i got to test my defences, they failed. A forgotton beast stormed me fortress
- the beast could fly, im unsure whether it could swim. AS briefly descibed above, there was only one way into the fort, (id evacuated the surface) this entrance consisted of a 5 by 40(approx) corridor split in to four sections with flood gates. One of the sections was covered in cage traps, and one with spikes connected to a lever. At the surface end of the corridor was an up ramp, at the entrance end a down ramp. The down ramp led to a battery of balisters with my levers for the system behind them and a depot to the right. Parrallel to the corridor was a 1x40 corridor flooded with water with 4 flood gates, one for each section. There was also an emergeny shut off flood gate nearer the river. On the other side of the corridor was a series of hatches to release the water after drowning. These hatches led to one large chamber bellow.
The beast destroyed the first 5 flood gates and each spike it approached and was unaffected by traps. My lever puller fell as sleep so i had to get another one quick, which lost me some time. The beast actually release the waer upon its self by taking out one of the side flod gates. Of the four rows it had got through 3 before water got high enogh to force it to retreat. It had destroyed several of the hatches too. After it had retreated i pulled the emergeyny shut off lever and the waters began to receed. The beast returned took out one flood gate in the last row, and tok out the emergeny shut off gate of four and entered the fort. My two balister crews failed. One had fired a shot before the tiatn had even breached the entrance and gone to reload. The other waited until the titan was 6 squares away and then fled. Only 3 of my miliary had showed up for the battle, the got squihed. I then gave a kill order to the other 8 and they killed it pretty quickly.
Ive sealed off the flooded entrance and dug a new one.
long story diagonosis:
creatures with destory building tag will:
will ony be slightly slowed down by destroyable strcutures(they may slow down to destroy several) The creture destroyed several flood gates and spikes it didnt need to in order to path to my dorfs.
Unless you come up with a faster flooding,area than me or a longer entrance corridor, the beast will destory flood gates faster than flood water rise to danger levels
rising water will cause a creature to reteat (im not sure at what level i think 6)
lever triggered spikes are as useless as regular traps since (from my obervations) a creature will destroy any it comes into contact with.
solutions:
one solution would be to use a much much longer corridor. Once within the corridor yu could allow water in at either end. The creature could even alow the water on its self by destroyin the flood gate near the entrance. As long as you had some bate to draw it into the tunnel it would move in. Once in the water a t either end would trap it. Then its just a matter of time. Also you wouldnt be able to drain the water out afterwards with hatches or flood gates. Youd have to dig a fresh drain then wall it up afterwards. Youd also have to install a shut off far enough away from the beast so that it didnt destroy it.
or you could try a pit, magma, or cave in. But there will always be problems with any trap involving flood gates and hatches.
Im am unsure as to whether a beast will destroy a hatch in the celling above it but this may improve the design.
p.s. prior to this beast a dragon showed up and got caught in the first line of cage traps