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[EliDupree]

For the advanced student of Dwarven Physics.

The wiki makes it sound like no one's done this before, which seems kind of odd, since it seems like generating free adamantine would be an incredibly attractive prospect. The basic design of the main part of the generator is this:

Code: [Select]

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
∙++++@∙+++++++++
∙+∙∙∙┼∙+++++++++++++++
∙+∙g∙┼∙++++++++++++++@
∙+∙∙∙┼∙+++++++++++++++
∙+++++∙+++++++++
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
The @ at the right is a stack of Marksdwarves (all in different squads so that they'll stand on the same tile) with adamantine bolts. The @ at the left is a single Perfectly Agile soldier with orders to patrol up and down, with little delays at the top and bottom. The "g" at the left is a goblin standing on a pillar (I pitted it from the z-level above.)

When the dwarf at the left runs up or down the line of doors, it opens all of them, and some of the marksdwarves shoot their bolts. By the time the bolts get there, the doors have closed, so they hit the doors and fall into the channel, where they can be collected and melted separately. (That distance is exact, by the way. Any less and they sometimes get shots through the doors, which kills your goblin. Also, with less-skilled marksdwarves, some of the bolts will stray and land on the floors, but that isn't enough to worry about even with mere dabblers.) Naturally, this is also an excellent way to train marksdwarves.

Due to a well-known theoretical model of Dwarven physics, a stack of 25 bolts can be forged from a single wafer, but 25 individual bolts can be melted down into 2.5 wafers.

I'm thinking of building some adamantine block towers to celebrate this achievement.

[JoshuaFH]

I will be keeping on eye on this, only to see how long it lasts and how truly practical it is.

[blizzerd]

i have done this with steel arrows (well... something like it) and it works "averagely well"

i did it to train weaponsmithing without losing too much steel and iron

[Duke 2.0]

 Couldn't you just have an archery target which you surround with pits after designating the room?

[Jim Groovester]

Have you built one of these in any of your forts yet? Does it work well?

I'm thinking the design can be improved, to make it automatic and not rely on a dwarf walking around.

[XSI]

Now this is an interesting thing to do. I'll start a quick fort to try it out tomorrow. This can be very interesting indeed. If it works, I'll build a tower out of pure adamantine, then collapse it, and route magma over it.

I think it's a goblin because an archery target only lets one dwarf use it at a time, a goblin can be shot at by as many dwarves as you have in range.

[Duke 2.0]

 So have a row of 'em. An archery target is easier to contain and build and is not a hassle to capture and release into the enclosure.

[Eviltyphoon]

But marksdwarves most likely won't use adamantine bolts to train on archery targets, since they are to valuable...

[LegoLord]

That, and as marksdwarves gain skill they hit the target more often.  When a bolt hits a target, it's gone for good.

[EliDupree]

Have you built one of these in any of your forts yet? Does it work well?

Yes. When I posted it, I meant that I had just finished implementing it, not that I had just had the idea.

The reason for not using an archery target is a lot less academic than what the rest of you are suggesting: Dwarves won't fire metal bolts at archery targets.

The only way I know of to substitute for the running dwarf would be a REALLY complicated repeater. The running dwarf is plenty automatic for me - it just has a four-point patrol route, and it only occasionally takes a break to drink or sleep.

The only things that aren't automatic are designating the work orders for tons of adamantine bolts, and designating the used bolts for melting (which is easy because I've set up the channels so that they all land on the same lever where there's nothing else, so I can just designate them all with an area-reclaim and then area-melt order.)

[armadilloHD]

Extremely exploity

But when you make that tower, post it in victory.

Bonus points for building an adamantine dreadnought in an ocean if you have one.  Any water will do though D:.

[NecroRebel]

Very clever. The only worry I have is that if you screw up the patroller's patrol route your markdwarf might manage to hit the goblin, and since you're using adamantine bolts you're liable to kill it. Better have extra "targets" in reserve.

As was also mentioned, this works for other metals as well. Steel on fluxless or tree/coal-free maps would be useful as well, since steel is available only in such small quantities from imports.

[NW_Kohaku]

Couldn't you just have an archery target which you surround with pits after designating the room?

Not really.  To designate a room with an archery target, there has to be an open space to declare a room, and rooms are interrupted by open space/pits the same as they are interrupted by walls.  If you set up an archery target as a pillar in the middle of a pit, you can't build a proper room out of it.

The best you can do is make a narrow ledge that the archery target sits on that is about 10 spaces from where the marksdwarf stands, and dig pits everywhere to the left or right.

This creates a place for loose bolts to fall and not be destroyed.

This still creates two major problems, however.  First, metal arrows are never used in target practice (as has been said), which just plain makes this whole project fail.  Second, each bolt must be collected individually, which means you would have an absurd bucket brigade of dwarves carrying bolts around.

[EliDupree]

I will be keeping on eye on this, only to see how long it lasts and how truly practical it is.

I found it quite practical to run. With six smelters and two forges about 20 tiles from the 'archery range', it has, so far, taken me a season or two to turn a single tile of raw adamantine into 35 adamantine wafers and about 1200 adamantine bolts (which are destined to become about 100 wafers, and the cycle repeats.) I don't seem to be losing goblins, either - the current one has lasted a very long time.

Building an adamantine tower seems kind of blah now - four wafers per block means that even with 200 wafers, it'll be a pretty dinky tower - and pointless (I could make a watchtower over my front entrance, but I'd rather let goblins walk into the cage traps.) I should do something more dramatic with it. Pity you can't engrave it.

[Kagus]

Can't you build with wafers?  I know you can build with metal bars as well as blocks, but I'm not entirely sure if wafers are handled differently in that regard.

And I would suggest simply replacing some of the furniture with adamantine variants, not to mention lining the halls with adamantine statues, and of course properly equipping the military.


Also, make some stuff from the threads.  That's gotta be fun.  Adamantine socks.  You know you want to...