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[Urist Imiknorris]

You can do so much with hatches.

[ledgekindred]

For the time being I have set up two drawbridges at the entrance and the exit.  The entrance bridge raises up towards the death-tunnel with a moat in front of it to prevent Building Destroyers from just smashing it down.  The exit bridge raises away from the exit with a moat in between the exit and the bridge in case a) someone manages to get through and b) kobolds, which I also realized ignore traps, the annoying little buggers.  At least now I can keep a kobold siege out well enough.

And underneath the hatches, in case someone manages to fall in, I have a field of upright spikes, surrounded by weapon traps.  If they pull themselves off the spikes, they will walk right into serrated disks, spiked balls and swinging axe blades.  If they survive THAT then, well, I'll send my military into the underground pit to beat the crap out of them.

Thanks to Fenwah for this brilliant idea!

Now I need an ambush or siege to test it.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Have a thief trap!

###~###
###~###
###D###
#^###$#
#######

^ = ramp up (I usually place this one z-level below ground)
# = wall
# = magma-safe floor grate (over magma cistern)
$ = magma-safe artifact
D = magma-safe door
~ = pressurized magma

[ledgekindred]

I've added further onto the idea of the goblin grinder from some ideas from this thread:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=62974.0

Code: [Select]

------=|
h^  ^  |
-----|^|
     |^|
     |^|
-----|^|
h^  ^  |
------=|

      ^
      |
  Ballista

"h^" is the hatch system at either end of the grinder.

Basically the idea is to put a hook at either end of the grinder, carve fortifications along the long stretch and aim a ballista down it.  As the invaders are getting shredded by traps, your siege operators can take potshots at them, adding insult to injury.  Well, adding more injury to injury really.

[ledgekindred]

Yay a siege!  About 30 goblins. 

First thing that happened was a bunch of them got into the cage trap minefield I have in front of the goblin grinder.  Some of them stood around next to their compatriots, others went into the grinder.

Now what I've done is put another pressure plate in the grinder that is attached to the spikes surrounding all the cages. 

One of the intrepid grinder explorers went in, walked across the pressure plate, and 30 spikes sprung up out of the ground, impaling another half dozen goblins that were standing next to the cages.  Total score in the first wave's attempt on entry: 7 goblins in cages, 3 unconscious from getting spiked and two lying on the ground bleeding out in the grinder.  How much effort required on my part: 0. 

Haha! Grand total: 18 caged, 6 spiked, three killed themselves in the grinder, the rest ran away and the military wiped up three stragglers without any injuries to themselves.  And one fell into the pit under the hatch, but he'll be easy enough to clean up.  (he walked into one of the weapon traps I had set up in the pit and was turned into a fine, goblin-colored mist.)

Heck this is so much fun I'm going to build another setup underground for handling all these invaders I keep catching.  Cage on lever on other end of long corridor, freedom beckons at the other end, sit back and watch the fun.

Fenwah, this totally deserves a wiki entry.

[Fenwah]

I think the most useful thing about this is that it can be applied to almost any trap to greatly increase the effectiveness/humour of the system.

My newest idea is for an execution chamber using a large grinder with only wooden weapons, and an atom smasher occupying only 1 tile of the path linked to a repeater and drop a goblin in. As it runs it will slowly beat itself bloody until it finally ends up under the atom smasher at just the right time. I will have a number of dwarf traps similar to those used in the switches set up somewhere, each with an assigned number (3, 6, 9, etc). The dwarf in the trap with the number closest to the number of laps which the goblin survives will win a golden statue of cats or something. Sort of like a dwarven The Price is Right.

[ledgekindred]

I hope you don't mind that I wrote this up on the Trap Design webpage on the wiki:

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Trap_design#Goblin_Grinder

Make any changes to what I've written as you see fit.

[Reese]

ooooh, ballista!

I wonder if this can work with my multiple grinder idea...

Code: [Select]

¢^+^¢
.....
¢^+^¢
.....
¢^+^¢
.....
¢^+^¢
.....
¢^+^¢
.....
¢^+^¢
.....
╬╬╬╬╬ (ballista shots still ignore fortifications, right?)
╬╬╬╬╬
╬╬╬╬╬
╬╬╬╬╬
 ▄▲▄
 ▌║▐
 \^/

Goblin shooting gallery! 

