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[Darkond2100]

man, if dwarf fort gets that complicated it would need like, a NASA super computer to run at faster then 0~1 fps.

It a possibility. My uncle works at NASA. And he's not a janitor.

[The Architect]

So all 30,000 or so DF fans take turns?

I am basing this number off of the info I have heard was posted by Toady at the initial download of the first 3d version, which went at around 20,000 units.

[tomas1297]

Make a room which can only be opened by a lever from the inside.Make a farm,a still and some archery targets there.Lead a planter/brewer and some marksdwarves there.Close the door.By the time someone will be able to get in,you'll have a group of elite marksdwarves there.Also bonus points if it's surrounded by a magmafall.

[Jyppa]

My current fortress is built inside a magma pipe, and when it's complete I intend to seal in my original 7 and fill it up with magma again (I store a few levels worth in a chamber directly above the pipe for fast refill). The entrance will open only one day very 7 years, I'm thinking winter solstice or somesuch, if a row of levers is pulled in the correct sequence. I'm thinking of making each lever trigger a different deathtrap if pulled prematurely or on the wrong day, including but not limited to clownite ground spikes, cave-in, water, magma, water plus magma, atomsmasher, chasm drop, bears or any combination thereof.

[Supercharazad]

1. Drain a magma pipe.
2. Build a sealed vault in said magma pipe.
3. Dig a small hole in the centre of said vault.
4. Build a lever controlled floor hatch over the hole.
5. Let the magma fill the pipe again and make sure the door is sealed all around to
prevent leaks
6. Build the lever inside the vault that controls the hatch
7. Build another lever that opens the door on the outside
8. Build a single-use pressure plate that closes the door when an adventurer enters
9. Wait for adventurer.


What will happen is that when the adventurer opens the door and gets locked in by the pressure plate, they grab the loot and pull the lever that opens the floor hatch thinking it will open the door, when te hatch opens, magma will slowly seep in from the bottom, frying the asventurer in the vault and destroying the contents that arn't magma safe

[100killer9]

Actually, try making an inside vault on a freezing biome filled with 2/7 water. Connect the roof to a support, so that it is destroyed upon triggering some trap. If the adventurer enters the vault and triggers the trap...
You have been encased in ice.

[Karnewarrior]

find HFS. dig out everything but the [ClownMetal] and leave at least a 1-tile wall around the main chamber. dig out the [Column] that remains connecting the [Circus] to the floor. there should be at least a 5-z level drop. construct a "bridge" of floors to the [Circus]. wage the war. when [Fun] is gone, you have a clean, pristine, kick-ass vault, hanging by threads of [ClownMetal] from the ceiling of a chasm. With Magma.

this is The Heart of the Fortress

[The Architect]

As loath as I am to type this name...
(I despise pokemon)

"Supercharazad", your idea won't work. Magma doesn't pressurize that way. However, you could dig the hole in the roof or the wall and have it enter through either of those.

[Captain Alchatron]

Have a deadlock seal! When the single pressure plate leading to the vault is trodden on, the corridor behind it is filled with (controlled - no messy magma spills) magma and water so kobolds and the like will only ever be able to leave with the goodies if they bring their own pick! It also provides an alarm - you can easily tell if a kobold's been in there, what with the obsidian seal 'n' all, and if one has, you can mine in and it'll be impossible for it to escape your military-activated miner. 

[The Architect]

You can't use anything so mundane as pressure plates or other default traps. Creatures like Kobold Master Thieves can get by them.

[shadowform]

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# Wall
. Floor
0 Coffin (where better place to bury a king?)
1 Item drop (airlocked)
2 Creature drop (dual airlock)
D Door


Item drop airlock design

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#### F2
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X Empty space (hole)
H Hatch / 1x1 bridge (link to a lever however you like)

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Creature drop airlock design

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See above, just put a hatch/bridge over the top so the dorfs walking over the top of it don't spaz out, and make sure that however you hooked up the bottom part, it's sealed off with a wall so building destroyers can't escape.

A few notes.
1) Magma-proof crafts, coins, and furniture will allow the room to be flooded with magma, although this will prevent the introduction of (most) guardian creatures, save magma/fire men, certain irate clowns (which are rather difficult to functionally pen in anyway), and imps
2) Filling the vault with one (or more) Z-levels of water is possible, with the detriment of reducing live creatures introduced to piles of bones, and the benefit of allowing carp.  It should be noted that undead guardians can still be introduced, although an additional Z-level without water must be added to prevent them from swimming back up through an airlock.
3) As per norm, the entire thing can still be suspended in lava/magma, be it in an expanded cavern built into a magma tube, a carefully crafted oceanic chamber, an exceptionally large chasm, or what have you.
4) Also remember that trapping/flooding the approach to the vault can also be an effective defense.  Careful flooding can force potential thieves to hold their breath through a winding maze of water-filled tunnels, traps, and so forth.
5) Don't limit yourself to one chamber!  See the below design for some inspiration!

