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Author Topic: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?  (Read 8205 times)

Medicine Man

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Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« on: June 21, 2010, 11:59:06 am »

Like a pressure plate that causes a whole glass piramid to collapse of a drawbridge that lowers into a pit of rabid kittens.Mine was the "drawbridge fishnet"you make a bunch of drawbridges and link them up to a lever,you then pull the drawbridges lever and make the bridges lower into the water,then rise and voila!you have fish.
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Untelligent

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2010, 12:56:16 pm »

I once drew up plans for an automated kitten disposal system based on a series of pressure plates, doors, and hatches at the entrance to my dining room, but I never got around to making it in that fort.

Maybe next time I play a fortress I'll try to remember to build it.
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ein

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2010, 02:21:35 pm »

It was in the old version, but I was really proud of my hallway of drawbridges linked up to a repeater.

HatfieldCW

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2010, 03:05:42 pm »

Clever use of water power is always a good one.  I'm not talented with it, but I usually try to have my waterworks flow through waterfalls in the dining area, so the diners get misted.  I doubt I'd enjoy eating in the shower every day, but those little guys love it.
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Leperous

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2010, 03:28:06 pm »

Check out the Dwarven Computing wiki page:
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Computing

The Dwarfputer is perhaps the greatest "invention" ever built in this game:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=49641.msg1094222#msg1094222
« Last Edit: June 21, 2010, 03:30:39 pm by Leperous »
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Sphalerite

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #5 on: June 21, 2010, 03:53:05 pm »

you then pull the drawbridges lever and make the bridges lower into the water,then rise and voila!you have fish.
Sadly, this is impossible.  Drawbridges can't actually lift animals.  As best, they can throw them sideways.

My last 40d fortress, before I stopped playing it through a combination of single digit FPS and the new version being released, had the following wonders:

Automated trash incinerators:  A single-tile refuse pile in an elaborate mechanism.  A dwarf walks to the refuse pile and steps on pressure plates that prime the system.  The dwarf drops a piece of refuse on the pile, then walks out and steps on a different pressure plate that triggers the device.  The machine seals the chamber, then dumps magma on the refuse pile.  100 steps later the magma is pumped back to storage, having ignited the refuse, which rapidly burns away and leaves the refuse pile clean and ready for use again.  I had three of these running constantly to destroy chunks and other refuse.

Automatic animal breeding engine:  A really elaborate machine full of wild rabbits (from the Dig Deeper mod).  It used pressure plates with carefully chosen trigger plates to filter adult animals.  Exactly a dozen adults would be retained in storage, and excess adults routed to a drop chute that would drop them onto a pile of weapon traps next to a butcher's shop.  Baby animals would be stored in a waiting area until they became adults.  Worked completely automatically, providing a steady supply of meat to the fortress.  Later I built a second one using wild camels.

Invader killing mill:  A 90 tile long three tile wide path covered with 9 10X3 retracting copper bridges, flanked by 10 Z-level deep pits on either sides.  This normally served as the main entrance to my fortress.  When a siege came, I would throw a lever activating an automatic repeater to the bridges.  Goblins would run into the entrance and then be thrown sideways by the bridges, falling to their doom.  The bridges were placed on a solid path so the pathfinding into the fortress would never be disrupted, so the goblins would never stop at the end and mill around like they will sometimes on basic retracting bridge over a pit design.  This design won't work as well in DF2010 where the goblins come riding building-destroyer, bridge-immune mounts.

Brownian rachet conveyor belt:  Underneath the entrance, I built an array of retracting bridges in a three-dimensional repeating sawtooth shape.  Constantly running on a repeater, these would cause bodies and gear dropped into the pits to eventually be thrown to a safe collecting area deep inside the fortress.  Unfortunately, this was a massive contributor to the FPS drain that led to me not playing this fortress anymore.

The Dwarven children's academy:  I used pressure plates set to trigger for children but not adults and some floor hatches to route children into a sealed building.  In that building I put everything the children would need - a stockpile of prepared food (dumped from above), and had a waterfall feeding multiple wells, a room full of beds, a dining room, even a tame dragon on a chain in the meeting room.  A second pressure plate system would divert dwarves out of the sealed-off area when they matured to become adults.  This kept children out of the rest of the fortress, safe and not underfoot.

Suspended animation chambers:  In 40d there was a bug in which if you saved while a creature was airborne, there was a chance that when you loaded the game, that creature would be stuck permanently airborne forever.  As far as I could tell, stuck airborne creatures didn't get hungry or thirsty or interact with the world in any way.  So I build a single-tile bridge on a flat surface, lured an annoying noble there, locked him in place, then triggered the bridge repeatedly while saving and loading the game.  Eventually the noble became stuck in the airborne state.  Then I disassemble the mechanism and then surrounded him with glass windows.  He never made another mandate for bismuth items, but I didn't get a replacement noble or the bad thoughts from killing him.  I don't know if this trick is still possible in DF2010.
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cameroon

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #6 on: June 21, 2010, 04:03:15 pm »

Clever use of water power is always a good one.  I'm not talented with it, but I usually try to have my waterworks flow through waterfalls in the dining area, so the diners get misted.  I doubt I'd enjoy eating in the shower every day, but those little guys love it.

