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Author Topic: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion  (Read 18585 times)

Pilsu

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Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« on: January 05, 2009, 05:44:45 pm »

Currently weapon traps are very powerful. They reset by themselves, can be placed anywhere, take very little room, have a low chance of jamming, can hold up to 10 weapons in a single square and are very easy to design. There's very little that can survive an over saturated trap corridor or even a lightly armed one. Most senior players don't use them at all thanks to them trivializing the game very quickly

What I'd like to suggest would make traps much harder to design, space consuming and generally less effective while keeping them useful and easy to rebalance by the players themselves


1. Make weapon traps 3x1 squares and rotatable. Enemies standing on any one of these squares would trigger the trap instantly and deal damage to all three tiles when applicable




2. Reduce the number of weapons. Limit weapons by size, for instance 2 large weapons and 3 small ones. The large weapons would hit all 3 squares while the small ones would hit only one each. Large weapons would generally of the twohanded variety, for instance Mauls, Giant Axe Blades, Spiked Balls and the like while the rest count as small. Placing blunt large weapons in the trap would let the player choose which direction enemies are knocked if at all


3. Make traps require walls 1 z-level below and above them. Not just floors, solid walls, natural or otherwise. The weapons come from somewhere. This would limit their placement. Small weapons would require squares below and large ones would require them above. This would allow players place traps outside but at reduced effectiveness if they don't build a sort of gate structure housing the large weapons


4. Traps no longer reset automatically. They have to be reset by hand if they have no power source. Individual traps would have a setting to turn off the manual reset.

Power could be rigged via animal/slave (ethics raws) power building below or above the trap into the trap's middle tile. I'm not sure if axles are a good idea for this, they'd make traps exceedingly difficult to design and unsightly. Power could simply be transferred through stone or walls 2  z-levels above and below the crank from the central square. A large animal would be required to turn it so no kitten power. Replacing the animal would require deconstructing the building




If the trap is replaced by an axle or a millstone, it gets turned with the power that is transferred through the wall from the animal crank. This serves to give the building a use beyond arming traps from safety


A basic trap design:



The animal crank would basically act like a screw pump. An animal is built into it and start and stop settings call a dwarf with animal handling enabled to stand in it (this labor would not have skill levels). Any time power is required (ie a trap is sprung, wheat is milled) the dwarf drives the animal around the central square and generates it. Animals might get exhausted after a while of continuous use, disabling the system. The building would have two settings, constant use and one where power is supplied only whenever needed. While power is being provided for the purposes of milling or reloading, any traps connected to the machine would not fire as the reload mechanism being activated would effectively jam any already loaded traps for the time being. Any dwarves doing milling would treat the millstone as if constantly powered but the job would not start if no power is actually present. The dwarf would instead simply stand there waiting

Resetting a trap would take power for a number of steps. The amount of steps required would be in the raws, letting players effectively choose how often their weapon traps can be sprung from safety. Long reload time setting would make traps take out much fewer invaders




5. Jamming. Default chance per activation could be 20% which could be raised all the way to 100. Jammed traps would need to be cleaned before they can be reloaded again

Enemies could of course drive animals and slaves into the traps they know off in an effort to jam them but advanced siege tactics such as that are best left for other threads


Eventually animals will need to eat so this in mind, animal caretakers could bring them food and water much like health care enabled dwarves do to injured dwarves


A pain in the ass to code to be sure but I think it'd make traps worth using yet limit their power quite a bit. Players wanting automatically reloading weapon traps would need to sacrifice space for it whereas people who risk their engineers could cram 2 more traps into the same space. I imagine a quick orders menu item to temporarily disable reloading and cleaning would be handy too, as is dwarves have a nasty habit of running into an enemy siege in an effort to clean traps they just sprung


Any other ideas, feel free to add
« Last Edit: February 03, 2009, 12:38:42 am by Pilsu »
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Neonivek

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2009, 05:51:08 pm »

I am going to say that... Weapon traps should have a certain number of shots before they need to be reset (unless they are jammed)

Why? Because Power is a total pain...

Though... Having weapon traps have a certain number of shots before they run out of power makes perfect sense anyhow... In the same way that having weapon traps work without power currently makes sense.

You just interupt the stored power. (Dang it... I need to draw this!)

Though this could make other interesting concepts such as the weapon trap failing to interupt its attack and using up all its stored energy. Or to have each shot have less and less strength.

