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[Rhaken]

In an upcoming fortress, I plan to build a tower with a catapult on the roof. Now, this tower is going to be at least 10 z-levels tall, which is obviously rather far from sources of stone. Since I don't want to waste hauling time by having haulers lug boulders up 10 flights of stairs (and, of course, in the name of dwarven science), I plan to build a 2x2 shaft (surrounded by walls) in the tower, with access points at the top and bottom, where stone is dumped. This shaft will be filled with pressurized water, thus (hopefully) floating the rocks up toward the top.

The question is, of course, if it's possible to get objects (doesn't have to be stone) to float upwards. Has anyone had any experience with this, or any other relevant pressure or flow-related phenomenon?

[Ricky]

i dont think theres a [DENSITY] tag in the raws, and i also believe that it rocks in catapults lose their 'squashing' ability after it drops a z-level, i read about this happening for ballista arrows, but not catapult, so im not exactly sure

and ifs your that willing to get rocks up there with ease, make an obsidian farm with a miner closeby

[aepurniet]

you have to use dwarves.  its easy to transport stuff down without dwarves, and a little tricky to move it sideways.  but up i only happening with dwarf power.

if http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=61179.0 this ever gets implemented perhaps it could be modified to transport stone, along with water.  i think its on the better mechanics eternal voting thread.

[Rhaken]

Dangit. Oh well, it'll keep the haulers busy until dwarven engineers invent the elevator. And the catapult is mostly for the training of siege engineers and stone dumping in the most amusing possible manner, since (at least in 40d) stones kept their squishing power as they fell. At least if the random chunks of hoary marmot around ground zero are anything to go by.

[G-Flex]

i dont think theres a [DENSITY] tag in the raws

Wait. What? Are you serious?

Of course there's a density tag for materials. How else could a silver sword weigh more than a wooden one?

[Smew]

stones kept their squishing power as they fell.

I do believe this is wrong, last I remember catapults only worked on the level they were fired from.

[Mitbick]

The final answer is that there is no [BUOYANCY] tag. Things don't float.

[Rhaken]

stones kept their squishing power as they fell.

I do believe this is wrong, last I remember catapults only worked on the level they were fired from.

...Then what the hell squished that marmot? My military were all off-duty, and the nearby masons ran at the sight of the things. O.o

[Sphalerite]

Catapults are straight-line devices that only fire at things on the same Z-level, so a catapult on the roof will be useless.

As pointed out, nothing floats in water.  Physics in DF just doesn't work that way.  It is however theoretically possible to build a mechanical device to throw objects upwards using retracting bridges, but the device to do this will be complex, slow, and inefficient.

[smjjames]

Catapults are straight-line devices that only fire at things on the same Z-level, so a catapult on the roof will be useless.

As pointed out, nothing floats in water.  Physics in DF just doesn't work that way.  It is however theoretically possible to build a mechanical device to throw objects upwards using retracting bridges, but the device to do this will be complex, slow, and inefficient.

Not to mention the direction it gets flipped tends to be random.

[Psieye]

Short answer: stuff floating in water is a problem Toady has yet to tackle. He covered some of the details of this problem in a DF talk somewhere. Also, the catapult was from the 2D era where there were no z-levels, hence this strange behaviour of only being effective on the same z-level.