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[Eater of Vermin]

I'd be inclined to go for the magma surrounded room with a combination lock to make it accessible/destroy.

However, if I were your opponent, retaliation would be as simple as making a similar set of rooms, stockpiling with food & water and then herding in all the legendaries after stripping them of picks, axes, etc.

That'd piss you off far more than just using artifacts that were left lying around.   

[Shoku]

I thought of another way to keep the items away from him. When you encase something in obsidian (for things that burn you flood them then drop magma on it, not the other way around,) it shows back up when you mine out that tile. Ok, well that's spiffy but it's hard to be discrete about obsidian.

Well, what you can be discrete about it ice, provided your map ever freezes. That's probably a long shot but I'll explain anyway. With magma one tile away ice melts and water that's not "outside" won't freeze (aside from on tiles that began as ice.) So you can make a 1 wide channel in the ground and then mine out space to the sides of it for pumps and a hole for water to drop down and such. Then with a 1 wide hall for magma above or below for melting the water.
The trick here is that when you melt ice the items don't fall out so you get your items in, pump in water to freeze, pump in magma to melt the water, drain the water and wait for the rest to evaporate, then let out the magma and your items will be encased in air.

This is retrievable by you because you just need to put new ice (or presumably obsidian,) on that spot and mine it out to get your items back. Without coming on to this board there's no way he'd know about this and taking out a piece or two of the set up ought to totally obscure it's purpose.

How does he ensure the ice remains all year? His 'opponent' in this game will be playing for a full year, if I understand it right. Wouldn't the ice simply thaw at some point? Unless the map freezes all year, in which case this works fine.

Actually that's why this would be the best "once a year vault." In the right place the ice would only freeze for a short portion of the year so that would be your only opportunity to mine it out and moreover if you've melted the ice and drained the water already the other guy would have a relatively short period of time in which he could even possibly figure out how to operate your vault.

Here's the part you missed: "The trick here is that when you melt ice the items don't fall out." You've got to specifically mine out a tile with encased items in it for them to show back up. This is technically a bug that will be fixed eventually but at least in 40d your items are safely hidden away if you melt the ice they are encased in.

I know about this because someone made a repeatedly freezing hallway for trapping goblins and didn't want to have to mine them out. People thought he had been atom smashing the items in this way but in checking the stocks screen he found they were all still there and then by a stroke of luck or genius he found that mountains of equipment fell out of the ice when he mined it.

I suspect that if he did learn your ice trick he could make obsidian on that spot and get the items out of it but the removal of the ice without getting the items out should utterly baffle him even if he does know about how encasing things in obsidian works.

If he finds them from the stocks menu I expect the very most likely action he would take would be to channel out the layer below but then it would be even harder to get the items (not that much in terms of technical challenge so much as figuring out how to get it into the right state.) Plus you're probably not going to have multiple layers of ice so any attempted break ins will be quite visible and you can mentally retrace his failed efforts.

Until he learns how encasing things works in the first place you'd probably be pretty safe just depositing things in obsidian outside up against regular rock walls near the volcano or whatever but the ice thing is just not something a person would ever figure out and with seasonal ice it would take hardly any effort at all. The only downside would be if the freezing took place at a very inconvenient time in your turn.

[forsaken1111]

I thought of another way to keep the items away from him. When you encase something in obsidian (for things that burn you flood them then drop magma on it, not the other way around,) it shows back up when you mine out that tile. Ok, well that's spiffy but it's hard to be discrete about obsidian.

Well, what you can be discrete about it ice, provided your map ever freezes. That's probably a long shot but I'll explain anyway. With magma one tile away ice melts and water that's not "outside" won't freeze (aside from on tiles that began as ice.) So you can make a 1 wide channel in the ground and then mine out space to the sides of it for pumps and a hole for water to drop down and such. Then with a 1 wide hall for magma above or below for melting the water.
The trick here is that when you melt ice the items don't fall out so you get your items in, pump in water to freeze, pump in magma to melt the water, drain the water and wait for the rest to evaporate, then let out the magma and your items will be encased in air.

This is retrievable by you because you just need to put new ice (or presumably obsidian,) on that spot and mine it out to get your items back. Without coming on to this board there's no way he'd know about this and taking out a piece or two of the set up ought to totally obscure it's purpose.

