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[Hamster Man]

I believe that, if the space on the bridge that its on has been channeled out, it will just fall. If its not channeled out, it'll get "tossed".

[Quietust]

I believe that, if the space on the bridge that its on has been channeled out, it will just fall. If its not channeled out, it'll get "tossed".

Not true - the retracting bridges over my fort's "moat" (i.e. the magma pipe) fling goblins all over the place, even with a roof on top of it (they still get flung to the sides, just not up Z-levels).

[Hamster Man]

Le odd - whenever I use it, they fall (usually to their death).

[Sphalerite]

Experiment #4:  Bridges over channeled versus non-channeled floors

For this experiment, both bridges from the previous experiment were deconstructed.  One of the 5X5 holes in the floor was covered over with floor.  The other was left over.

Retracting 5X5 bridges were built in both chambers, one over a 5X5 channeled hole, the other on constructed floor.  Both bridges were evenly covered with obsidian blocks and bones.  Several war dogs were also let into each enclosure.  Meeting zones were placed in the center of both bridges to encourage the dogs to gather there;  this was not completely successful at gathering the dogs on the bridges.



The lever was then pulled.

On both bridges, block, bones, and dogs were thrown up to three spaces.  There did not seem to be a significant difference in the degree to which objects were thrown by the bridges.  Of course, objects and creatures on the bridge over the channeled hole which were not thrown free of the hole immediately fell into the hole.



Conclusion:  The presence or absence of a channel under the bridge doesn't seem to significantly effect the flinging of objects on the bridge.

[The Mad Engineer]

This is my kind of science 



No dilly dallying with speculation and hearsay.  Actual recorded proof and experimentation into dwarven physics.


Do you think it would be possible to create a locomotive system using a series of raisable drawbridges?

[Hamster Man]

*shakes fist!* 

Actual experiments instead of speculation?! This is heresy!!
BURN HIM WITH MAGMA!!

[winner]

this means we can make a dwarven elevator. have a 1x1 bridge surrounded by walls with one available floor space a level up. Then another retracting bridge that covers booth that floor and the open space leading down to the first bridge.

[Solarn]

Please do the same experiment (bridge over channeled vs. non-channeled floor) with raising bridges as well. I still can't believe the Dwarven Bridgeapult isn't a viable defensive option.

[Remalle]

Do bridges block movement on the way up?

[winner]

I placed 127 mudstones on a 1x1 retracting bridge and then retracted it.
Here is the number of mudstones on each tile

Code: [Select]

0221101
0130130
3512220
322*391
1054224
0212621
1232121

*=33
it looks like objects have a 25% chance of remaining on their tile of origin

[winner]

same setup as before this time with 128 rocks
this time I did an analysis across time as well

*=32

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

~5 steps after the bridge flings

Code: [Select]

layer 1
467
6*(11)
787

layer 2
633
426
546

~10 steps

Code: [Select]

layer 1
21031
01130
02*15
04203
14112

layer 2
11105
20001
20001
20004
10205

layer 3
22110
30120
10002
10320
31032
~15 steps along

Code: [Select]

layer 1
1000101
0100200
0011300
002*141
0042011
0021101
0020001

layer 2
1010001
0001030
1100010
0100000
0100030
1001010
0001003

layer 3
0010001
0101100
0200100
1000011
0102201
0100010
0200003

layer 4
1200000
0101000
0000010
0000010
1001000
0000000
1100120
~30 steps along

Code: [Select]

layer 1

3220103
0303330
1311420
112*162
1244242
1222121
1321127

[Sphalerite]

So some of the airborne blocks reached 3 Z-levels above the level of the bridge?  Interesting.  The rule that blocks travel at most 3 squares in the X and Y direction when flung by a retracting bridge also seems to be holding.  Raising drawbridges can throw blocks further than that in the X and Y direction;  I wonder if they can also throw blocks more than 3 levels up?

[Kanddak]

I am glad to see someone other than me performing and documenting actual experiments, especially in an area I haven't seen studied much. Very nice work, Sphalerite and winner.

I wonder if the rocks would travel farther away from the bridge if they weren't stopped by hitting the floor. It would be informative to repeat these experiments with a bridge built over a pit with another bridge built on each z-level to change its depth.

Also, those results with the airborne rocks remind me of some informal observations I made when single-stepping through the results of dropping invaders down a 10-level pit. If I recall correctly, the body parts ejected from splattering corpses went up to 3 z-levels high and travelled about 3 squares away. If you built a variable-depth pit, you could also use it to measure the injuries caused by falls of different heights, and the rules for how far a corpse has to fall in order to splatter and how the body parts fly when it does. People are always asking how many levels to dig to kill invaders, or reliably cripple hammerers without killing them. You'd just need a lot of kittens.

I hypothesize that there is one common "thrown objects" algorithm, and we'll see similar results for objects thrown by bridges, long falls, body parts cut off during combat, and creatures knocked into obstacles by hammers.

[winner]

I hypothesize that rocks will not fly any farther than 3 squares away from the bridge because when flingified, they flew out until they hit the limits of the cube and then fell straight down.

When I tried flinging rocks by raising a one tile drawbridge all the rocks vanished instead of being flung.  When I piled rocks on top of the raised drawbridge and lowered it all the rocks dropped the one story without spreading.

[Kanddak]

When I tried flinging rocks by raising a one tile drawbridge all the rocks vanished instead of being flung.

Yeah. People don't mention this much, but the "wall" tiles of a drawbridge crush things when the bridge raises just as surely as the other tiles crush things when the bridge lowers.