I'm partial to clever water powered contraptions myself. Waterfalls in the dinning room and resettable pressure plate triggered systems are my favorites of the "common" variety. I started building a waterfall that poured down the back side of a grand staircase. Sadly, a miscalculation meant many drowned citizens :)
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cameroon

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #7 on: June 21, 2010, 04:10:54 pm »

you then pull the drawbridges lever and make the bridges lower into the water,then rise and voila!you have fish.
Sadly, this is impossible.  Drawbridges can't actually lift animals.  As best, they can throw them sideways.

My last 40d fortress, before I stopped playing it through a combination of single digit FPS and the new version being released, had the following wonders:

Automated trash incinerators:  A single-tile refuse pile in an elaborate mechanism.  A dwarf walks to the refuse pile and steps on pressure plates that prime the system.  The dwarf drops a piece of refuse on the pile, then walks out and steps on a different pressure plate that triggers the device.  The machine seals the chamber, then dumps magma on the refuse pile.  100 steps later the magma is pumped back to storage, having ignited the refuse, which rapidly burns away and leaves the refuse pile clean and ready for use again.  I had three of these running constantly to destroy chunks and other refuse.

Automatic animal breeding engine:  A really elaborate machine full of wild rabbits (from the Dig Deeper mod).  It used pressure plates with carefully chosen trigger plates to filter adult animals.  Exactly a dozen adults would be retained in storage, and excess adults routed to a drop chute that would drop them onto a pile of weapon traps next to a butcher's shop.  Baby animals would be stored in a waiting area until they became adults.  Worked completely automatically, providing a steady supply of meat to the fortress.  Later I built a second one using wild camels.

Invader killing mill:  A 90 tile long three tile wide path covered with 9 10X3 retracting copper bridges, flanked by 10 Z-level deep pits on either sides.  This normally served as the main entrance to my fortress.  When a siege came, I would throw a lever activating an automatic repeater to the bridges.  Goblins would run into the entrance and then be thrown sideways by the bridges, falling to their doom.  The bridges were placed on a solid path so the pathfinding into the fortress would never be disrupted, so the goblins would never stop at the end and mill around like they will sometimes on basic retracting bridge over a pit design.  This design won't work as well in DF2010 where the goblins come riding building-destroyer, bridge-immune mounts.

Brownian rachet conveyor belt:  Underneath the entrance, I built an array of retracting bridges in a three-dimensional repeating sawtooth shape.  Constantly running on a repeater, these would cause bodies and gear dropped into the pits to eventually be thrown to a safe collecting area deep inside the fortress.  Unfortunately, this was a massive contributor to the FPS drain that led to me not playing this fortress anymore.

The Dwarven children's academy:  I used pressure plates set to trigger for children but not adults and some floor hatches to route children into a sealed building.  In that building I put everything the children would need - a stockpile of prepared food (dumped from above), and had a waterfall feeding multiple wells, a room full of beds, a dining room, even a tame dragon on a chain in the meeting room.  A second pressure plate system would divert dwarves out of the sealed-off area when they matured to become adults.  This kept children out of the rest of the fortress, safe and not underfoot.

Suspended animation chambers:  In 40d there was a bug in which if you saved while a creature was airborne, there was a chance that when you loaded the game, that creature would be stuck permanently airborne forever.  As far as I could tell, stuck airborne creatures didn't get hungry or thirsty or interact with the world in any way.  So I build a single-tile bridge on a flat surface, lured an annoying noble there, locked him in place, then triggered the bridge repeatedly while saving and loading the game.  Eventually the noble became stuck in the airborne state.  Then I disassemble the mechanism and then surrounded him with glass windows.  He never made another mandate for bismuth items, but I didn't get a replacement noble or the bad thoughts from killing him.  I don't know if this trick is still possible in DF2010.

I bow to your pressure plate sorting abilities ;) Care to share the designs for the trash incinerators and breeding engines?
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darkrider2

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2010, 05:14:45 pm »

Quote
Automatic animal breeding engine:  A really elaborate machine full of wild rabbits (from the Dig Deeper mod).  It used pressure plates with carefully chosen trigger plates to filter adult animals.  Exactly a dozen adults would be retained in storage, and excess adults routed to a drop chute that would drop them onto a pile of weapon traps next to a butcher's shop.  Baby animals would be stored in a waiting area until they became adults.  Worked completely automatically, providing a steady supply of meat to the fortress.  Later I built a second one using wild camels.

That one brought a tear to my eye. excellent work, excellent work.
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Sphalerite

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #9 on: June 21, 2010, 07:17:35 pm »

I bow to your pressure plate sorting abilities ;) Care to share the designs for the trash incinerators and breeding engines?

