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[Diavolo]

hey all. I read somewhere about people making what is often called a toilet trap by having water come down pushing the enemy into a pit when they step on a pressure plate.

Most people mention they use hatches to keep the water out normally and when the enemy walks on the pr.plate the hatches open and the water comes flowing in. However, Im not sure what kind of hatches they are talking about. I tried using floor hatches (was the only hatch type I could find) but they just dissappear when I hit the level connected to them, and when I hit the lever again, they are back, on the floor. Im trying to make a toilet trap where I have water flowing in from canals on the sides, but dont know what to use to stop the water and control when its going to flow and so on.

Anyone who can help me?

[Solifuge]

I know it's slow with poor-quality mechanisms, but what's keeping you from using a door/floodgate to stem the flow horizontally?

[Hans Lemurson]

I know it's slow with poor-quality mechanisms, but what's keeping you from using a door/floodgate to stem the flow horizontally?

On what do you base that knowledge?  I'm not calling you a liar or anything, but I know from my own personal experience that hatches and doors respond nearly instantly to any input (levers or pressure plates) even with minimal-quality mechanisms.

Now, for the OP, the "open" state for doors, Hatches, and floodgates is empty space, allowing everything to travel through them unimpeded, so the fact that they disappear when you pull the lever means that they are working.  This does lead to another question though: Why are you operating your hatches by a lever?  If you want to make your trap be automatic, then you're gonna need pressure-plates.

[Solifuge]

It takes about 5-10 ticks before Floodgates open when operated, though I've not played with them much for about a year, due to sparse DF playing these days. Even if that's changed, a horizontal water flow isn't quite as instantaneous as a Floor Hatch dumping a full 7/7 deep water tile onto the square below.

[Fellhuhn]

But be aware that Building Destroyers like to destroy floodgates. If that happens it is hard to get the floodgate back. Have that problem now because one stupid troll decided it would be funny to destroy the floodgate that hold back  an endless magma stream...

[NKDietrich]

The trap you're talking about doesn't work with floodgates because the lag time is too great. The toilet trap has five components:

1) A pressure plate.
2) Floor hatches on either side of the plate, creature-triggered by the plate.
3) A floor hatch holding back water or magma above the pressure plate, creature-triggered by the plate.
4) A long fall beneath the two lower hatches, preferably with traps or a magma pool at the bottom.

Caveats: Anything that avoids traps will just walk over it, and there will be spillage so you need to be able to drain the excess water or magma down the pit along with your enemy.

My configuration is essentially a few 1-tile-wide hallways with this:

GGHPHGG (2Grates, Hatch, Pressure Plate, Hatch, 2 Grates)

Then above it theres a water reservoir with a hatch right above the pressure plate, fed by a river. The excess water goes right down the grates without drowning anyone. At the bottom of my pit are 10x menacing spikes below each hatch, and further grating that lets the water through (which goes into the caverns, a magma pipe, or the magma sea if necessary) but lets me collect the stuff of the dead invaders. Be sure the access shaft to your pit opens up outside your traps, not inside. Anything that falls but survives by some miracle gets to go through it again.

[pushy]

It takes about 5-10 ticks before Floodgates open when operated, though I've not played with them much for about a year, due to sparse DF playing these days.

100 ticks, IIRC. And that's regardless of whether the mechanisms connected to the floodgate and lever are masterwork or bog-standard. Tests were done by Skanky a couple of years ago showing that mechanisms had no effect on activation speed of whatever they're linked to (bridges, floodgates, whatever) and I haven't heard anything to say that things have changed in any version of 31.x

On what do you base that knowledge?  I'm not calling you a liar or anything, but I know from my own personal experience that hatches and doors respond nearly instantly to any input (levers or pressure plates) even with minimal-quality mechanisms.

Mechanisms affecting trap speed used to be a slightly commonly-held belief a few years ago (albeit equally commonly disputed, but often with little or no evidence to back up either side's claims). Since he's saying he hasn't used floodgates in "about a year", I'm guessing he was one of the ones who believed it and had never seen Skanky's thread

[FleshForge]

Something is horribly amiss with your link.   

[pushy]

Something is horribly amiss with your link.   

Damn forum software. I'm used to vBulletin. SMF added an http:// before the link I'd pasted in. It's sorted now

[Diavolo]

thanks for the great help everyone. Guess I'm ready to make my first toilet trap now

one final question though: do I have to have the water coming down from above? currently I have a canal on either side of the pressure plate making water flow in from the sides. I guess that doestn work since the floodgates take too long to open? 

[Hans Lemurson]

Use doors. Both doors and hatches have instantaneous response.  The problem is that it will still take more time for water to flow horizontally than it will for it to come down from up above.

[slothen]

also, doors that open to the side are vulnerable to building destroyers, while i believe a hatch above dropping water down will not be so vulnerable.  In regards to the design mentioned by NKDietrich, are the grates and floorhatches vulnerable to building destroyers?  I suppose even if they are, they would leave holes that enemies wouldn't path over, but still, i wouldn't want the system to break with siegers still on the other side.