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[Fensfield]

Okay, someone'll probably be mad at me for asking this, but...

What are mechanisms?

Initially, I figured they just represented a collection of various gears and the like, the connection point between two pieces of machinery.

But then I realised they work over distances.. well, one could Sort of rationalise that as long distance axles and gears and stuff.

.. But then, of course, I realised a mechanism could operate totally disconnected from its control point.  A lever can manipulate a floodgate across the map on the other side of an un-bridged, miles deep chasm, for instance.  Or if you turn of cave-ins - through mid-air!

So, what, dwarves are too backward to use electricity but they can make practical use of quantum entanglement or something? o.o;

[TheMirth]

Since they're made of stone I imagine them as counterweights. Although where the cables\rope needed for such concepts come from stone I don't know but that's my best guess.

[Phazer]

Its Dwarf Fortress, if it works it works nothing have to make sense in this game   

[Zorgn]

Dwarves sneaking quantum entanglement into their mechanisms have always been my suspicion. Either way, I'm still waiting for the mountainhomes to send me the plans for a fusion reactor.

[Duke 2.0]

Dwarves sneaking quantum entanglement into their mechanisms have always been my suspicion. Either way, I'm still waiting for the mountainhomes to send me the plans for a fusion reactor.

Cold fusion.
 With magma and ice blocks.

[Flaede]

I can make a "cold fusion" reaction you can mod in.
It involves pearls.

[G-Flex]

I honestly wouldn't be too much against requiring axles or some other actual connectivity between devices.

The problem would be making it non-intrusive. Right now, it's all just abstracted out, and I'm okay with that too, except in the weirder circumstances.

[Fensfield]

Fusion reactor?  Pearls?  How on..? o.o;

[AlienChickenPie]

If two things are wired together, there was a path between them, at least at one point. A dwarf walked that path and laid some form of control cable. Further operations are assumed to have taken place without damaging the cable. There are cases where that would be a stretch, or plain impossible, but it would hold in most cases.

[Noble Digger]

I always imagined all this stuff worked via weights, gears, counterweights, and long thin conduits containing armatures that link from the lever alllll the way to the work site. Throwing the lever pushes a cam against the armature in the conduit. The armature transmits the force of pulling the lever to a locking mechanism attached to a weight at the work site, which releases the weight and activates the machine. How does it reset or work in reverse? Let's just say that while it's probably possible to devise mechanics in real life that work just like dwarven ones, it's probably really fuckin' hard. If we lived hundreds of years we may not consider it such a problem though

[Vicomt]

Personally I've always thought it followed a similar method to signalling and points mechanisms on old railway tracks.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lever_frame

is the "User Interface", then you get a long box channel which contains wire/rope connectors to the target area, then some other whizzbangdoodad connector to make it do its stuff.

[MC Dirty]

It's the cats. They're using Quantum Mechanics.
"Urist McSchrödinger has been ecstatic lately. He admired a fine mechanism lately. Or did he?"

[Savok]

Mechanisms are abstracted.

Like *Dwarven Feces*.

Which I am thankful for.

[woose1]

"Woose1 has been estatic lately. He admired a long list of possible signatures lately."

[xRedster]

"Woose1 has been estatic lately. He admired a long list of possible signatures lately."

Sigged for pure dwarviness.