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[father_alexander]

i just wanted to say i love this thread, you sir, should win a nobel prize in dwarven science

[derekiv]

Any chance of getting a save of the map with the huge adamantine stockpile and how to create a adventurer vault?

[LordSlowpoke]

Any chance of getting a save of the map with the huge adamantine stockpile and how to create a adventurer vault?

I can give you a save with immense amounts of adamantine wafers and the general trap stuff. Oh, and an adventurer vault is a simple completely confined structure, with a simple cave-in device inside that will destroy one of the outer walls (that were hopefully constructed), go down one tile so you can walk on the top, and get your stuff. Simple as that, takes about a month of gametime to dump all the wares there. Quantum stockpiling!
But that comes after the hallway is tested, for now I can't give out specific details on the construction.

i just wanted to say i love this thread, you sir, should win a nobel prize in dwarven science

I am honored, thank you.

Were the weapon traps effective?

If so, I'm thinking if you can mod it so that you can put any type of weapon trap component into either a standard weapon trap or an upright spear trap triggered by lever, you could pack a hallway full of adamantine giant axe blades linked to a reaper, doing slicing damage to everything trying to go through the hallway. This should hit even trap immune creatures as the trap is triggered remotely by repeater.

Adamantine spikes would not be effective against the unkillable creatures, such as undead things. This is the only reason why I'm suggesting adamantine axe blades or discs to get in the different damage type, which can cut them in two on a lucky hit.

Thanks for the info! I'll make sure to get a repeater rolling somewhere. Hope I have enough adamantine for mechanisms.

Aw, I'm thinking encasing in obsidian may be the only way to deal with some of the tougher demons.

We can always get a lucky shot, now do we? This is what Dwarven Science is about, pop in a support and hope it works.

[Mephisto]

Thanks for the info! I'll make sure to get a repeater rolling somewhere. Hope I have enough adamantine for mechanisms.

Why? I don't think material affects mechanisms besides for value. The quality of the mechanism is the only thing that affects speed.

Unless you're planning on immersing them in magma. I don't see why, though.

[LordSlowpoke]

Thanks for the info! I'll make sure to get a repeater rolling somewhere. Hope I have enough adamantine for mechanisms.

Why? I don't think material affects mechanisms besides for value. The quality of the mechanism is the only thing that affects speed.

Unless you're planning on immersing them in magma. I don't see why, though.

Nah, I don't plan on flooding the passageway. But still, when I say that I want adamantine everywhere, I get adamantine everywhere.
It's not like I have way too much of it for even ten of those, and even if I didn't - what's the good ol' generator for? I think I have a caged berserk dorf somewhere...

[Mephisto]

But still, when I say that I want adamantine everywhere, I get adamantine everywhere.

Spoken like a true dwarf!

[Hyndis]

Adamantine mechanisms would only be needed if you're trying to attack things like spirits of fire, which can melt stone mechanisms.

IIRC, the quality of the mechanism does nothing except to increase the value of it which counts towards room values and fortress wealth. The type of object it is attached to is what determines the delay. Rig up a hallway of spike traps with different quality mechanisms and pull the lever, and they'll all fire at the same time. Same deal with bridges and floodgates.

[Melagius]

Were the weapon traps effective?

If so, I'm thinking if you can mod it so that you can put any type of weapon trap component into either a standard weapon trap or an upright spear trap triggered by lever, you could pack a hallway full of adamantine giant axe blades linked to a reaper, doing slicing damage to everything trying to go through the hallway. This should hit even trap immune creatures as the trap is triggered remotely by repeater.

Adamantine spikes would not be effective against the unkillable creatures, such as undead things. This is the only reason why I'm suggesting adamantine axe blades or discs to get in the different damage type, which can cut them in two on a lucky hit.

Some demons are beasts of flesh. Like the fire breathing skinless therapods that massacred my dwarves by the dozen. (Tyrannosaurus Rexish creatures) I think that demons have [TRAPAVOID],so only adamantine spikes would work against them, but I never tried.

[Hyndis]

Spikes worked against the demons in 40D. They won't trigger traps on their own, but spike traps linked to a repeater or even just a simple lever would trigger regardless of anything being on the trap or not, and anything in that tile at the time the trap triggers is attacked by the components of the trap.

[chaturga]

As mentioned, spike traps are less than ideal due to the strange materials demons are usually made of. Even when you do get ones made of flesh, for the love of god seal the doors before the hall, or disable the cleaning labor on your dwarfs, some of them are too eager to become a hairy kebab on the worlds most valuable skewer.

How about capturing and taming a couple-o-megabeasts to tie up for the meanies?

[Hyndis]

Or what about just going with more animals?

Get a huge population of tame dogs, bears, grizzly bears, black bears, cougars, lions, tigers, giant lions, giant tigers, crocodiles, alligators, cave crocodiles...

Each animal species has its own local population cap, so if you have a huge variety of aggressive animal species you can just overwhelm them due to sheer numbers, and some of the larger predators are quite ferocious. They will also reproduce, and hopefully reproduce fast enough to counter the losses.

You can of course mix dwarves in with this, with the idea that while the animals keep the demons busy and cause damage, your dwarves with the axes will still be free to chop the demons up while its busy attacking tame dog #251 and tame lion #179.

