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[Arkbrik]

Looking at the Computing article on the wiki, I had an idea about building a fortress controlled by a giant dwarf-built computer. Rather than making one of those l33t 8-bit calculators, this one would perform a number of useful (?) tasks.

My ideas so far are:

• Goblins entering the fortress are trapped, killed, and disposed of
• Flooded sections of the fortress are sealed off and drained
• The mayor can kill any dwarf in the fortress at his leisure
• A lever in the heart of the computer triggers its selfdestruct
• Anyone approaching this lever is killed "I can't let you do that, Urist"
• As the computer murders more and more dwarves it will eventually go insane and kill everyone

Have you got any other suggestions?

[Scaraban]

Have you got any other suggestions?

...do it...

[Romtos]

Many of these are not really computing issues. Just complex contraptions.

    * Goblins entering the fortress are trapped, killed, and disposed of
Should be possible.
    * Flooded sections of the fortress are sealed off and drained
Is there any way to sensor water/flooding? Either direct or indirect?
    * The mayor can kill any dwarf in the fortress at his leisure
How would you imagine this?
    * A lever in the heart of the computer triggers its selfdestruct
Should be doable.
    * Anyone approaching this lever is killed "I can't let you do that, Urist"
Build traps.
    * As the computer murders more and more dwarves it will eventually go insane and kill everyone
Hmm, here you would need a counter. Like that thought. Can you link traps to other systems?

[Shades]

    * Flooded sections of the fortress are sealed off and drained
Is there any way to sensor water/flooding? Either direct or indirect?

Pressure pads used to do it, I assume they still do. Of course what the OP should have said is that the automated computer floods the sections as well as drains them, randomly, while they are in use

[LoSboccacc]

pressure plates can sense water for flooding maangement

on a side note,
water can push items - a long tunnel with a plate sensing enemy which opens floodgates from a river on one side and opens a bridge at the opposite site over the magma sea can dispose of most critters, even swimming ones.

Code: [Select]

=======================================^^^
BB                  P                      #Xwww
BB                  P                      #Xwww
BB                  P                      #Xwww
=======================================^^^

B bridge over magma, # fortification X floodgate w water P pressure plate

you have to devise a way to keep the flood gate opened with a timer, because plates trigger off after the enemy is removed, leaving him wet and angry

[EmperorNuthulu]

Have you got any other suggestions?

This might be rather odd/impossible/hard to do but make several 1 tile booze stock piles out by your entrance. Capture several dragons. Wait for invaders. After taming the dragons put them near your entrance. If they breathe fire then you might just have an explosive wall of !!booze!!.

Bonus points if you use fire imps instead.


Edit: Ultra bonus points if you pump up magma to do it. Think of it as a "firewall" of sorts.

[Vactor]

a good way to do the kill-count contraption would be to have a pressure plate in a hallway that only leads to a big graveyard stockpile restricted to only allow dwarven corpses, everytime someone carrys a dead dwarf to it it will trigger the plate, you can have it put water into a cistern, that eventually will fill and overflow into a second cistern with a pressure plate that activates the crazy mode.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Or you could link pressure plates to spikes like so:

           ========================
To fort <- ^|||||^|||||^|||||^||||| -> to self-destruct lever
           ========================

| = upright spikes

Link the first plate to a counter of some sort, and link each plate to the set of spikes on either side of it. Set the plates to be triggered by civilians and set it to trigger on any size. We don't want pets outliving their masters, do we?

[Arkbrik]

My idea for mayor-controlled killing was this: the mayor has tons of levers in his room, one for each bedroom in the fortress. Every bedroom has a pressure plate by the bed (set up so the dwarf must pass it to get to the bed). Above the bedroom you have this setup:

~XX^#

~ = water (or magma!)
X = floodgate controlled by mayor lever
X = floodgate controlled by plate in bedroom
^ = pressure plate that seals the bedroom when covered in water
# = hole into bedroom

Will the pressure plate reset once the dwarf steps off it? In that case I can replace the floodgate with a door so it becomes jammed open by the water.

[Urist Imiknorris]

The plate will reset and doors smash water too.

You could probaby have the plate trigger something else that triggers the floodgate and has to be manually deactivated.

