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[Retro]

So since my main project right now is an on-off kind of thing, I've decided to start something up to fill the in-between time. My thoughts turned to designing an adventurer dungeon in the closest sense of a video game dungeon I can manage. This means I'll be making actual puzzles, leaving clues on how to get through labyrinths, etc. The main plan right now (and I'm well into construction already) is to have a main lobby with four paths. Three of the paths lead to a series of somewhat related puzzles, each with a lever at the end. The fourth is locked with three floodgates, so that you have to have 'finished' each of the other three pathways before you can attempt the final area and reach the goal. I have quite a few traps/puzzles in mind already, but despite all this, I haven't actually played a lot of adventure mode, and I've got some questions.

- If you're in a very deep body of water (and you're a good swimmer), can you swim up/down at will? Assume drowning is a non-issue.
- If you're in a watery tunnel with a roof overhead, how long can you stay alive? Or rather, how long in general does it take to drown?
- Is there any way to have control over what enemies appear in the fort once abandoned? Or if I've captured animals, is there any way to keep them where I place them once abandoned? I'd be able to create pseudo-'boss' battles if so.
- How long to adventurers last without starving/dehydrating? I don't know if I can guarantee what items are left around the area (I was thinking forbidding food in certain areas before abandoning might work).

I may run into more questions later. If you have interesting trap/puzzle ideas, let me know! Here's what I have so far: (spoilered in case anyone interested in playing this doesn't want to have them ruined for them)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

- In a magma-themed area, there is a gap you can't cross. You need to transfer a block of 7/7 water through a series of pumps to drop it in between the platforms and create a path of obsidian - but each lever to control the next pump is accessed from a different area that you have to find. Additionally, to make you go through the areas in order, each segment of the area is blocked by a pit right behind the previous pump; if you've transferred the block of water, you can hop in and then swim out to move on. Likewise, once you start, you can't back out, as the water you needed to get into one area is gone - you can only move forwards until the end.
- You walk through a labyrinth made of constructed walls... at the end, there is a room with a lever. You pull it and hear a loud explosive sound. Re-entering the labyrinth you find that a natural-wall labyrinth has fallen on top of the old one (and opened up a new area), so you have to find your way back through a different way. Each of these labyrinths has two parts; the walking between the walls to get to a ramp, and then walking atop the walls to get to the next lever.
- A very repetitive area, which has a hidden series of colours towards the entrance. Each platform is connected to another very similar one by a coloured bridge, and no platform has two of the same colour bridges touching it. You have to follow the bridges in the right order to get out.
- A room with many platforms, each with a lever. The lever activates certain pathways between platforms, but multiple levers are connected to the same platform. You have to pull them until all the platforms leading to your area are activated.
- A room with a series of levers, each with an object in front of it. You need to know the order (or the code, rather) of which you pull the levers in to open the next area.
- You find yourself at the top of a deep pit. To get down, you have to turn on a pump to fill it with water so you can safely swim down. Planning on using this to get to the lobby from the entrance.

[Kobold Troubadour]

Very interesting idea...here's some info that I know (though accuracy is...questionable):

- If you're in a very deep body of water (and you're a good swimmer), can you swim up/down at will? Assume drowning is a non-issue.

Yup, kinda' like flying and manually climbing stairs.

- If you're in a watery tunnel with a roof overhead, how long can you stay alive? Or rather, how long in general does it take to drown?

I think in depends on the adventurer's stats and skills on how long he/she can hold their breath underwater. I've tested once on an well trained adventurer & he lasted quite a while and travelled several turns underwater....until drowning

- Is there any way to have control over what enemies appear in the fort once abandoned? Or if I've captured animals, is there any way to keep them where I place them once abandoned? I'd be able to create pseudo-'boss' battles if so.

I believe I've read somewhere that all prisoners are set free (beasts, goblins, etc.), all food rots but weapons and armors stay around (but get scattered?....maybe...). I think whatever creatures destroys your fort stays around them. Don't know about the quantity or quality though.

- How long to adventurers last without starving/dehydrating? I don't know if I can guarantee what items are left around the area (I was thinking forbidding food in certain areas before abandoning might work).

Guess you better just leave a lot of "sell-able" stuff for adventurers to get their own suppiles. Also gives them a reason to keep coming back and exploring.

May also be good to make the "dungeon" in a hostile area to start off the trek of !FUN!. Would also be interesting to see engravings of dark omens for foolish travellers (Guess leaving clues for possible puzzles might be hard).

[NinjaE8825]

I'm pretty sure anything in a cage dies when you abandon.
As for having items stay where you want 'em, the heavier they are, the less they scatter. Anything over ~150 dwarfpounds should stay in place. Lead bins seem to be the go-to solution.

[LordSlowpoke]

I'm pretty sure anything in a cage dies when you abandon.
As for having items stay where you want 'em, the heavier they are, the less they scatter. Anything over ~150 dwarfpounds should stay in place. Lead bins seem to be the go-to solution.

Wrong, I've had lead bins scatter too. Depends on the amount of time since fortress abandoned, when I ran in with an adventurer literally a day after abandoning (I could also see my migrating group, guess who was the first on my kill list) only objects up to 1 Urist were anywhere away from the stockpiles. Your best bet would be making a protected vault that you can access only after pulling a lever, that breaks a support, simply cave-in the wall. I have no idea how you'd handle the dust, but it's the only way of being truly scatter-safe.

