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[jryan]

Blast!  Well, it works for my marks dwraves...

[Shaostoul]

Is a fire imp firing line, with chained fire imps practical? Maybe with just walls behind them so they don't fire at dwarfs?

[Elvang]

Imps won't fireball at all when chained. I'm currently scratching my head for ideas on how I can integrate them into a dwarfy defense, otherwise into my dining room aquarium they go. I've been using the Pet Corridor 2.1 and 3.1 setups to try and get them to ignite stuff with their fireballs. Unfortunately, nothing seems willing to ignite, let alone get damaged. Even worse, the items seem to eat the fireballs so the target doesn't even get hit. I've tried booze in wooden barrels, iron barrels, just wood, clothes, bins, and charcoal/lignite.

So far it seems all I can do with them is a setup where they'll see an enemy and try to fireball it, and somehow prevent both the imp and enemy from making actual contact. And making it automated to boot. No idea how effective it'd be, as in all my tests the bear cubs only died/took damage when the imp initiated melee combat. Am I correct in assuming the fireball target has to be wearing something flammable for any damage to occur? Using Orc Mod and Terrifying Goblins, only leaders wear non-iron stuff.

EDIT: Expanded the Notes section in the first post to include what a fire imp will/won't do under different conditions so people won't have to read the entire thread before making suggestions.

[Shaostoul]

Okay so it won't fire over a channel, would it fire down a z-level? Like if you put it on a 1 tile +1 zlevel raise, would it fire down at things?

[Martin]

No, only weapons fire across z-levels currently.

The only additional thing I can think to exploit here is the imps immunity to magma and how that might affect pathing. We know it'll path through magma, but will it path through water but not breach it? Or can the magma be set up as a barrier to separate the imp from the enemy in some way?

[Elvang]

It possess the swim tag, so I assume it can path through water as easily as magma.

EDIT: Reconfiguring current setup to include water as a barrier for testing.

[Martin]

Well, my hope then is that the imps do some variant of the pet/door bug, that they will path through the water to the target opening the ability to fire at it, but won't cross the water because, well, will they go through water? I've never gotten an imp anywhere near water before.

[NecroRebel]

I have an idea that is probably a very foolish one, but it should not require any of the things that you have already determined don't work to work, so if the things that you have found are the only things that don't work, then it should work!

This is going to seem very weird though.

Basically, you have a ring of hatches over open space. Directly within this ring, you have a second solid ring of pressure plates. Each pressure plate is linked to all of its adjacent hatches (so 3 each, or 5 on the corners). The imp is placed in the center. When it tries to walk outside the ring, the hatches open, creating an impassible barrier right in front of the imp. As it goes around the ring, the hatches continually open before it, thus keeping it contained; however, it should be able to fire across closed hatches, thus allowing it to be a somewhat-effective defender.

So, something like this:
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
H^^^^^^^^^^^^^H
H^+++++++++++^H
H^+++++++++++^H
H^+++++++++++^H
H^+++++++++++^H
H^+++++++++++^H
H^+++++++++++^H
H^+++++++++++^H
H^+++++++++++^H
H^+++++++++++^H
H^+++++++++++^H
H^+++++++++++^H
H^^^^^^^^^^^^^H
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

with the imp in the middle; a big ring is probably better than a small one due to the problem with the earlier pressure plates actually opening the way out before the later ones reset to reclose it. I'm not sure how to explain that better, so if you don't get it 



edit:...That diagram doesn't really look very good, does it.

[Martin]

Hmm, that might work. Hatches activate instantly. Maybe move the plates back one tile from the edge, just to make sure the imp doesn't topple over.

I might put the same arrangement around the outside so that enemies can't cross inside.

Edit: oh, wait, no the plates have to be at the edge. I get it.

[Elvang]

Each plate would have to be linked to all hatches immediately adjacent to prevent the imp from moving diagonally, or an obstacle every other tile on the perimeter. I think it'd work though.

[Martin]

It doesn't need to be a large area either:

Code: [Select]

.......
.#####.
.#^^^#.
.#^.^#.
.#^^^#.
.#####.
.......

8 plates, 16 hatches, 64 mechanisms. Make sure you give your mechanic a way out of there.

[NecroRebel]

You could theoretically work it with 4 pressure plates, 12 hatches, and 44 mechanisms if you had a way to drop the imp in rather than using the standard lever-linked-cage release method:

####
#^^#
#^^#
####

Each pressure plate would be linked to all 5 hatches adjacent to it, but otherwise it should be identical.



I was doing some thinking, though, and I think there may be a problem with using straight pressure plates due to their 100-step delay after the triggering creature moves off and hatches' signal interpretation behaviour. Consider the following series of events (spoilered for possible long length, as I'm bad at describing series of events  )

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

ABCDE
P123F
O8.4G
N765H
MLKJI
Letters are hatches, numbers are hatches, . is open ground/unused.

Imp starts by moving onto plate 1. 1 sends the open signal to hatches ABCOP, blocking imp's path. Imp, trying to escape, moves onto 2. 2 sends open to BCD; BC are already open so BC ignore those signals, but D opens. Imp moves onto 3, and EFG opens. Now, though, imp has been off 1 for 100 steps, so 1 sends close signals to ABCOP. All of those close. Imp, on 3, is now adjacent to C and escapes.

Now, it might take longer than that for 1 to trigger, but all it really takes it the imp being able to get adjacent to a closed hatch while one of the pressure plates is still pushed for it to escape.

...OK, not so long, but perhaps also not entirely clear. I think if you know how plates and hatches/doors work you probably get it, though. It might not even be a problem, but if it is it would be necessary to work in a complicated fluid or mechanical logic system of OR gates (see the wiki on computing) to get it to be inescapable. Not unworkable, just annoying and takes up a lot of space and effort.

[Elvang]

So I tested the water idea.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Before

After

The imp didn't fire at the bear cubs. However, while constructing the test area for the pressure plate/hatch idea, I suddenly get the message that one of the bear cubs burned to death. This is 5 minutes after I ran that test and I wasn't watching. So I guess the imp will eventually fire on them...

Tried tempting the imp to fire again with a recruit, but after waiting a minute with the recruit standing where the bear died, nothing happened. The imp itself won't cross the water either, so no idea what happened...

EDIT: Yea, I skimped on construction and only did one side, and noticed that would be a problem. I'm hoping that by providing two targets it will continually move to opposite sides long enough that it won't be a problem. Otherwise its off to the drawing board for some complicated setup again.

[Martin]

I'm pretty sure that pressure plates attached to hatches or doors have no delay.

And you can always put a platform over the area and pit the imp if he's tamed.

[The Architect]

Ok, so I got a little bored halfway through reading this and became very impatient to simply share what I know: there is a way to make imps fire while chained, and never target your dwarves. I watched them burn an elven caravan attempting to escape via the entrance they were chained near.

The problem is that they need to be completely accessible to your targets! And although elves will run back and forth in front of them, allowing for delightful firey carnage, things like humans will just take a fireball or two and go kick their asses.

The trick is to tame them, chain them, then let their natural tendency to go from Tamed to Friendly take over (bug or feature with map feature related creatures). They will still target friendly caravans and creatures, but not dwarves. They will no longer be Assigned to the chain, and as far as I know traps will work on them. They will remain chained and aggressive with their fireballs. Dwarves will ignore them and even set them free if ordered.