How does he ensure the ice remains all year? His 'opponent' in this game will be playing for a full year, if I understand it right. Wouldn't the ice simply thaw at some point? Unless the map freezes all year, in which case this works fine.

Actually that's why this would be the best "once a year vault." In the right place the ice would only freeze for a short portion of the year so that would be your only opportunity to mine it out and moreover if you've melted the ice and drained the water already the other guy would have a relatively short period of time in which he could even possibly figure out how to operate your vault.

Here's the part you missed: "The trick here is that when you melt ice the items don't fall out." You've got to specifically mine out a tile with encased items in it for them to show back up. This is technically a bug that will be fixed eventually but at least in 40d your items are safely hidden away if you melt the ice they are encased in.

I know about this because someone made a repeatedly freezing hallway for trapping goblins and didn't want to have to mine them out. People thought he had been atom smashing the items in this way but in checking the stocks screen he found they were all still there and then by a stroke of luck or genius he found that mountains of equipment fell out of the ice when he mined it.

I suspect that if he did learn your ice trick he could make obsidian on that spot and get the items out of it but the removal of the ice without getting the items out should utterly baffle him even if he does know about how encasing things in obsidian works.

If he finds them from the stocks menu I expect the very most likely action he would take would be to channel out the layer below but then it would be even harder to get the items (not that much in terms of technical challenge so much as figuring out how to get it into the right state.) Plus you're probably not going to have multiple layers of ice so any attempted break ins will be quite visible and you can mentally retrace his failed efforts.

Until he learns how encasing things works in the first place you'd probably be pretty safe just depositing things in obsidian outside up against regular rock walls near the volcano or whatever but the ice thing is just not something a person would ever figure out and with seasonal ice it would take hardly any effort at all. The only downside would be if the freezing took place at a very inconvenient time in your turn.

Okay I agree, this is your best bet. Just freeze the items in ice and then melt the ice. Then you can retrieve them at any time by making obsidian there and mining it out if I understood that correctly.

[Puck]

Most ideas are somewhat nice.. but just can be bypassed ... you know, by core elements of the game: digging and constructing.

You need a block of somethign that either cannot be tampered with easily or just takes time. So I'm going to repeat myself: build something out of b>C>w maybe, that takes over a year to drill into. Haha, fat chance.

Or surround it with enough magma so it takes over a year to pump out. Upside for this: no draining through fortifications on the map edge, which is easily doable with water-protected vaults. But then again... one could just pour water on that and then dig through the obsidian.

My point still stands: it's impossible... but fun 

edit: the ice thing is nice... I never knew about that bug. Might actually work, but that's pretty dark magic tbh 

[Slogo]

If they're doing Spring -> Spring it'd work perfectly. The ice would be present at the end of the turn so he'd have time to craft up all his items and get them ready for encasing in ice.

Even though it's a bug it's still an ingenious solution.

[Gamermaster]

I have a very,VERY simple idea, build tons of cage traps and every single creature you catch, place their cage in the vault, and tie the switch for the vault entrance to the cages as well,so if he opens the vault he unleashes the monsters upon the dwarfs.

So he either burns the 'monsters' (likely a lot of hoary marmots and elephants unless you go to some extreme effort and happen to get lucky) with magma, or just stations a few champions there to kill them all. Unless we're talking about caged megabeasts or demons this isn't all that practical.

Really the best way, assuming your 'friend' refuses to stop messing with your stuff, is M.A.D. Make it so that if he does breach the vault, pressure plates will trigger a flood of epic proportions and end the entire fortress.

For bonus points, you can write out a warning in floor tiles. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

Well it sounded like the fortress had been going on for some time, so a megabeast might arrive, plus, isn't there a way you can hide stuff?

Imagine this:

Doomed peasant 1: hey guys, the boss told us to open up this vault.
Doomed peasant 2:What is in it?
Doomed peasant 3: Who cares? a job is a job.
Doomed peasant 1: man this switch is heavy okay its open guys- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHH DRAGONFIRE!!!!!
Dragon:RAAAAAAAAAAAARRGGGHHH!!!
Doomed peasants 2&3: RUN AWAY!!!!!!

[Aspgren]

1. Dig a 1x1 channel on one of the remote parts of the map where he won't look.
2. Tell your dwarves to dump stuff in it, disable all other waste disposals.
3. Dump the stuff in there. There's not a single creature who can get it out and it's just a hole in the ground, he will overlook it.
4. I'm not sure what the "hide" function does, but use that. Remove the dump and return to ordinary life.


