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[Solace]

I believe I may have done Science. Since this is a question I've asked and no one knew the answer, I'll report my findings. How well do obsidian short swords (in weapon traps) protect against goblin attacks? ... not very.  I had two rows of 3X obsidian sword traps, and two 10X on either side of a corner. After a horde of goblins walked back and forth over them repeatedly, about 10-20% got killed, the rest seem to not even be injured. Sooo, while obsidian swords might make a decent thing for your Pit of Doom where something can wander around for a few days before eventually being sliced open, it's not going to stop a horde of goblins from running in and killing all your dwarves. Because that is literally what happened when I relied on them to do that.

[Xenos]

Bahahahhahahahah! Nice...I believe i will rely on green glass serrated disks to protect my base...many many rows of 10xdisks/trap and bridges for insta-chokepoints...i sure hope those work well

[leftycook]

cage traps at the front, 10 serrated iron disks per weapon trap in the back. good times.

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

cage traps at the front, 10 serrated iron disks per weapon trap in the back. good times.

Why use iron when you can import chalk for steel?

[Twobeard]

Cage traps, the true equalizer. I usually funnel goblins into trap corridors made from wall constructions. Weeds out most of them, if you have enough cages and weapons. Hell even a few stone traps will ocassionally wound goblins.

[Hyndis]

Steel discs are where its at. I use 5 discs per trap, but build a very large number of traps.

[Solace]

Well the idea was for a quick trap you could make just starting off, I think it's more dangerous than glass*-traps (I made a few of those on another fortress and don't remember a single injury, let alone death), but yeah. If you want obsidian traps to kill your enemies you're gonna need a lot, which I think translates to "and also don't give them to your warriors if you have an option".

* I've heard that wood and glass are exactly equally strong weapons, so unless you have magma, might as well cut out the middleman.

[Noble Digger]

1 trap, 2 discs, 2 spikes, 2 spiked balls, 2 axe blades, 2 corkscrews. A wee bit o' flavor for everyone!

[Hyndis]

You can even use crossbows in your traps, but with crossbows your mileage may vary.

[LordSlowpoke]

Theory: Weapons in traps are, actually thrown at the enemy instead of their generic attacks. So, if you make a blunt object of two thousand Urists weight, it will be effective even in the .01-.08(?) versions.

The facts behind this are combat logs, and how large serrated discs are inhumanly effective. A huge objects still needs to be engineered, and turned into a weapon trap - mind anyone do this for me, I have no idea how to make a trap object which won't turn my universe into Elephant Fortress containing purring maggot pets and workshops made out of leather that boils at absolute zero.

Somewhat related that the game turns obsidian swords into literal wooden swords - thusly they're just as effective as elven weapons. You don't WANT elven weapons anywhere near your entrance, unless they are on their merry way to the magma.

[Solace]

Well the obsidian sword traps did cut up two goblins and get blood from two more... eventually. I think that's more effective than a regular wooden sword.

[LordSlowpoke]

Still, I dare say that those were lucky shots. In the OP, at least six swords only damaged one fifth of the goblins - and I say damaged, not killed - so effectiveness of wood can be implied safely.

[Solace]

Well it's possible, I dunno how effective wood is as far as swords go offhand. Also, of the two goblins actually killed (out of 15ish I think), one got killed on the second of the two 10-sword traps (so he passed at least 26 swords), and the other got killed on the way out. One decided to fight a chained wardog and jumped backward into 3x sword traps... often. I believe he was uninjured.

Would 3x green glass serrated disk traps outperform this significantly? I believe the only other thing I've tried in these basic early traps is wooden corkscrews and spiked balls. These worked even less well.

[LordSlowpoke]

what

Green glass? Wooden weapons? The hell man, are you an elf? Go dig some copper and start with that if you actually want good traps. Iron is fine, bronze is even better, and large steel serrated discs would be perfect for a trap. Just remember to chain something at the entrance, ambushes generally have [TRAPAVOID].

[Hyndis]

large steel serrated dicks