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[Aramco]

Alright, so, I was thinking about making a freezing trap, and a thought occurred to me. What if you were in a freezing biome, and had a moat in front of your fortress, which was kept liquid by magma underneath it. Now, there is no bridge across this moat. When you want someone to get in or out, you let the magma out. The water freezes, and things can walk across. But what if a siege shows up, and you don't want them in your fortress? Well, you pump the magma back in, the ice melts, and, unless they can swim, they can't get in. I'm going to build this, in my next fortress. Anyone else think the idea is good?

[SirAaronIII]

It seems like a good idea, but are you sure the magma will be able to move out quickly enough?

[Aramco]

It seems like a good idea, but are you sure the magma will be able to move out quickly enough?

True Dwarves don't care about speed, they only care about awesomeness. Build more pumps.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Hold the magma up with retracting bridges for instant-freezing.

[Aramco]

Hold the magma up with retracting bridges for instant-freezing.

Alright, but getting it out with pumps is still easier than melting it quickly, but, well, that's what cage traps are for.

[Repulsion]

Like Urist said, hold up one z-level of magma with a retracting bridge. When you want the water to melt, pull the bridge and watch the magma fall into a reservoir below the bridge. The reservoir below the bridge will have many pumps leading from it to four mini-reservoirs around where the magma that is on-top of the bridge, and on the same z-level as it as well. Then mine as many tunnels as you can connecting the mini-reservoirs to the main magma area, so that when you need to refill it you open all these tunnels so that it will be refilled faster.

Will it work? I have no idea.

[Rushmik]

But isn't using a drawbridge just as effective-
Rushmik is struck down

[bombcar]

Better. Freeze the ice, and then tunnel through it for the entrance.

When you close to doors, the ice melts and drowns whoever is in the ice tunnel at the time.

Naming your trade dwarf Moses is optional.

[Lagslayer]

Make a magma reservoir under the ice and have is dump through magma-safe hatches. Faster, easier, and more effective than pumps.

[gtmattz]

This is not a new idea...  I cannot find the link at the moment, but there was a movie of pretty much what is described in the OP floating around when I first started playing around 2 years ago.

[Girlinhat]

I love this.  I mus point out though, that hatches drain an area pretty quickly.  The only issue is, how do you keep the entire under-moat from draining?  Perhaps two drawbridges, both opening outwards?  It will atom-smash some lava, but we're assuming you have a good supply of the stuff already...

Code: [Select]

WWWWWW
~BbbB~
~BbbB~
WWWWWW
B=ancor of bridge
b=bridge

[Alastar]

Can we turn this into a zero-maintenance deathtrap if we use a bridge to control the heating and plug it into a repeater?

[imperium3]

Yes, if it's wide enough that enemies are bound to be frozen before they reach the other side. But then there is the issue of keeping your dwarves out of it...

[Girlinhat]

Restricted traffic and an alternate, longer route.  Goblins take the shorter route, but dwarves can be directed long if given adequate traffic restrictions.

[Joshua IX]

But isn't using a drawbridge just as effective-
Rushmik is struck down

Magma is always the most effective solution!