DISPATCH: PARCHEDPILLARS PROVING GROUND
PROJECT HAMMER OF ARMOK
5th Timber, 503
The military powers-that-are seem to be displeased with the stopping power of pure magma. With the supplementary water stack for Project Stonespam still in progress, I've come up with an intermediate solution that might satisfy them. I call it Armok's Hammer. The schematics are as follows:
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As you can see, the weapon consists of a large reservoir of magma, suspended by a feeder tube that hooks on to the magma flow conduit for the local hex of the DOMAIN network. Once the reservoir is filled, the tube is disconnected and the reservoir hangs only by the support connecting it to the bottom of the conduit. At this point, it would normally wait for some invader to wander beneath it, but we have decided to go ahead with an effectiveness test despite the lack of enemy activity.
Some pictures of the apparatus immediately pre-test are posted below:
We're throwing the lever in... 3... 2... 1...
As the lever is pulled, the world seems to stand still. (My computer stalled out for a bit)
Astoundingly, the stones seem to drop straight through the magma, which emits a cloud of magma mist and slowly begins its fall to the ground. The stones land in a perfect square below the drop site, followed almost 100 frames later by a tirade of magma covering the drop zone. From this we can derive one undeniable conclusion:
The Parchedpillars Law of Object Interaction
-Whereas; the fall speed of objects is finite AND,
-Whereas; the fall speed of living rock and constructs is infinite,
WHEN COMBINED ABSENT SUPPORT
The slower of the two (objects, fluids) is essentially STATIC and behaves as if being caved in on,
Whereupon it then falls as it is wont to do normally.
The goal of the project is somewhat set back, as we had hoped for a large cloud of magma mist filling the drop site. We may have to wait for the aqueduct to be complete after all. The military may flog me to death with my own mittens, but dwarven science can only do so much.