Powered Weapon traps avoid this simply by working indefinately at full strength.
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Pilsu

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2009, 06:03:39 pm »

Hmm, X activations before jamming is a valid idea too


Constantly powered traps make no sense. This is mechanical power, the only way such a contraption would work is if the mechanisms constantly move in one direction, say an axe blade twirling around a swingset's top bar. And you can't store power in such a machine for multiple uses, it's always released all at once
« Last Edit: January 05, 2009, 06:06:07 pm by Pilsu »
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Neonivek

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2009, 06:19:46 pm »

"And you can't store power in such a machine for multiple uses, it's always released all at once "

You ever have a wind up Car?

remember what happened when you physically took hold of the wheel?

Now if you apply a swinging axe like a Screwdriver what happens is that with each swing the Axe gets lower on the setting and hits the next block. The block needs to be released to allow the Axe to finish itself... But it hits another one... Until it gets to the bottom and has no more potential to harm enemies.

You can also plant a series of reset mechanisms to reset it yourself in a weapon trap... For example a Guillotine swings down... that action activates a reset which locks the guillotine back in its starting possition...

Dang it... I need to draw these
« Last Edit: January 05, 2009, 06:30:03 pm by Neonivek »
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Tormy

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2009, 06:47:14 pm »

1. I don't see any problems if some traps are occupying 1 square only [1x1]. Especially since 1 tile is infinite big right now. Not that 3x1 traps would be problematic...
2. No comment
Number 3.,4. & 5. has been discussed many times already. I agree with what you've said in those points, just a note for #5.: Jamming chance should be 5-10%/activation imo.
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Gork

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2009, 07:02:55 pm »

In terms of balancing, a single *large, serrated Iron/Steel disc* already does tremendous, often lethal damage to passersby. I think a power requirement would already be enough to consider replacing weapon traps with spikes or engineering solutions.
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Skid

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2009, 07:07:13 pm »

I would want the number of repeated motions/jam chance to rely on the quality of mechanisms used. Mechanisms would provide one hit before needing power or a reset, -mechanisms- two hits, etc.  Artifact ones might be able to provide entirely limitless attacks.

And Neonivek is right, even basic clockworks can provide a whole lot more types of movement than just endless rotation.
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Karlito

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #7 on: January 05, 2009, 07:18:02 pm »

I like everything said here, except the magic power transfer through z-levels.  I don't know if a vertical axle is the best way to go with it, but we already have lost of power-transfer mechanics in place and you just want to throw it out the window.
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Pilsu

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #8 on: January 05, 2009, 08:10:46 pm »

You ever have a wind up Car?

I never had a wind up car that could parallel park

You have to remember that the object gives quite the portion of the energy away when it hits anything and objects as heavy as axes and swords are going to lose their energy very, very quickly


1. I don't see any problems if some traps are occupying 1 square only [1x1]. Especially since 1 tile is infinite big right now. Not that 3x1 traps would be problematic...

Well, the general idea was to reduce lethality, every square having a trap like this wouldn't really change anything


Jamming chance should be 5-10%/activation imo.

Well it's 20% now. You could tune it if you felt like it as said


In terms of balancing, a single *large, serrated Iron/Steel disc* already does tremendous, often lethal damage to passersby

Traps being deadly should be expected. My traps would go off much more rarely and be less prevalent and much harder to make. They would not do the job for you unless you made a ridiculously long corridor

If it's wounding you want, I don't think using a giant sawblade is the way to do it. Make some whips and scourges


I think a power requirement would already be enough to consider replacing weapon traps with spikes or engineering solutions.

Yes but constantly powered traps that aren't constantly active make no sense and would be just as overpowered with no other changes


I like everything said here, except the magic power transfer through z-levels.  I don't know if a vertical axle is the best way to go with it, but we already have lost of power-transfer mechanics in place and you just want to throw it out the window.

It's the most elegant solution I could think of. Picture axles running through the rock


And Neonivek is right, even basic clockworks can provide a whole lot more types of movement than just endless rotation.

Your basic clockwork will break if you never stop winding it as per waterwheel and windmill power. And it's a bit different from an apparatus that swings a giant axe around. You'd need more than one dwarf to store that kind of energy, not to mention the thing you store it in. It's just not feasible
« Last Edit: January 05, 2009, 08:49:07 pm by Pilsu »
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Neonivek

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #9 on: January 05, 2009, 09:23:04 pm »

"ou have to remember that the object gives quite the portion of the energy away when it hits anything"

You can avoid this easily essentially by having energy demonstrated as the path. Thus it can only be stopped... not slowed down.
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Pilsu

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #10 on: January 05, 2009, 09:45:45 pm »

Which means it stops every time. I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about
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Footkerchief

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2009, 09:50:06 pm »

1,2: I'm not sure that weapons should hit all 3 squares just because they're big.  Rather it seems like you're attempting to capture the swinging nature of the weapon -- an enormous corkscrew is (of course) big but its drilling motion won't hit all 3 squares.