[Sulphuratum]

a underwater path makes items safe of scattering too

it would look like this:

-----RIIIIIIIIR.........       
         WWW
         
... being the place where the items are, --- the beginning point , R are Ramps, I are Walls and W´s are the flooded entrance. should work with some engineering

(was like this in 40d, no experiments in new vers, though)

[Retro]

Thanks for the answers everyone.

- If you're in a very deep body of water (and you're a good swimmer), can you swim up/down at will? Assume drowning is a non-issue.

Yup, kinda' like flying and manually climbing stairs.

Ah, perfect.

- If you're in a watery tunnel with a roof overhead, how long can you stay alive? Or rather, how long in general does it take to drown?

I think in depends on the adventurer's stats and skills on how long he/she can hold their breath underwater. I've tested once on an well trained adventurer & he lasted quite a while and travelled several turns underwater....until drowning

All right, well right now I have... one path that is nine tiles until there's air overhead, and another where there's eight. Is that reasonable? Or should I shorten the distance?

- Is there any way to have control over what enemies appear in the fort once abandoned? Or if I've captured animals, is there any way to keep them where I place them once abandoned? I'd be able to create pseudo-'boss' battles if so.

I believe I've read somewhere that all prisoners are set free (beasts, goblins, etc.), all food rots but weapons and armors stay around (but get scattered?....maybe...). I think whatever creatures destroys your fort stays around them. Don't know about the quantity or quality though.

All right. Well I might capture a whole bunch of beasts and release them moments before abandoning. Going to remove everyone's Building Destroyer tags in the raws so that nobody can smash up all the floodgates and whatnot and ruin the puzzles.

- How long to adventurers last without starving/dehydrating? I don't know if I can guarantee what items are left around the area (I was thinking forbidding food in certain areas before abandoning might work).

Guess you better just leave a lot of "sell-able" stuff for adventurers to get their own suppiles. Also gives them a reason to keep coming back and exploring.

Okay. There's an adamantine vein I can exploit, as well as tons of metal. I guess I'll just make a lot of good stuff.

May also be good to make the "dungeon" in a hostile area to start off the trek of !FUN!. Would also be interesting to see engravings of dark omens for foolish travellers (Guess leaving clues for possible puzzles might be hard).

Sadly I already embarked, and chose a pretty average hamlet.

I'm pretty sure anything in a cage dies when you abandon.
As for having items stay where you want 'em, the heavier they are, the less they scatter. Anything over ~150 dwarfpounds should stay in place. Lead bins seem to be the go-to solution.

Wrong, I've had lead bins scatter too. Depends on the amount of time since fortress abandoned, when I ran in with an adventurer literally a day after abandoning (I could also see my migrating group, guess who was the first on my kill list) only objects up to 1 Urist were anywhere away from the stockpiles. Your best bet would be making a protected vault that you can access only after pulling a lever, that breaks a support, simply cave-in the wall. I have no idea how you'd handle the dust, but it's the only way of being truly scatter-safe.

Well, if it's a time limit, then perhaps I'll leave stuff where I want it to be and if someone gets there quick enough it'll be as expected.

a underwater path makes items safe of scattering too

it would look like this:

-----RIIIIIIIIR.........       
         WWW
         
... being the place where the items are, --- the beginning point , R are Ramps, I are Walls and W´s are the flooded entrance. should work with some engineering

(was like this in 40d, no experiments in new vers, though)

Really? I was under the impression that where items were scattered to was completely random, even to the point of passing through natural walls and sealed areas.

Oh, I've got another question as well: I know cage traps don't, but do spike traps hurt adventurers?

[Salabasama]

Traps in general are off by default, though you can set it to on.  It's because there would be no way for an adventurer to escape a cage trap or in any way really deal with a weapon trap.  Spear traps might be a good idea, tohugh, since adventurer can turn them off with a water puzzle or something.

[Brandon816]

I would like that as of 40d food in barrels does not rot, although they will be randomly thrown around the site. With the addition of caverns, I'm not sure if items will pop up there even if you haven't dug through to them.

To add to this, I don't know how engravings work, but if they just create a string and use that for the discription you might be able to use something like cheat engine to create the equivalent of signs.

[Retro]

Traps in general are off by default, though you can set it to on.  It's because there would be no way for an adventurer to escape a cage trap or in any way really deal with a weapon trap.  Spear traps might be a good idea, tohugh, since adventurer can turn them off with a water puzzle or something.

Yeah, I was thinking having a large path filled with spike traps connected to a repeater (and a way to see from the side how long it is, so you don't try and run it and die) would be a cool barrier. Also a timed puzzle with two sets of repeating spikes.

I would like that as of 40d food in barrels does not rot, although they will be randomly thrown around the site. With the addition of caverns, I'm not sure if items will pop up there even if you haven't dug through to them.

To add to this, I don't know how engravings work, but if they just create a string and use that for the discription you might be able to use something like cheat engine to create the equivalent of signs.

Using 0.31 for the easy resources, unfortunately. I think I can build floor tiles on bad engravings and remove them and re-engrave to see if I can get a relevant engraving, though.