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[dirty foot]

Do I need to dig down one level, or two, in order to get a spike pit to work properly? Seems like a lot of Z-levels spent on a single trap, according to the wiki. Any further than one channel seems like overkill on depth.

Maybe I'm confused about what constitutes a Z-level.

[Jeoshua]

Yes, pits take up inordinate amounts of volume of otherwise usable rock.  But the deeper you make it, the more likely it is to kill the creature falling into it.  10z drops are 90% guaranteed to kill things, and the bigger they are, the harder they fall.  Put some spikes at the bottom of that 10z pit and even something like a kitten falling in will have exactly 0 chance of survival.

[xeivous]

large pit (deeper the better) with something to make victims dodge off is what you want. Add upright spikes at the bottom for extra lethality.

[CapnUrist]

Scale is one of the many factors that contribute directly to the dwarfiness of a project, as well as inversely affecting practicality. The ultimate pit trap is one that throws victims into the magma sea, or worse.

[nanomage]

Scale is one of the many factors that contribute directly to the dwarfiness of a project, as well as inversely affecting practicality. The ultimate pit trap is one that throws victims into the magma sea, or worse.

Thinking of "worse", one could make a gigantic flush trap that pushes goblins through the fortifications carved in blue pillar and makes them fall right down there. I wonder if someone has already attempted this!

[dirty foot]

Scale is one of the many factors that contribute directly to the dwarfiness of a project, as well as inversely affecting practicality. The ultimate pit trap is one that throws victims into the magma sea, or worse.

I plan to add a water flood trap to this somehow, but I'm still trying to make sure I have my pits in order first.

[wuphonsreach]

It depends on your goal.

A 1Z drop off a 1-tile wide path lined with simple, inexpensive, 1-weapon-per-trap, weapon traps (a.k.a. the "dodge-this" design) is good if you want to force your enemies to backtrack.  And you might want to put more deadly traps and/or cage traps in the 1Z deep pit areas because when someone falls 1Z, they're stunned, and the trap will always hit. 

To get trap-immune critters to play dodge-this, you need to replace the weapon traps with upright spears/spikes and hook them up to something on repeat (dwarf clicking a lever on repeat, or a water repeater, or a critter-based repeater).

If you're just looking for bruises, broken bones, and the like, then 3-5Z is enough.

For a sure kill, you really want 12Z.  While 10Z will do it 80-90% of the time, it takes 12Z to make it a sure kill.  And deeper is always better.  And past 12Z, water drowning is optional.

For the really dwarfy solution:

- Have a 1x20 bridge made out of "down" stairs with nothing underneath and nothing to the sides for 12Z of depth.  Place a 3Z deep chamber of water above that with hatches that can be toggled to flood every other tile of the bridge when triggered.  So you'll need 8-10 hatch openings.  The goal is to wash the filth off the bridge and down into the pits.  Supposedly, having the water flow through "down" stairs will help in turning most of it into mist, leaving you less water down below to clean up later.

- Put shooting galleries on the outside walls of the pit area so that your marksdwarves can shoot at anyone trying to run the gauntlet.  Put retracting bridges or hatches at both ends so you can trap your targets and give lots of target practice to the dwarves. A side view of this would be:

Code: [Select]

W__F.._..F__W(W=wall, _ = floor, F=fortification tile, . = open space with a 12Z drop)

[ral]

Last time I tried it, even a 10Z drop onto 10 giant iron spikes didn't usually kill goblins instantly. They'd be so wounded that they couldn't do anything and would die eventually but still I was quite disappointed that being impaled on 10 spikes after a 10z drop wasn't instant death. 10 serrated discs and a 1z drop would be more effective.

[psychologicalshock]

Last time I tried it, even a 10Z drop onto 10 giant iron spikes didn't usually kill goblins instantly. They'd be so wounded that they couldn't do anything and would die eventually but still I was quite disappointed that being impaled on 10 spikes after a 10z drop wasn't instant death. 10 serrated discs and a 1z drop would be more effective.

What's wrong with that? Watching them suffer a little is fun.

[Fayceless]

Last time I tried it, even a 10Z drop onto 10 giant iron spikes didn't usually kill goblins instantly. They'd be so wounded that they couldn't do anything and would die eventually but still I was quite disappointed that being impaled on 10 spikes after a 10z drop wasn't instant death. 10 serrated discs and a 1z drop would be more effective.

What's wrong with that? Watching them suffer a little is fun.

Agreed.  I like my pits to cripple them, makes 'em easier targets, too.

[gtmattz]

10 tiles straight down is the same 'volume' as 10 tiles to the right, albeit if you are going to be dropping stuff down a pit, you are also likely to want to have access to the bottom, so you need some stairs or ramps down somewhere, so a little more space is used up.


(in response to)

Seems like a lot of Z-levels spent on a single trap, according to the wiki. Any further than one channel seems like overkill on depth.

[Greiger]

Also to partially answer the op's question about how deep it needs to be for unlinked spikes to work.  A simple 1 z-level fall (as in a fall from the level directly above or hitting of the ">" key once) does NOT trigger spikes or do any damage.

A 2-z-level fall (hitting > twice) will trigger spikes, and the fall itself is likely to disable a limb or two on an unarmored victim but will not likely be fatal, immediately or otherwise, unless yer spikes get a lucky hit.  Note that armor, especially plate, actually protects from fall damage somehow.

A 3 z fall (hitting > three times) will still trigger spikes and has a fairly good chance of being lethal although usually from bloodloss than right away.  And will almost definitely cripple an opponent from fall damage alone, before the spikes even apply their damage.

A 5 z fall HURTS.  It has a good chance of killing outright, but won't always, and unless yer victem gets some really lucky rolls they will be spending the rest of their life unconcious and crippled.  Again, that is before spikes are applied.

A 20 z fall is assured death.  I imagine it's technically possible to survive such a fall with some really good luck.  But I never saw it happen.  And my current fortress has been going 8 years dropping all captured goblins 20 z levels into a spike pit for executions.  Spikes will actually impale stuff dropped on them from crazy far falls like this, which also likely results in instant death.  A fall like this also more often than not makes them "blow apart" on hitting the ground.  Again, instantly fatal, and causes them to actually seperate into individual flying limbs.  Very gruesome.

[gtmattz]

Just make the pit 12 or more z levels deep and you need no spikes.  The only time I have had someone survive is when he falls on the head of someone walking around on the bottom, so during sieges when lots of gobbos and such are plummeting to their death, it is best to keep dwarves and pets out of that area.  So far it looks to me like, as long as they are all falling, they will explode before the next one can hit the preceeding one in the head and survive, so as long as you keep people from walking in to the bottom of the pit, there should be no survivors.  If all the rotting meat and bad clothes annoys you, you can fill the bottom layer with magma that you can pump or drain out so you can sort the worthless metals from the worthwhile stuff.