3: I think the above/below space should be explicitly used, as in the building should actually occupy those tiles.  I don't like the idea of a whole bunch of mechanisms and weapons being conceptually tucked into a rock that is still "intact."

4: I concur with Karlito that the existing power transfer stuff should be used, rather than magical power transmission through rock which is problematic in all kinds of ways (that space could conceivably have undetected magma in it, etc.)
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Groveller

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2009, 10:49:46 pm »

Yes but constantly powered traps that aren't constantly active make no sense and would be just as overpowered with no other changes

Huh? There are plenty of ways for a mechanism to disconnect itself from a power source when it's wound up to a certain level.

3: I think the above/below space should be explicitly used, as in the building should actually occupy those tiles.

Walls too.
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Xonara

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2009, 11:24:18 pm »

1: To be honest that sounds like it could make trap placement kinda irritating, especially if you're building a maze-like structure or pretty much any hall that's not straight. Instead, we could make traps 1/3 as powerful as they are now, and I don't like the sound of that... See below.

2: Sans the 3x1 trap idea this has been needed for a long time. Just don't nerf them too much (See below again)!

3: I'm not sure what you're getting at. Traps could come out of floors or walls, as long as they're not floating it doesn't matter. Except, perhaps for stonefall traps, which should only come out of ceilings but you know how hard it is to work with ceilings in df. For now let's assume dwarves are good at hiding giant hanging boulders >.>

4: Sounds good, but I don't think power should be limited to animal power. Theoretically any power source could reset the traps, you could set up a system of gears or whatever to retract the traps and have a lever to disconnect the retracting power once they're fully reset. It's fully plausible but I wouldn't want to have to build that in the game, so we could let any power source reset them by simply connecting the power to the traps and assume there's some mechanism like that at work.

5: I'm all for jamming, but see below.


I don't think traps should be nerfed too much. At the least, they should be about 1/2 as powerful as they are now. However, the traps should require quality mechanisms and alot of maintenance to stay in tip-top shape. I posted about this here: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=29369.msg382997#msg382997

I'll add to it by saying that poorly maintained traps would not only be slower and jam more often, they'd obviously do less damage if they did hit.
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Pilsu

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Re: Illustrated weapon trap suggestion
« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2009, 11:49:50 pm »

1,2: I'm not sure that weapons should hit all 3 squares just because they're big.  Rather it seems like you're attempting to capture the swinging nature of the weapon -- an enormous corkscrew is (of course) big but its drilling motion won't hit all 3 squares.

Well, a corscrew the size of my arm would qualify as enormous. But you understood what I was going for


3: I think the above/below space should be explicitly used, as in the building should actually occupy those tiles.  I don't like the idea of a whole bunch of mechanisms and weapons being conceptually tucked into a rock that is still "intact."

Building up and down is a damn nightmare as is unless you like filling your fortress with frivolous up/down stairways. How would one build a building occupying a 3 dimensional space? And even if one does actually put the weapons into special blocks above and below, what was actually gained? Aesthetics? Not really, the installation process would scar the hallway quite a bit no matter how you slice it. Even the best case scenario involves turning your solid rock corridor hollow


4: I concur with Karlito that the existing power transfer stuff should be used, rather than magical power transmission through rock which is problematic in all kinds of ways (that space could conceivably have undetected magma in it, etc.)

I don't see why proving power to nothing would matter

I'd just teleport the power through solid blocks of rock for installation convenience's sake. Installing vertical axles in 1x1 just isn't happening and again we'd be digging stairs everywhere thanks to lacking game mechanics


Huh? There are plenty of ways for a mechanism to disconnect itself from a power source when it's wound up to a certain level.

My 14th century clockwork knowledge needs some brushing up but I imagine it's not that simple to make a trap that springs, latches onto the reload mechanism, loads itself, disengages and waits for the trigger to go off again


As for the walls on the side, needing both would render the knockback feature for mauls useless


So yeah, sure it'd make more sense to actually hollow out the spaces above and below the trap for the weapon chambers and have at least one wall next to it so the above weapons are connected but I'm more concerned about aesthetics than having the player dig access shafts everywhere for no real gain. Remember how levers work right now. Mechanisms aren't entirely realistic, their effects already sort of teleport about with no real connection being run through the fort


I consider the animal/slave power part to be an absolute necessity though, a rig advanced enough to utilize a waterwheel to rig the trap by itself ranks up there with guns and electrolysis
« Last Edit: January 06, 2009, 12:05:10 am by Pilsu »
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