[ledgekindred]

(ballista shots still ignore fortifications, right?)

Goblin shooting gallery! 

Yes.  Yes they do. 

This just made my day.  Put a channel at the opposite end and you can even recover your bolts.

Now start minting coins and charge your dwarves a dwarfbuck for three bolts.

[VoidPointer]

This is a beautiful thing. I tried to do this with bridges once, but the delay messed it all up.

Coincidentally, re: the shooting gallery, Tunnel of Love by Dire Straits came up in my playlist just as I read that. 

[JAFANZ]

regarding the ballista gallery, would putting a High-Traffic Caravan route in place of the mid-horizontal fortifications be viable? then you'd auto-bait on the gallery (AIUI if the the path to the shooting gallery has a more direct path into the fortress, but isn't caravan accessible, invaders should path down the gallery whilst the caravan goes the long way, defining a high-traffic route along the caravan path will also encourage your dorfs to use it instead of the golbin gallery).

[Reese]

regarding the ballista gallery, would putting a High-Traffic Caravan route in place of the mid-horizontal fortifications be viable? then you'd auto-bait on the gallery (AIUI if the the path to the shooting gallery has a more direct path into the fortress, but isn't caravan accessible, invaders should path down the gallery whilst the caravan goes the long way, defining a high-traffic route along the caravan path will also encourage your dorfs to use it instead of the golbin gallery).

I imagine so, though only your dwarfs will observe high traffic designations.  I just stacked a bunch of fortifications to suggest the requisite distance to keep civilians from panicking- ideally you want 15-20 squares between the siege equipment and the closest targets(Ballista range is 150 or 200 squares, I forget which; catapults is the other one).  In any case, you can put whatever you want in that intervening space.

Just remember that any alternate path needs to be closed off by you, because once the grinder traps are full, the open, high traffic route becomes the only viable path for any remaining invaders.

[Fenwah]

I hope you don't mind that I wrote this up on the Trap Design webpage on the wiki:

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Trap_design#Goblin_Grinder

Make any changes to what I've written as you see fit.

Awesome, thanks. Saved me some work.

On building destroyers, at least if they bust open your grinders they will still be left with a channel and there is no risk of them busting their way in. For trolls you could probably just set up some spike traps on tiles adjacent to your hatches and try and stab them dead while they stand still to bust the hatch. For nastier building destroyers I doubt this will work though. At least they will be outside.

On another note, I made some proper designs for the logic gates mentioned in the OP. Unfortunately my designs suck pretty bad. They are far bigger, slower, and complicated than the gates by LordOOTFD here. Although if i was shooting for efficiency I wouldnt be using a powerful computer to run an incredibly complex program which simulates something that can add.

I think I will scratch my logic gate idea, but I'll still steal LordOOTFD's ideas and make a simple dwarfputation engine, because why not?

[Urist Imiknorris]

On building destroyers, at least if they bust open your grinders they will still be left with a channel and there is no risk of them busting their way in. For trolls you could probably just set up some spike traps on tiles adjacent to your hatches and try and stab them dead while they stand still to bust the hatch. For nastier building destroyers I doubt this will work though. At least they will be outside.

Like I said, "Hatch Over Pressurized Magma"-brand landmines out in the wilderness and a good distance in front of the grinders work wonders.

[ledgekindred]

Sadly I have a lack of access to magma at the moment.  Moat + drawbridge works just fine though.  Plus I've already caught a Giantess in a wooden cage, so cage traps outside are pretty effective too...

Since it's effectively a one-way door, use it to automatically drive invaders into a specific area in your killzone:

---------------------------------
 ¢^    ¢^    ¢^   ^¢    ^¢    ^¢
---------------------------------
                ^
  enemies       |
  get killed here

As they pass each subsequent hatch, they get funneled further towards the center.  Carve fortifications or whatever in the middle part and station your marksdwarves right outside.  Build an atom smasher over the center tiles, etc.  Have long tunnels and still move your invaders right where you want them.

So many ways to use it, as Fenwah said, a lot of enhancements to existing trap ideas.  But it makes automating them a snap and so far other than a goblin or two falling into the pit under the hatch, it hasn't failed yet.  And then there is the brilliantly stupid dwarven trick to make a shooting gallery.  Which should work perfectly as the goblins I've trapped so far path very consistently back and forth between either end.