This was the fortress in question:

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-8247-pagedslipped

The trash incinerators were on levels 14 thru 16, on the southern side of the main pyramid.  They were laid out as follows:

Code: [Select]
Z=14, Bottom-most level:

W^W^W     W = wall
WhWhD     ^ = pressure plate
WhW^W     h = floor hatch (safe floor one Z-level down)
WhWDW     D = door
WW^WW     = = single-tile pressure plate
WWDWW     PP = pump, manually operated, pumps from the south
WW=WW
WWPWW
  P 

Z=15, mid level

 WDW      W = wall
 WFW      D = door
 WPW      F = floodgate
 WPW      PP = pump, gear-driven, pumps from the south
 W W      blank = open space
 WWW

Z=16, top level

 WWW      W = wall
 W W      PP = pump, gear-driven, pumps from the north
 WPW      h = floor hatch (this space usually full of magma)
 WPW
 WhW     
 WWW

Pressure plate settings and connections are as follows:

WAWDW     Pressure plate A set to trigger for any friendly of size less than adult dwarf
WaWd2         and triggers floor hatch at a
WcWCW     Pressure plate B set to trigger for any friendly of adult dwarf size and triggers floor
WbWbW         hatch at b and door at b
WWBWW     Pressure plate C set to trigger for any friendly of adult dwarf size and triggers floodgate
WW1WW         on mid level and floor hatch on top level, and floor hatch at c
WW=WW     Pressure plate D set for any friendly and triggers floor hatch at d
WWPWW     Door 1 unlocked, door 2 locked and only used for construction


The pumps on level 15 and 16 are run constantly, driven by a gear and axle system from above.  The pump on level 14 is manually run once to load magma into the system and then never run again.

When a dwarf enters the system, they come from the north and take the western corridor (on the left) because the right-hand path is blocked by mechanism-closed door.  The first pressure plate (A) is set to trigger for any citizen with a size less than an adult dwarf,  and is linked to the floor hatch just past it.  This is to prevent children or pets from wandering into the device while following their owner/parent and being accidentally incinerated.  The adult dwarf carrying a piece of refuse doesn't trigger that safety pressure plate, and walks south over the next two hatches as well before stepping on the second pressure plate (B).  This instantly opens the floor hatch at b and the door at b.  This does not immediately impede the dwarf, who continues south through the unlocked door at 1 to the refuse pile.

After dropping his piece of refuse, the dwarf wants to leave to take another job or get something to eat or go on break or something.  He now paths through the right-hand path because the floor hatch on the left is still open.  He walks through the unlocked door at 1 and the mechanism-controlled open door on the left, and then steps on the pressure plate at C.  Stepping on this pressure plate causes the floor hatch on the top level to instantly open, dropping a full tile of magma on the refuse pile.  It also causes the floor hatch at c, which is another safety hatch to block entry to the machine while it's operating.  The door at 1 is closed by this time, which stops the magma from spilling out.  The dwarf continues walking north, eventually leaving the machine by the path on the left.  The pressure plate at D is linked to the floor hatch just to its south to stop any dwarf or other creature from wandering into the machine from the wrong way.  The door at 2 is locked and is just there for construction, as is the door on the mid level.

100 steps after the dwarf steps off the pressure plate at b, the floor hatch at b opens and the door at b closes.  During this time the magma is igniting whatever the dwarf dropped on the refuse pile.  The pumps are running, but can't remove the magma because the output of the first pump is blocked by a floodgate.  100 tiles after the dwarf steps off the pressure plate at C, the floodgate opens and the floor hatch on the top level closes.  The pumps instantly remove the magma from the refuse pile and return it to storage on the top level.  Once the refuse finishes burning, the mechanism is ready for the next piece of refuse.

The nice thing about the system is that once set up it operates with no intervention required by me at all, it's completely automated and doesn't require any lever pulls or designation of material to be dumped.  I built this in 40d.  It should work in DF2010, unless the different ways temperature and heat conduction are handled cause the magma to not ignite refuse reliably anymore.
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Kidiri

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #10 on: June 21, 2010, 07:22:42 pm »

The dorfputer. Jong also thinks it's Turing-complete. As for one I've contributed to, the clock. I'm such a huge fan of it. It can be easily used for a large amount of timed contraptions: periodical flooding of the farms, doomsday-countdown...
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Itnetlolor

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #11 on: June 21, 2010, 07:50:21 pm »

I think my sig is self-explanatory.

« Last Edit: June 21, 2010, 07:53:07 pm by Itnetlolor »
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Heavenfall

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #12 on: June 21, 2010, 08:46:16 pm »

Uh... I've got three levers... one for the floodgates, two for the bridges to block the water... why are you looking at me with those eyes?!
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cameroon

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #13 on: June 21, 2010, 09:18:02 pm »

Sphalerite, that is awesome - think I'm going to have to transcode to paper to get the mechanics straight in my head, but it seems like something I must now build :)
« Last Edit: June 21, 2010, 09:34:33 pm by cameroon »
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Medicine Man

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Re: Your dwarf fortres "inventions"?
« Reply #14 on: June 21, 2010, 09:42:42 pm »

you then pull the drawbridges lever and make the bridges lower into the water,then rise and voila!you have fish.
Sadly, this is impossible.  Drawbridges can't actually lift animals.  As best, they can throw them sideways.
Huh?It works for me...But i am playing a mod so thats probably why.
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