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[Marconius]

The main problem I see is, the weapon seems to be one-shot. All the kittens would fall down, meaning it would have a fairly long reload period.

[Ethereal.Frog]

You could have the kittens dropped in a pit to fire it, though the delay might end up in the target walking through. (into a hammer.)

[Eagle_eye]

The main problem I see is, the weapon seems to be one-shot. All the kittens would fall down, meaning it would have a fairly long reload period.

I think you missed the "large room completely filled with kittens" part. only one tile has a hatch, and as kittens wander, they will fall when they end up on that tile, not all at once.

[Sarganto]

I'm not entirely sure that flying kittens will injure enemies, though I'll admit I don't really have any evidence otherwise.

The main problem would be actually hitting your invaders, as the kittens are just as likely to splatter against the walls mid-flight. I guess you could always get more kittens though...

So it is more or less only a question of ammo, right?

[noodle0117]

I'm not entirely sure that flying kittens will injure enemies, though I'll admit I don't really have any evidence otherwise.

The main problem would be actually hitting your invaders, as the kittens are just as likely to splatter against the walls mid-flight. I guess you could always get more kittens though...

So it is more or less only a question of ammo, right?

but considering how fast they reproduce, I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be much of a problem.

[Eric Blank]

The main problem I see is, the weapon seems to be one-shot. All the kittens would fall down, meaning it would have a fairly long reload period.

I think you missed the "large room completely filled with kittens" part. only one tile has a hatch, and as kittens wander, they will fall when they end up on that tile, not all at once.

Wrong, creatures that cannot fly will not path to a tile that cannot be walked on, any tile that can be walked on cannot be fallen into (except from above, of course) and thus only a kitten that is already on the drop zone will be dropped down the tube and into the kitten-hammer-rifle. The room must be either 1 tile total, 1 tile wide above a row of kitten-hammer-rifles(resulting in massive lag as the hundreds (you need them) of kittens and cats would be able to path to other tiles.) or you may build several separate pits above individual kitten-hammer-rifles (probably the most effective without going nuts with the lag)


The accuracy isn't going to increase no matter how the hall/machine is designed, but in a 11x11 room with KHRs loaded with >30 felines each on every other tile (or every tile as far as the traps go, but the kittens are best kept in 1x1 cells for lag reduction), when activated when an enemy squad is in the middle (you'd want to pull the lever/activate it when they're just outside it) will result in massive casualties (probably 80+% of invaders wounded if not dead) as blood-covered balls of pure adorable fly everywhere, resulting in instant and simultaneous cat-astrophe and the retreat of any survivors, or at least of those that are capable of going anywhere. A hall including several of these rooms will likely result in total annihilation of any seige

God I love parenthesis, NEVER leave a detail un-detailed.

Although, I guarantee this sort of thing will result in a tantrum spiral unless you've designed some ingenious(ly-simple) mechanism to deliver the animals directly from holding cages to the pits, or you're dwarves are incredibly awesome/used to tragedy, as nearly every feline left alive and outside a cage will adopt/be adopted within a dwarven fortnight (2 weeks)

[Osmosis Jones]

Eric, you missed a key point. Kitten chamber is say 3x3. Central tile is a hatch, linked to a water based repeater (not a repeat pulled lever, that would cycle too fast). Your rate of fire would be variable from 0.01 s/t (shots per tick) upward (assuming hatches toggle instantly) or 0.02 k/t if they have a delay.

Note also that the number of cats fired in a given timeframe is of course proportional to both the rate of shots, and the number of cats falling from above. Assuming 100 ticks is sufficient time for the kittens to evenly redistribute across the ammo chamber, your kitten flux will fall off as I/9^0.01t for a 3x3 firing room, where I is of course the initial kitten population.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Do weapons in traps even have a knockback effect? IIRC, they just mash things into a chunky paste as if the hammer was coming straight down.

[Eric Blank]

Eric, you missed a key point. Kitten chamber is say 3x3. Central tile is a hatch, linked to a water based repeater (not a repeat pulled lever, that would cycle too fast). Your rate of fire would be variable from 0.01 s/t (shots per tick) upward (assuming hatches toggle instantly) or 0.02 k/t if they have a delay.