Remember kids. The best way to keep your shit safe is to dig a hole and bury it!

[Shrike]

Also... Have a field of levers under constructed floors, with a single support. Build over a chasm or magma pit. Have the lever field span multiple Z levels, all able to collapse with the wrong pulled lever.


Or, have a sequence of floodgates and pressure plates, using magma, right in the middle of a residential area or dining hall, so that breaching it is going to be a real pain and possible tantrum spiral. Pull the first lever. Wait for second plate to trigger, AND it to another lever, opening the next gate. Then, the first lever is ANDed to the next pressureplate, and so on.

Making it a mess of highly sequential spaghetti logic that deconstruction/pumping will potentially cause a tantrum spiral is a good idea. Oh... and make a failsafe, such that there's some water somewhere on a pressureplate. If drained, the floodgates open, releasing the magma into the fort.

Why yes, I AM proposing holding the fort hostage.

You could also ask: "Hey, could you not do that?"

[Shakma]

To prevend draining, you could have it surrounded by magma on a pillar with a pile of levers.  All but 8 of the levers are hooked to the doomsday device.  Then have a pressure plate hooked to the doomsday device where if the magma goes down below 7/7 it sets if off.  The 8 levers you know of go to floodgates around the pressure plate to keep it on and safe if you want back in.  He drains the magma, it goes off.  He hits the wrong lever it goes off.  Only way in might be pouring water for obsidian, but you might be able to find a way around that.

[ChairmanPoo]

The obvious solution to avoiding having the guy pour in water is to make it far away enough from water. He only has one year to build an aqueduct, or a cistern & fill it with buckets. most likely he wont even try. And if he does and doesnt manage to have it built by the time it's your turn, you can sabotage his efforts (IE: tear up his aqueduct to build yourself a pyramid...)

[RedWarrior0]

Auxilliary idea for protection: put lignite blocks in magma-safe bin at a spot you want to defend, then pour magma on. Draining is optional. They burn for about 2 years I think.

Also, the problem with pressure plates: if you can change their settings, what stops him from being able to as well?

[forsaken1111]

1. Dig a 1x1 channel on one of the remote parts of the map where he won't look.
2. Tell your dwarves to dump stuff in it, disable all other waste disposals.
3. Dump the stuff in there. There's not a single creature who can get it out and it's just a hole in the ground, he will overlook it.
4. I'm not sure what the "hide" function does, but use that. Remove the dump and return to ordinary life.


Remember kids. The best way to keep your shit safe is to dig a hole and bury it!

This is easily thwarted because he can still see the items from the stocks screen.

[Rowanas]

The ice idea is best. Build a small water filled area in the ground, naturally made ponds and lakes aren't very rare.

When winter comes around, dig out a staircase of ice to the second layer and store your items there.

The water will unfreeze, making it impossible to get the goods without funneling all the water away and building new stairs (since the old ones will disappear when the ice goes).

If you suspect that he might discover your plan and dig it out (a season's hard labour at least) put your artifacts in more than one pond. It's much easier for you to put them in than it is for him to dig them out because you're essentially working with solid objects, while he has to bugger about with ice.

He has to unhide them, then find them, then extract them one by one, and all you have to do is dig out a bit of ice and shove your gear in. As long as the water isn't flowing it won't wash your gear away. Hell, you could even disguise it as an irrigation system, so if he wants to get at the items before the time is up, he'll have to ruin the irrigation that he's using for free.

[Ultra-Towerdude]

Dig a hollow cube. Put a smaller, the vault-cube in it, probably supported by a wall. Make it next to a river or another infinite water source. Make a tunnel connecting the cube and the water source. Make sure it has a floodgate connected to a lever. Flood the room. Flood the vault's moat(the bigger cube). Make loads of levers. Only one is real. Fake levers destroy the real one, like, atom smash it. Put a bridge over the moat. The real lever opens and closes the floodgate. So, if your friend tries to get there and accidentaly pulls the wrong lever, he can't get to the room anymore!

[Rowanas]

He could easily just check which thing each is linked to, and if he breaks the leveler, how will the OP get his stuff back? Honestly, my idea was best