[Flaede]

Many of these are not really computing issues. Just complex contraptions.

    * Goblins entering the fortress are trapped, killed, and disposed of
Should be possible.
    * Flooded sections of the fortress are sealed off and drained
Is there any way to sensor water/flooding? Either direct or indirect?

Yes. Pressure plates can be set to only react to specific levels of water/magma. As in, it turns off when the water level goes back down. This one's easy to set up. Just have a seal-and-drain system connected to a pressure plate.

    * The mayor can kill any dwarf in the fortress at his leisure
How would you imagine this?

A simpler to use, but more difficult to set up Secret Murders Program:
Have a kill-box for each dwarf. It is a one tile room with a hatch above it that drops in magma from your magma cistern (every good fortress has one). In the room will be a lever that opens the hatch. The (diagonal) entrance has a door that is connected to a Mayoral Lever. Once the room is sealed, The lever inside each room is set to one specific dwarf, and a "pull" command is issued. The pull command cannot be fulfilled unless the mayor pulls his lever.

NOTE: The entrance is diagonal. the magma must be unpressurized.

    * A lever in the heart of the computer triggers its selfdestruct
Should be doable.

Self destructs are easy, but the trouble here is that the systems you are describing here don't seem to be subject to any centralization in ONE system. The only way this could be achieved is to arbitrarily make all controls in one room. (my fav' self destruct would be having all controls in the control room made of non-magma safe materials, and have a pressurized magma cistern flood the room and melt everything if you pull "the lever". The lever must could be surrounded by a 1-frame deployment barrier that protects the "puller" from said magma flood, with an exit opening after all magma drains out.)

    * Anyone approaching this lever is killed "I can't let you do that, Urist"
Build traps.

Build traps. Connected to a repeater. Spike traps are good. So are atomsmashing bridges.

    * As the computer murders more and more dwarves it will eventually go insane and kill everyone
Hmm, here you would need a counter. Like that thought. Can you link traps to other systems?

If you are certain a dwarf will enter, and not leave, then just have the one-tile entrance to that room have a pressure plate which adds one to the counter (I'll leave the rest to you, I've never successfully built an adder myself.). For example, cluster all the "kill boxes" in a distinct branch of your fortress with a one tile access point. Have an "in" pressure plate notice when a dwarf goes in and add one to the adder. After all, there's no other reason to go in. And no one is leaving.

Same for access to "The Lever".

I'm sure you can figure out a successful "kill everyone" method triggered by the threshold being reached.

[Vactor]

another idea for the mayor being able to kill anyone would be to have the above idea of the unlockable kill room, and then to have the mayor's variety of levers at the end of long passageways that have lots of retractable bridges that are each hooked up to a different cycle that turns them each on or off.  This would give each passageway a somewhat low chance of being completely accessible, but if the bridges are ever all extended at the same time the mayor will be able to get to the lever that unlocks someone's kill room.  Just make sure that it also opens an easy exit for the mayor in case the road back gets cut off, and a way to get out from under the bridges if they open while he's walking over them.  This would make it so that the mayor actually is randomly killing off dwarves without player intervention.

Each dwarf would then need a kill room, and each kill room needs a control lever with an accompanying bridge set.  You could do it with fewer bridges if they are only extended for very brief periods of time, and open for long periods.

[Arkbrik]

I think I've fgured out the dwarf killing now.

~XX+
~OO^#
~~X+

~ = Water
O = Wall
X = Floodgate
^ = Pressure plate triggered by water
# = Hole into bedroom
+ = floor

Red gate opens by mayor lever.
Yellow gate opens when dwarf steps on pressure plate in bedroom.
Pressure plate (above) opens green gate and seals the bedroom.

EDIT: Also figured out insanity meter now.

~BX^#

Floodgate is opened by a pressure plate in the bedroom triggered by 1-6 deep water. The bridge (B) raises by another pressure plate in the bedroom, triggered by 7-deep water. The hole leads into a cistern. When it is filled it will overflow into another tunnel and the water will trigger a pressure plate that causes the computer to go insane.

[Scaraban]

note: when i first saw thread title i thought we were discussing how best 2 utilize Urist Imiknorris for our own ends.

[Urist Imiknorris]