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[darkevilme]

Not sure if this is the place but i may as well have my voice heard. Note i do a lot of my construction work above ground.

1. Weaker ranged weapons. At the moment due to the utterly preposterous rate of fire of your average marksdwarf/goblin archer the only thing that can approach them to melee are full plate champions with awesome skill with shields and dodging.

2. The ability to designate indoors as something other than underground so when i say 'dont go outside' i mean 'dont go outside' not 'cower in the basement your player had to provide as a way around limitations and as a result bring the fortress to a halt' I believe this one is coming though so no worries.

3. Weaker traps with only one weapon and more jamming chance.

4. A way to gain some benefit from building an elaborate shaft running from a temple at the top of my (20 z level) spire to a pool of water at the lowest level and using said temple shaft to send captured goblins screaming to their deaths as sacrifices...well a benefit apart from appeasing my own sadism.

5. Abandoned above ground forts should also be colonized by various beasties like underground ones. I have a friend who likes playing adventure mode in other peoples fortresses and its no challenge if they loot the place unopposed.

This is an awesome game though and i am looking forward to the new version.

[Vincent]

Not sure if this is the place but i may as well have my voice heard. Note i do a lot of my construction work above ground.

1. Weaker ranged weapons. At the moment due to the utterly preposterous rate of fire of your average marksdwarf/goblin archer the only thing that can approach them to melee are full plate champions with awesome skill with shields and dodging.

2. The ability to designate indoors as something other than underground so when i say 'dont go outside' i mean 'dont go outside' not 'cower in the basement your player had to provide as a way around limitations and as a result bring the fortress to a halt' I believe this one is coming though so no worries.

3. Weaker traps with only one weapon and more jamming chance.

4. A way to gain some benefit from building an elaborate shaft running from a temple at the top of my (20 z level) spire to a pool of water at the lowest level and using said temple shaft to send captured goblins screaming to their deaths as sacrifices...well a benefit apart from appeasing my own sadism.

5. Abandoned above ground forts should also be colonized by various beasties like underground ones. I have a friend who likes playing adventure mode in other peoples fortresses and its no challenge if they loot the place unopposed.

This is an awesome game though and i am looking forward to the new version.

1: Toady's working on that.

2: Why are you building your fortresses above ground? You bloody humie.

3: If you think traps are overpowered, Don't use them.

4: Appeasing your own sadism IS the benefit.

5: Agreed, but still, Why are you building your forts above ground? Digging into the earth and carving your home out of rock is much more dwarfy.

[G-Flex]

"If you think X is overpowered, don't use X" is a horrible excuse for poor design.

Traps should, in fact, be less powerful. Weapon traps shouldn't magically auto-rearm themselves, stonefall traps in the middle of a field don't make a hell of a lot of sense, and goblin armies should learn after a few tries that no, going through that hallway isn't a good idea.

And #2 is a very valid point. Why SHOULDN'T people build fortresses above-ground if they want? Sure, it might not be as "dwarfy", but people will still do it and still have reasons for it, and sometimes above-ground fortresses are just as "dwarfy" as anything else, like building a giant fortified dam-like structure in the valley between two mountains, artificially joining them. At any rate, there should certainly be a distinction between "stay underground" and "stay indoors", and dwarves shouldn't keep canceling tasks at the doorway either.

[darkevilme]

I'm building above ground cause A. i've been building underground since the game was 2d and got bored of it. B. it's more of a challenge, seriously. and C. I'm using a custom race and therefore not constrained by Dwarvish limitations, again cause i wanted to do things other than be a dwarf in a grimy hole in the rock.

Still as the list is mainly dealt with we're left with number 5 and my desire to see my friend brutally slaughtered by savage beasts infesting the abandoned above ground ruins of my Spire serpentlurks.

[Tormy]

1. Weaker ranged weapons. At the moment due to the utterly preposterous rate of fire of your average marksdwarf/goblin archer the only thing that can approach them to melee are full plate champions with awesome skill with shields and dodging.

3. Weaker traps with only one weapon and more jamming chance.

Actually I would like to see RAW options for these. IE. we should be able to set the RoF for the various weapons, set the type of dmg & amount of dmg what a trap does etc.

[Xonara]

We need more axes and hammers! Dwarves are famed for their ingenuity, but also for their stout warriors. Traps should still be powerful, but I think it should take more effort to set up truly devastating traps.

I think weapon traps should be manually reset unless they have a power source. This would make power sources even more useful. When a trap is sprung it has used up all it's stored energy, it shouldn't be able to reset itself without a force to reset it. Also, enemies should have a chance to dodge traps based on agility, and how well oiled the mechanism is. They could be oiled with animal fat or something. The odds of a trap jamming could be based on how well oiled it is and the quality of the mechanism.

Weapon traps need a lower limit on how many weapons you can cram in them, and the parts shouldn't last forever. Stone mechanisms should break on occasion, happening much less often with higher quality ones, and the weapons themselves could wear. Metal mechanisms, if they're implemented, would never break, though they could rust if you pick a bad metal, and I don't need to tell you how nasty rust is.

Actually, mechanism jamming, mechanism breaking, and bogged down mechanisms would be great in everything. Imagine having a siege when you're not prepared. Luckily, you just finished a drawbridge! However, as you pull the lever the mechanism jams and the drawbridge stays put. Fun!

