Alright, I have some questions and I'd like to know where the DF community currently stands on some things.
DF has some nice mechanical capabilities allowing a lot of free reign with setting up technical systems, usually employed in the form of defense systems. So, I have some questions. Some of these are things I am experimenting with right now:
1) Can a waterwheel be arranged to run off an artificial waterfall, resulting in the normal 100 power (which would also allow it to be pumped back to the source, with your power gain growing the more z-levels you drop it through waterfalls without it hitting a reservoir). And/or: will arranging it so that an artificial water supply flows under a waterwheel before dropping again result in power?
2) Has anyone employed logic computers to a purpose in DF? Is it even possible to do so without devices being more fine-tuned (such as Toady allowing us to set the delay on them)?
3) Does anyone have some functioning labyrinths to show off? One method I heard suggested was employing a repeater and/or pressure plates to open and close doors, allowing enemies to walk the maze.
A) I was thinking it could be done so that the exits were stairs leading to other z-levels and freedom, with the dead-ends are constructed by doors/bridges connected to pressure plates blocking an exit. You start with some exits open, and when an enemy enters the dead-end and triggers the plate, the door closes, forcing them to find another path.
B) Another feature I plan to implement is placing some glass walls (windows) in a maze, then placing some creatures hostile to each other (such as a tame dragon when mazing orcs) as a type of trap which will be triggered when an enemy walks in front of a glass wall and hits a pressure switch (causing the dragon to be released, see them through the glass wall, and begin pursing them through the maze).
C Another feature I plan to implement is spike traps and hatches hooked to pressure plates. With the hatches, I am hoping to drop enemies onto a pressure plate in a room below with an exit back to the maze. This will be used as another form of dead end, but if they fail to get to the exit quickly enough the spike traps in the room will go off (having been activated by falling onto the pressure plate). The power of the traps could decrease in a radius from the plate, so that almost getting there results in merely a wound. Other options for the trap room will of course include flooding from reservoirs of specific volume with a recycling drain hooked to a liquid pressure plate.
D Yet another option involves a pressure plate next to a fortification with a creature behind it with no path to the enemy (so it won't attack until the plate is triggered). Once the plate is triggered, the exit to the pillbox is opened and the creature, now with a path to the enemy, begins making ranged attacks and/or pathing. Before it reaches the exit to its pillbox, another pressure plate closes it. From what I have read, creatures won't attack without a path.
I could go on, including having levels which enemies can fall down into, taking them backwards one level from their exit. Also useful are cave-ins and recapture traps to be dropped onto. Even traps releasing dwarves and creatures directly on the enemy would be awesome. With a DF logic computer, I should be able to reset the maze with one input.
Of course there are much less interesting things that can be done such as a level of doors on repeaters which create and erase paths through weapon traps or repeating spikes, or repeating drawbridges opening and closing (smash, smash, smash :-) ), with the exit from this maze of death leading back to the main labyrinth.
4) Magma logic: Possible, in place of water on maps without infinite supplies? I am recycling and storing rain right now on my experimental map, a nice technical challenge on a map with no river. However it has a magma pipe and SoFs, of course. The issue is that any water logic computers or repeaters will eat water 7 at a time, and I'd like to do some magma molding later with it (after I create an infinite wind-less power plant).
5 What questions do you have, and wonderful ideas to contribute?
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Topic: Employing Mechanics in DF (mazes, computing, repeaters, etc) (Read 1090 times)