pivots around a central tower, or a huge "statue" of a dwarf that smashes its 3x1x5 axe head across my main gate when a goblin steps in the wrong place.

And just to go on record, I am against electricity, but primitive (and very dangerous) steam power seems to fit. Water...Magma...Water.....Magma....hmmm.... Arm the Steam Cannon! Boom!
Urist McCoalShoveler cancels task: blown to pieces.

[Paul]

This is already in the list, but I feel the need to say that I'd love to see all but the most simple traps require either power, or mechanical winding between triggers. That way putting a 3 axe blade trap in the hallway isn't such an easy defense, you'd have to either link it to some sort of generator to provide the necessary power to trigger consistently, or have a dwarf come and reset it every time it triggers.

Stonefall and cage traps could still be 0 power, since they require a dwarf to set them back up every time. I would like to see cage traps have a chance to miss, though I suppose that's a different discussion. Just weapon traps would need, say, 10 power per weapon inside them. That way you need a significant power source to build a heavily trapped hallway. It would still be doable, it just wouldn't be so trivially easy as it is now. And if you don't connect the power, they would only trigger the one time and require a dwarf to come by and spend a few seconds resetting it.

Making them take up space would also fit that well too, since then you'd have a solid object to link the power up to.

[Christes]

How would you hook power up to a trap without allowing invaders a way into the fortress?  From above would work, I suppose.  That's still pretty limited.

I would like to see a way to put axles through walls.

[Paul]

Thats why it would have to be implemented with traps taking up space. That way you'd have the trap in the ceiling or in the wall and affecting the squares below/beside it. You would connect the power to it inside the wall.

[supremeMang]

alot of this is good, but at the same time you're lazy. misters??? its not hard to channel water, make artificial waterfalls that seep mist into rooms through grates.