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Primary chamber flooded with magma, decorated with steel furniture, crafts, armor, weapons, and coins; smaller chambers holds non-magma safe objects such as fine art, heavily encrusted crafts, artifacts, and coins.  The entire thing is surrounded by a pool of lava, rigged with a failsafe pressure plate in each chamber that can destroy the entire thing.

Also worth noting is that the purpose of the airlock design in the item drop is to prevent looters from using this as an entrance: if the bottom is at least 2 z-levels from where items are dumped, creatures that enter cannot flip the lever to let themselves down.  If the door is open, the fall should (ideally) be fatal.  Really, the hatch only needs to be there at all if you plan on filling the vault with guardians, as it will prevent dwarves from spazzing out while trying to add more items to the vault.

Similarly, the creature airlock can be arranged such that each successive 'layer' of bridge/hatches prevents each fall from being fatal, in addition to preventing would-be looters from climbing up and pulling switches themselves.

So really, the only reason to have an entrance at all is if you want to actually make this vault a tomb (possibly excluding the unfortunate craftsdwarves tasked with carving it out in the first place), so you can place furniture - and even then, a few sacrificial dwarves to drop down can do that if you drop the furniture in after them.  It's also worth noting that the bones can really help spruce it up a bit if you want to give it a "DEATH TO ALL WHO ENTER HERE" feel.

[orbcontrolled]

Whatever it is, it has to be impressive for the adventurer who finally finds it.

My current vault design is a massive hollow sphere with a platform suspended in the very center. Every surface is engraved, and the bottom half is filled with a liquid of your choice. I know most people would pick magma, but I personally think water is better because of how utterly amazing it would be to look into a pool of cave water 30 meters deep, crystal clear due to being totally undisturbed for so many years, and see the thousands of engravings packed onto the walls from the very bottom of the pool, stretching up into the darkness of the cavern roof. If you've ever been in a big enough cave, maybe you can start to imagine the kind of awe an adventurer would have to feel when they finally reach a vault like that.

Mine just has a platform suspended in the middle that artifacts can be set on, but if you make the platform a bit beefier, you might be able to carve little rooms into the platform itself, with clear glass windows looking out under the water.

Variations might include pillars of precious metals, and creative use of clear glass.

For people looking for an incredible challenge: build a few clear glass towers halfway between platform and wall. Top each one with a bin of the finest giant cave spider silk cloth, and build a system that drops a tile of magma from the ceiling to ignite them when a pressure plate is tripped.

Just imagine it for a moment: The adventurer has been stumbling through your tunnels for hours, avoiding deathtraps, and getting lost in mazes, when he suddenly comes upon a cavern so big that his pitiful flickering torchlight vanishes into the inky blackness. He takes a few cautious steps in and feels a click beneath his feet. He braces himself for a quick death, but suddenly 6 glowing red orbs of magma fall from the ceiling, and explode into flame atop the 6 corresponding glass pillars. Suddenly the entire cavern flooded with light. Thousands and thousands of engravings blindingly illuminated, the glass pillars channel the light down their length and light the crystal clear pool in which they sit from above and below.
The stunned adventurer slowly walks out into the chamber across the narrow bridge, and on the central platform finally gazes upon a piles and piles of artifacts of which he has heard stories since he was a child. It is the most beautiful thing he has ever witnessed.

Labyrinths and deathtraps are nothing without a suitably impressive reward at the end.

[Chronas]

unless that reward is an overcomplicated death, say a second plate next to the nearest artifact that drops the entire sphere down a pit, leaving the adventurer, the chamber -and all the artifacts to never be seen again. further visitors will only see a massive empty cavern at the end, and get the urge to throw themselves off it after such a perilous journey for nothing.

[The Architect]

Ok, first things first: Orbcontroled, you're right. The chamber itself needs to be magnificent and impressive! You also need to be enough of a manager to have artifacts worth finding!

I don't see why so many people are obsessed with vaults that are impossible to enter at all, or especially with traps that destroy the vault's contents. Some of you seem to completely miss the point of a vault! It is to keep things safe from all but the people who should be able to get them, not to put them out of reach of anyone and everyone forever nor to destroy the things stored inside.

I consider any design that destroys the contents to be an absolute failure on the part of the designer. I don't know if my position will be shared by everyone here, but I think disagreement can only come from a complete misunderstanding of the nature of a vault.

I understand the nature of the idea "If I can't have it, no one can!", but a design that destroys its own contents just represents a failure to adequately defeat intruders while protecting the contents. You'd rather have them destroyed than fall into the wrong hands? Fine, then be a real dwarf and design it so that they can never fall into the wrong hands! You shouldn't have to destroy them, and no dwarf would want to destroy artifacts.

[Supercharazad]

As loath as I am to type this name...
(I despise pokemon)

"Supercharazad", your idea won't work. Magma doesn't pressurize that way. However, you could dig the hole in the roof or the wall and have it enter through either of those.

You don't seem to realise that magma pipes fill from the bottom up, your just building an extension to the wall that magma can flow into the same way it flows up to the top of a magma pipe.