Note also that the number of cats fired in a given timeframe is of course proportional to both the rate of shots, and the number of cats falling from above. Assuming 100 ticks is sufficient time for the kittens to evenly redistribute across the ammo chamber, your kitten flux will fall off as I/9^0.01t for a 3x3 firing room, where I is of course the initial kitten population.

yes, but a 3x3 still leaves them room to move around, creating lag from the pathing of a million hairballs, which I honestly don't think is something anyone would want to do (well, I don't, maybe my computer is just especially slow and I've been mislead to believe that this is actually a problem for anyone else.). If you set it up to wash kittens into the pits from trigger-linked cages kept above (via water or magma, both quite hilarious to watch), you could provide a quick second  or third shot, after the initial and larger wave kept in the pits already, and based around some automated trigger and timed delayer, you could very easily achieve a similar effect.

I should at least attempt this soon, not much of a test though until one of my forts gets a good-sized stockpile of invaders/wildlife/I decide I want someone dead.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Be an asshole SCIENTIST and fire it at a tame animal.

[Eric Blank]

I suppose I have enough dogs(oh god i don't know how many! worse than the cats since i've been unwilling to cage the useless war dogs) I could effectively do the same thing, and I have some cows with no bulls (therefore worthless except for milk, meat or science fodder). Now all I need is several dozen hammers. From my piles of hundreds of gold, silver, iron, and copper bars.

Wish I'd been smart and thought of that sooner, thanks for turning my brain back on

[Ethereal.Frog]

Silver seems like the best metal for it. Enough weight to launch the kitty, but the low combatty stuff will hopefully not instantly kill the kitty.

[breadbocks]

Eric, you could use a design like this:

Code: [Select]

|||||||
|!!!!!|
|!...!|
|!.o.!|
|!...!|
|!!!!!|
|||D|||Were |=wall != cage with 1/17 of cat/kitten(So each cage has 1/17 of the pop, and you end up with 1/17 to use for reloads) .=floor o=floor bar(linked to water powered repeater) and D=door to a chamber with the breeding pop chained inside, and whenever they plop one out, it gets shoved into a cage next door. Have a grid of levers set up so you  can control how many are ready to be fired at once, and turn the repeater on. 
As for the weapon trap, I suggest training all your dwarfs that don't have a moodable skill in weaponsmithing to dabbling, and surround the forges in platinum bars. And wait. Otherwise, use silvers.

[Eric Blank]

Eric, you could use a design like this:

Code: [Select]

|||||||
|!!!!!|
|!...!|
|!.o.!|
|!...!|
|!!!!!|
|||D|||Were |=wall != cage with 1/17 of cat/kitten(So each cage has 1/17 of the pop, and you end up with 1/17 to use for reloads) .=floor o=floor bar(linked to water powered repeater) and D=door to a chamber with the breeding pop chained inside, and whenever they plop one out, it gets shoved into a cage next door. Have a grid of levers set up so you  can control how many are ready to be fired at once, and turn the repeater on. 
As for the weapon trap, I suggest training all your dwarfs that don't have a moodable skill in weaponsmithing to dabbling, and surround the forges in platinum bars. And wait. Otherwise, use silvers.

That's incredibly simple, besides remembering what to do when to who, but that can't be avoided anyway, well done.
unfortunately, I don't have any platinum and it turns out all my silver disappeared because I forced my weaponsmith to crank out silver weapons on repeat, and the furnace operator to repeatedly melt these items. (now legendary just from melting things, wow) Apparently you get less material after creating and melting an object than you started with. I made iron weapons and loaded the test weapon trap.

I've decided the victim will either be this bait horse, or one (preferably both) of the forgotten beasts in my caverns that needed to die anyway. Maybe the dogs will be able to overwhelm them even if the trap doesn't propel any of them anywhere. I can't seem to come up with a better solution than to lure the beast onto the weapon trap by dropping the dogs down by using a near-by pressure plate, I am after-all trying to replicate a siege that will never come, with only a single enemy, and of course the weapon trap can't be linked to anything. They don't want to take the bait right now anyway, assuming they don't seriously need to have a ground-level path to figure out how to get there, also explaining why they never finished off my last two pumps... damnit! more digging! I'll finish in the morning, I'm not THAT dedicated. sorry

[breadbocks]

I refuse to believe you don't have silver anymore. Go dig some. There must still be some on your map. Use DFprospector