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[decius]

You can also do this without using magma at all, simply by exploiting freezing air vs indoors air which is miraculously just the right temperature.

It does require to use water pressure from a resevoir however. You have a store of water a few Z levels higher. Then use downward stairs all along your entrance. The Z level below this walkway OF DOOM have up stairs. Water can flow freely over stairs. Water in that lower level will also never freeze.

Then have a lever that opens up the reservoir, flooding water down and with water pressure forcing water up, through the stairs, around the invaders. This water will then freeze solid encasing them in ice. To turn off the trap you just close that reservoir link again, which removes the water pressure and makes it safe to dig out the ice blocks.

I'll try to make a demonstration map of this trap this weekend, but my work time is sucking up almost all of my free time.

This trap basically uses water pressure in the exact same way that a toilet does. 

We're trying to avoid any digging here. Preferably we wanna throw one lever and then have frosty doom obliterate the siege until they decide it's not worth it and those who had yet to enter flee cowering and covered in icy tears and mucus.

The lava a level above could make your setup do it's job the way OP wanted but stairs won't work for a trade entrance like I proposed.

Are you sure that the "outside" temp isn't transmitted through stairs though? I was pretty sure I freeze a tile of underground river whenever I stair straight down into them.

Now, if you dug out the lowest layer of ice and lined it with down stairs and had up stairs in the layer of rock below it this would definitely work without any "outside" tiles but I'm not sure what the reaction to melting the ice floors from above would give us.

For the trade, have the access go through a tunnel

Code: [Select]

z+3          -----------
z+2         |wwwwwwwwww|
z+1 ___      RRRRRVRRRRRR   ___
z       \__________________/when the hatch (V) opens, you get:

Code: [Select]

z+3           -----------
z+2          |          |
z+1 _____    RRRRRVRRRRRR    ___
z        \IIIWWWWWWWWWWWWIII/
You just need the resovoir underground, with pressure it doesn't need to be right above the tunnel. The Ice locks the enemies in where they drown, then magma pumped under the ice can thaw it, and water pumps can return the water to it's resovoir.

This way, you can use ramps, and have as wide (and as loong) a path as you want can fit on the map.

Details of plumbing are left as an exercise to the user. I recommed using at least four cisterns: one for trap water, one for trap magma, one for domestic (well) water, and one for industrial magma.

[Shoku]

Oh good, I can make one of these after all.

-

trapping them in water isn't what we wanna do and heaven forbid the idea of some of their mounts swimming up into the cistern.

[Shadowics]

*Drowning Trap*

That's a clever idea. Reading it, I actually thought, 'hmm, why didn't I think of that... oh wait, I embarked on a Terrifying Glacier, which, besides invading goblins, has an ample population of Evil Skeleton Polar Bears, who don't really mind taking a dip, seeing as how they don't need to breath or anything.

With a freezing trap I can banish anything to the

Phantom Zone.

[decius]

...
heaven forbid the idea of some of their mounts swimming up into the cistern.

Put a fortification or two in the line somewhere, just like you use to keep the magma creatures out of the foundry.

To modify for creatures that survive being covered in water, put in spike traps.

Or get dwarven...

To clarify: magma on z-2 will melt an ice wall on z-1, but not a ice floor on z? Magma on z+1 will melt an ice wall and ice floor on z, but nothing on z-1? Ice will freeze if the tile is Inside, Above Ground, provided that nothing melts it?

I don't have a fort situated so as to check: If you have magma at z+1 and ice wall at z-1, do you keep an ice florr at z, or not?

If not, you need a path like the drowning trap above, but Aboveground, with magma on at z-2, just sitting there. That keeps the z-1 level liquid, but z still has an ice floor, so is "Safe".

To trigger, pump the magma into a constructed basin at z+1. Floor melts, enemies fall down into the hot tub. Pump the magma out of  z-2, and they become encased in ice.

If the magma at z+1 doesn't melt the floor at z while the wall is there at z-1, leave the magma at z+1, and cycle it at z-2 to operate the trap.

What I don't see is a way to do this without any magma-proof mechanisms and hatch covers, without letting some magma evaporate after each cycle. I think it is possible, but would need a lot of pumps in a setup similar to the original.

[Shadowics]

magma on z-2 will melt an ice wall on z-1, but not a ice floor on z?

Yes.

Magma on z+1 will melt an ice wall and ice floor on z, but nothing on z-1?

Yes.

Ice will freeze if the tile is Inside, Above Ground, provided that nothing melts it?

Any Above Ground tile, provided that the ambient climate is freezing, and there's no adjecent magma to warm it.

If you have magma at z+1 and ice wall at z-1, do you keep an ice florr at z, or not?

The ice floor will be there until the ice wall at z-1 is melted, at which time it will melt also.

That is an interesting idea though.

[Shoku]

Just in case anyone comes looking here for information: ice floors above a tile don't make the spot below them indoors enough for water there to not freeze. I haven't checked to see how the game actually classifies that space but without any magma heating it any spot that started with ice will freeze, even if it's visibly below ground and you know that those floor tiles have never been removed.

[Shadowics]

Just in case anyone comes looking here for information: ice floors above a tile don't make the spot below them indoors enough for water there to not freeze. I haven't checked to see how the game actually classifies that space but without any magma heating it any spot that started with ice will freeze, even if it's visibly below ground and you know that those floor tiles have never been removed.

We normally say 'Water won't freeze indoors' but that's not strictly true, it's based on temperature (obviously). Anything dug into dirt or rock is Dwarven Climate Controlled to be just the right temperature for dwarves. Anything above that, on the surface, depends on the climate, and the season. The exception to this is digging into Ice, such as on glaciers. While not 'Above Ground' the glacier ice levels must necessarily be below the freezing point of water, or else they would melt and drown your dwarves the moment you dug into them.

[Shoku]

That leaves me with a question though. On one map where I set the world temperature to -50 to -20 so I'd get glaciers everywhere anywhere I made a meeting zone would get the cold tag, even next to my magma forges.

Was the temp underground -20? They didn't seem to get cold wounds in doors but everyone thought there was a draft.

[Shadowics]

That's quite cold.. I'm not sure what you mean by a 'cold tag', what's that?

I just tried genning a world with temperate -50 to -20. The whole overworld was freezing, but after embarking I could dig underground and have the normal Dwarven Climate Control temperature.

[Leafsnail]

You're doing it wrong.  You need to challenge them to a children's card game in an unfeasably weird situation that will result in the loser being banished to the phantom realm.

[Shoku]

When you make a meeting zone a little blue word pops up indicating that the zone is cold.