As for crossbows, making them more quality dependant would be nice. Rate of fire, accuracy, force, and reliability should all be factors. Currently a group of well trained marksdwarves are an unstoppable force when working individually, when in reality they're support units. They shouldn't do a terribly huge amount of damage, since if they have enough meatshields and some fortifications they're pretty much untouchable, the advantages are clear enough.

[darkevilme]

On the point about weapon traps and the number of weapons in them. How big is a single square? how do you even fit ten giant serrated iron disc traps in a space that size?

[Xonara]

Funny thing about DF is that tiles can store a pretty much infinite amount of stuff. If tiles were made to have a max capacity it could be potentially game breaking, crowded corridors are problematic enough as it is.

[Silverionmox]

Even most common traps should require a square where the trap mechanism and/or the loaded object is located, to be unleashed on the target square, which usually is the same as the place where it is triggered.

[Neonivek]

"Traps should, in fact, be less powerful. Weapon traps shouldn't magically auto-rearm themselves, stonefall traps in the middle of a field don't make a hell of a lot of sense, and goblin armies should learn after a few tries that no, going through that hallway isn't a good idea"

My counter points
-Stonefall trap: Would you rather it be called Spring loaded stone trap? It really is just a case of Simantics

Anyhow the problem with Weapon traps has nothing to do with its ability to reload itself... in fact that is the point of the weapon traps... Their real problems are as follows
1) The enemies inability to see them or disable them... period... beyond gunking them up
and
2) The fact that they automatically hit with all weapons (they don't miss)

Probably a few other there... Traps are never going to be "Not Deadly" and they will never lose the ability to kill herds and herds of enemies (Judging by Threetoe).

They will however probably become more then visable, capable of being disabled, and probably able to be dodged, blocked, or destroyed by powerful and skilled opponents.

[Footkerchief]

My counter points
-Stonefall trap: Would you rather it be called Spring loaded stone trap? It really is just a case of Simantics

What?  The point of a stonefall trap is that the Stone Falls on the enemy, meaning a large rock has to be suspended some distance in the air.  Indoors you might conceivably hide the stone in the ceiling, but outdoors, what are you going to do, build a big wooden frame to hold the stone?  A little noticeable, don't you think?  I have no idea what you mean about a spring-loaded stone trap -- I don't think spring-loading a boulder would work that well.

Anyhow the problem with Weapon traps has nothing to do with its ability to reload itself... in fact that is the point of the weapon traps...

I disagree.  Spring-loading an axe or hammer or whatever requires stored energy -- once that energy has been expended, more energy is needed to reload the trap.  Powered traps could reload themselves, but unpowered traps should require manual reloading.

[Neonivek]

Powered traps last forever

Unpowered have only a limit hits in them.

This is why old Mechanical Watches could work over long periods of time... So having an unpowered Weapon trap rearm itself makes perfect sense.

As for Stonefall... it is simple... you activate the trap... the rock goes up and onto your head in which it falls and crushes you

[Footkerchief]

Powered traps last forever

Unpowered have only a limit hits in them.

This is why old Mechanical Watches could work over long periods of time... So having an unpowered Weapon trap rearm itself makes perfect sense.

Watches only need to move a feather-light watch hand, not swing a heavy axe, and they still need to be wound (even self-winders use an external source of energy).  So we'd have to be talking an extremely limited number of uses.  Like maybe 1.

As for Stonefall... it is simple... you activate the trap... the rock goes up and onto your head in which it falls and crushes you

I guess I'll just assume you're not trying to make sense.

[Neonivek]

"I guess I'll just assume you're not trying to make sense"

Look just think of it as a mouse trap except with a rock instead of steel at the end.

The Watch also has a small spring to move a feather light watch hand. Increase the size and you can have as many reloads as your mechanism allows... So we are speaking about a number like... 5

Mind you some traps could work even longer... (Pendulum can work hours!) without power other then possibly gravity.

And yes it would require a bit of work to set up.

[G-Flex]

I have to agree with Footkerchief here.

The amount of stored energy in a watch spring is extremely tiny. It only moves watch hands, and not very quickly at all.

Try winding up a spring large enough and tightly enough to send giant axe blades screaming through the air twenty times over. It won't work. At all.

It isn't just a matter of "increasing the size", unless you mean increasing the size to a degree that doesn't even make mechanical sense anymore unless you're building a frigging clock tower for each trap.

Also, a pendulum can work for hours because it doesn't encounter resistance. Every time it hits a goblin it would lose energy and slow down, becoming useless and needing to be reset. All a pendulum does is store energy in the form of its own motion.

A pendulum isn't even "powered by" gravity. It's not powered by anything. It simply isn't slowed down, because it has very low internal friction. Its momentum carries it up, gravity brings it down, repeat; the gravity never adds more net energy to the system, and it'll slow down like any other unpowered moving object if you introduce friction/collisions. If it's a ridiculously heavy pendulum moving at a decent rate, it might take a few hits, but that's all. Also, how the hell are you going to conceal a giant swinging pendulum in the middle of a field, anyway?


And no, a "mouse trap" style stonefall trap wouldn't make sense. A stonefall trap requires a rather  large chunk of rock, and things just don't scale well enough that you can put a bigger spring in there and expect it to work just fine. After all, you're basically describing a catapult there. Not exactly something you can stealthfully build into the ground, nor would it discharge very rapidly.