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[Grimlocke]

Ok,

Spoiler: Brilliant Plan! (click to show/hide)

 1      2       C      3

 d|     d|     d|     d|
|W|    | |    | |    | |
|W|    |W|    | |    | |
|W|    |W|    | |    | |
          ~etc~
|W|    |W|    | |    |d|
|#|    |#|    |#|    |#|
W = water
d = puppy or other fluffy things

The idea is to try and falsify A and B from the above post.

If 1 produces splattered puppies as much as C (control) does, then both A and B are false. If its less, than A is false, if they dont splatter or get hurt at all then B is fasle.

2 is only built if water seems to not count as a z-level fallen at all. If they puppies land unhurt, then the water will have reduced the damage.

3 is to see if creatures realy do block falls. Just to see for myself, and to see if I can kill a puppy by bombing it with puppies  (or muskoxen, depending on how mean I feel)

I will start building this as soon as I overcome certain aquifer woes, and will combine it with my equaly genius plan for a fully automatic annimal splatterer.

[druid91]

To all the people wondering about water cushioning falls: there was one of our famous !!Science!! threads asbout it, and the results seemed to say that either water would a) not count as an extra z-level fallen or b) that as well as counteract some air-falling, as well.

I don't have a link to it, but I'll try a search to see if I turn anything up.
EDIT:Ack, my search-fu is weak.

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=50045.0 Is the Only thread I can think of. The water dampening is somewhere near the bottom.

I love how you suggest using horses as mattress landing pads

The original plans used kittens IIRC.

3 is to see if creatures realy do block falls. Just to see for myself, and to see if I can kill a puppy by bombing it with puppies  (or muskoxen, depending on how mean I feel)

Creatures really block falls unless It is a dwarf, because dwarfs fall asleep and then they don't block the fall and end up splattered with critter blood and limbs, of course they ignore this and continue there nap. haven't tried it with dwarves again since that incident.

[Retro]

To all the people wondering about water cushioning falls: there was one of our famous !!Science!! threads asbout it, and the results seemed to say that either water would a) not count as an extra z-level fallen or b) that as well as counteract some air-falling, as well.

I don't have a link to it, but I'll try a search to see if I turn anything up.
EDIT:Ack, my search-fu is weak.

I can't find it either, but I recall it, so just backing you up :P

[druid91]

Here is what was in the link.

From what I've observed, it appears that falling through layers of water doesn't cause additional damage like falling through layers of air does, but doesn't cancel out the layers of air fallen through either.  I had a dwarf knocked off a bridge 1 layer above a ten layer deep cistern.  He survived the fall with nothing more than stun, then drowned.  On the other hands falling ten Z-levels into one level deep water is still fatal.  I suspect that a fall of twenty Z-levels, ten of them through air and ten through water, will be just as fatal as a drop of ten levels through air alone, but I haven't tested it yet.

alright. hold on i'll build the pillar larger and throw the cat to his death.

Rambling as I perform the tests:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

edit: the top buildable level of the test area is +15. the bottom of the pool is -2. it is still 2 Z levels deep. So depending on how you count, it's a 17-18 Z level fall.
 the cat died on impact. and how! he blew to pieces!

 due to my own stupidity i have embarked on a tripple-layer aquafier. i can't fill up as big of a pool as i like. but i could throw a cat 9 Z levels. 3 of which were water. the cat was seriously injured. the math is the same. a third of the fall was water... so I suppose this means that water dampens the fall to a limited extent. but since you accelerate when you fall the pool might need to be deeper?

trying 7 z level fall with 3 levels water. and 8/3 z level fall. the dwarves are being pestered by the wildlife and three have been scared into the pool and drowned... the results: the cat is -unharmed- after the 7/3 fall. but lightly wounded after 8/3. i will now compare to a 7/2 fall.

at this point the cat is desperately trying to outrun the dwarves. and indeed! at the 7/2 fall, the cat is wounded!

Results:
Fall - depth - Unhurt?
04 - 0 - no
05 - 1 - no
06 - 2 - yes
07 - 2 - no
07 - 3 - yes
08 - 3 - no
09 - 3 - hell no
18 - 2 - SPLAT
20 - 10 - yes

The water appears to dampen the fall. but the further the fall, the higher the velocity - and consequently the more water needed to dampen it. So this might not be very good for your design at all.

in the name of science cats were hurt and killed! today is a success!

end note. one of my dwarves is a novice swimmer. i threw him into the 7-3. he is lightly wounded from the fall. you need to swim well to benefit from the dampening

FINAL EDIT: i had to try the 20/10 drop so i made a new embark. i just -had- to still my curiosity. i'm done now. honest.

[NW_Kohaku]

I wonder if Toady bothered to model terminal velocity?

That is, if 10 layers of water can stop a fall of 20 previous layers of air, then we are talking about a fall of roughly 200 feet (10 feet per floor of a building is standard, at least in our little backwards, customary-units-using nation).  If I remember my Mythbusters correctly, won't a human hit terminal velocity somewhere around 300 feet of freefall?

Of course, at such a velocity, water isn't exactly soft, so it should be a moot point if 15 layers of water would stop any kind of fall.

Also, druid91, if I could trouble you to sate my curiosity, could you do some extra testing on the 20-floor fall, to see what the exact ratio of water cushioning to distance fallen is? 

[druid91]

Not at the moment as my home computer isn't available. Besides Aspgren did the water stuff, I did the falling on useless animals from the sky stuff.