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[Sadrice]

I figured out a good way to make a water entranceway sweeper that pushes invaders/caravans/migrants off into a collection bit.  The important bit is the diagonal letting water out the fortifications, which neutralizes pressure, allowing you to have infinite input pressure while keeping the water flowing across the walkway under 7/7.  If the water on the walkway reaches 7/7, any added water will just teleport past, without pushing anything..  I've found that you actually need a kinda ridiculous amount of input flow to get the water on the walkway deep enough to push, you can either use many parallel pumps or a cistern with a vertical dump into the input.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Schematic view.  I haven't shown the water input apparatus.


My test implementation (turned off).  Notice how many pumps I'm using.  This may be overkill, but three was only giving 3/7 water on the path, which wasn't pushing a cat into the channel.  With this many parallel pumps, it can even push a [SPEED:10] dwarf off the edge, and they will path through it, so it can be used for automatic migrant control.

[SolEvil]

I think I might have to try this.

[Xenos]

Have the collection chamber sort the things pushed into it first by size using pressure plates triggering drawbridges over a dry moat.  this will also prevent FBs/titans/clowns/kobolds from gaining entrance to your fort. 

[SolEvil]

Interesting, but as I have precious little time I will have to hold off on this. I am currently trying to make a mod that can turn booze into weapons.

But once that is done I am definitely going to do this, I think its a great idea.

[slothen]

I've just put the finishing touches on a similar entrance trap in my fortress.  2 tile wide walkway with a put on one side, reservoir on the other.  I'm not using diagonals, instead I'm using bridges to block the fortifications, with the hope that it a quick but massive wall of water will knock out squads of invaders over the ledge.  I take it your trap is to be self sustaining flow that creatures will path through.

at one point I had water leaking somewhat slowly across the 2-wide path.  The water flowing out was at most 2/7 and it was pushing dwarves around and knocked a few into the pit.  Now though, my reservoir is massive, filled up at least 4 levels above the level of the fortifications.  Because the path is only 2 tiles wide, i don't think i'll have to worry about teleporting water.  I am concerned about the bridges though, I've got so much pressure built up above, this trap may work much better with a line of doors.

i'll keep this idea in mind.

[Hyndis]

Ahh yes, the good old flusher defense.

One thing that is very useful is to recycle the water. You will need a huge number of pumps to get the water back up to the top, but make water pressure work for you. Put the intake at the bottom of the pit. That way the more water piles up in the pit the faster the pump stack moves way back up to the top.

You'll need a cutoff mechanism to shut off the flusher pumps on the side of the walkway to occasionally gather the precious goblinite at the bottom of the pit.

[Sutremaine]

Retracting bridge over the collection pit, which when down routes the water into a secondary collection pit. That way the pumps need never be off.

[Xenos]

Retracting bridge over the collection pit, which when down routes the water into a secondary collection pit. That way the pumps need never be off.

Make use of an aquifer and have the water drain into it and be pumped from it.

[Dradym]

you know the only thing to make this better is to use magma

[twilightdusk]

you know the only thing to make this better is to use magma

actually, magma won't flow properly to give a pushing effect, and it will burn up many things you may want to collect from the victims. This is a rare case where water is the appropriate choice.

[Corona688]

I figured out a good way to make a water entranceway sweeper that pushes invaders/caravans/migrants off into a collection bit.  The important bit is the diagonal letting water out the fortifications, which neutralizes pressure, allowing you to have infinite input pressure while keeping the water flowing across the walkway under 7/7.

Another way to do it is just have the high-pressure water falling from on high, so it paths down as drops instead of pancaking down and generating useless pressure.

Aquifer-driven, of course.  No reservoir can compete with the power of an aquifer.  Watch it push around about hundreds of stone:  http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-2294-fractalwaterfeed  The best it seems to manage at this point is moving something 15 squares.  That might be improved by making it unidirectional.