[Cardinal]

If the only way to kill unkillable demons is with a cave-in, then what someone needs to do is build a cave-in machine.  It's remarkably simple, since you can create stone using magma and water.  You just have to design it so that the stone is created so that it is existing in open space, which is not so simple, but maybe not impossible.  Imagine, if you will, a water filled room with a 3x3 bridge at its center:

##############
#####OOO######
#####OOO######
#####OOO######
##############

And above it sits a channel of flaming hot magma:

################
~~~~~~~~~~~####
###########X####

#######                #
#######                #
#######                #
##########OOO###

Theoretically, you should be able to simultaneously open the bridge and the trapdoor to allow a blob of magma to fall into the pool of water, turn into stone, fall through the open space (its centered over the center square of the 3x3 bridge) and land below as a cave-in.  Imagine the fun!  The target spot directly below would naturally be ringed with cage traps, to take advantage of the wonderful benefits of dazed cave-in results.  An entire system could be built, all automated and timed based on how long the block needs to travel to its target--necessary to save water, which you'll lose in copious amounts.  The one drawback, in fact, is the massive amount of water necessary for such a system, but with proper pumping, you could make a fully operational Dwarven Death Star that would destroy or trap any living or non-living thing in the game.

Theoretically.

[Eric Blank]

If the only way to kill unkillable demons is with a cave-in, then what someone needs to do is build a cave-in machine.  It's remarkably simple, since you can create stone using magma and water.  You just have to design it so that the stone is created so that it is existing in open space, which is not so simple, but maybe not impossible.  Imagine, if you will, a water filled room with a 3x3 bridge at its center:

##############
#####OOO######
#####OOO######
#####OOO######
##############

And above it sits a channel of flaming hot magma:

################
~~~~~~~~~~~####
###########X####

#######                #
#######                #
#######                #
##########OOO###

Theoretically, you should be able to simultaneously open the bridge and the trapdoor to allow a blob of magma to fall into the pool of water, turn into stone, fall through the open space (its centered over the center square of the 3x3 bridge) and land below as a cave-in.  Imagine the fun!  The target spot directly below would naturally be ringed with cage traps, to take advantage of the wonderful benefits of dazed cave-in results.  An entire system could be built, all automated and timed based on how long the block needs to travel to its target--necessary to save water, which you'll lose in copious amounts.  The one drawback, in fact, is the massive amount of water necessary for such a system, but with proper pumping, you could make a fully operational Dwarven Death Star that would destroy or trap any living or non-living thing in the game.

Theoretically.

according to the finest applicable dwarven logic, and previous tests, this WILL work.

Someone sometime back tested what happens when obsidian is forged over a bridge. The result: obsidian wall falls through the bridge. Your bridge doesn't need to be linked, the only issue is that it has a chance of being destroyed by both the obsidian caster and whatever you're trying to keep out. ('keep out' as in you're using this devise to seal a hallway, not just as a weapon)

I believe it was it the art of war thread: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=54532.0 but i haven't reread much of it, could have been in a similar thread.

Assuming your bridge isn't destroyed, you have much less water demand than you're describing.
The issue after all this goes right is, in the case of using this offensively and repetitively, what do you do with the stone blocks? if you just so happen to place it over hell, and by sheer luck, it's over the glowing pits,* it should disappear into the depths. If not, it has to be mined every time it's given space is filled, which isn't necessarily good.

using animals to battle the legions would be fun, someone should try to get a nearly-invincible (or one of the truly invincible) creatures , like forgotten beasts, and chain them along the halls.

* (they do still function as chasms, right? need to start dropping shit on them, but my dorfs won't path down the stairways to my 0-demon-species hell, and the pits aren't underneath the access way. So much for experiments in fortress design and refuse removal.)

[Alkyon]

As mentioned, spike traps are less than ideal due to the strange materials demons are usually made of. Even when you do get ones made of flesh, for the love of god seal the doors before the hall, or disable the cleaning labor on your dwarfs, some of them are too eager to become a hairy kebab on the worlds most valuable skewer.

How about capturing and taming a couple-o-megabeasts to tie up for the meanies?

Well, couldn't you go into item_trapcomp.txt and mod other weapons to work in "Spike" traps to do different types of damage that's hopefully less useless against inorganic demons/megabeasts?  I believe if you just add the [IS_SPIKE] tag you can use the weapons in repeater-powered traps.  Alternatively, if you want to move your water by smashing it with giant hammers, or stabbing it with some spare spikes, you could probably use the [IS_SCREW] to make stab-powered pumps. 

Edit:  Yup, tested it.  It will allow me to build upright spike traps out of some spare screw pumps I had from earlier after adding [IS_SPIKE] to the screws.  Perhaps this is a bit more practical than cats with anti-demon clouds of venom, albeit far less awesome.

[LordSlowpoke]

Thanks for the ideas, I'll make sure to implement them at the nearest occasion.

Or what about just going with more animals?

Get a huge population of tame dogs, bears, grizzly bears, black bears, cougars, lions, tigers, giant lions, giant tigers, crocodiles, alligators, cave crocodiles...

Each animal species has its own local population cap, so if you have a huge variety of aggressive animal species you can just overwhelm them due to sheer numbers, and some of the larger predators are quite ferocious. They will also reproduce, and hopefully reproduce fast enough to counter the losses.

You can of course mix dwarves in with this, with the idea that while the animals keep the demons busy and cause damage, your dwarves with the axes will still be free to chop the demons up while its busy attacking tame dog #251 and tame lion #179.

First, I'm gonna go for a world which has elves in it. Then, I buy their animals, let them breed, and - of course - take off the [PET_EXOTIC] tags off everything so I can tame the wildlife and train it as war machines.
Or I'll just give cats the [TRAINABLE] tag.

I also updated the first post's "progress" part. Two in-game years passed already.