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[Flare]

Suppose you have a line of disc traps all loaded stretched out in several consecutive columns from the entry way to the inside of the keep. Now suppose in challenge to this, several large waves of fully steel clad giants try to make their way into the keep through this passage. Now suppose once more, in the extremely unlikely event that one of them gets past all of the discs unscathed, walking through the vast majority of them with dodging, shield use, and general armor protection.

Would the skill of such an individual be improved to legendary status, as if he was given a very brief yet very intense stint in a very demanding danger room? Suppose on top of all that, the keep doesn't keep a full time military due to the effectiveness of the line traps. Wouldn't they be summarily slaughtered by this legendary warrior they've created?

[Neowulf]

Yup, FUN!

[Lemunde]

Suppose you have a line of disc traps all loaded stretched out in several consecutive columns from the entry way to the inside of the keep. Now suppose in challenge to this, several large waves of fully steel clad giants try to make their way into the keep through this passage. Now suppose once more, in the extremely unlikely event that one of them gets past all of the discs unscathed, walking through the vast majority of them with dodging, shield use, and general armor protection.

Would the skill of such an individual be improved to legendary status, as if he was given a very brief yet very intense stint in a very demanding danger room? Suppose on top of all that, the keep doesn't keep a full time military due to the effectiveness of the line traps. Wouldn't they be summarily slaughtered by this legendary warrior they've created?

I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere that non-dwarf units don't progress in skills. So no, the giant wouldn't end up at legendary status but would still slaughter your dwarves since you don't have a military.

[JmzLost]

Good idea, going to redo my entrance to cage trap volunteers, build some test chambers, mod in a portal gun, and drop them in to see how they fare. Just wish I could equip my dwarves with lab coats.

You can open item_armor.txt and change the name of coats or robes to lab coat.  Don't change the [ITEM_ARMOR:] tag, just the [NAME:] tag.  Modifying existing tags does not require a world gen.

JMZ

[Lord Darkstar]

Just wish I could equip my dwarves with lab coats.

You mean, WHITE ROBES? or WHITE JACKETS? Depending on the length of the coat, of course.

White capes would do in a pinch. Problem is there is NO WHITE DYE in the Dwarf Fortress universe. Red, Blue, Green, and Black. No white. Can't we grind up all those bones or something? Making all my fortress wear be dyed a nice white made from cat bones would be just so nice.

[Neowulf]

Well, so far:
Menacing spikes- Worth it, two ambushes and they never got past the second row of traps.
Discs- Very much worth it, if the enemies aren't 100% metal armored the discs will find somewhere to slice.
Balls- Not very effective, got to the 5th row of traps on the second ambush. Amusing combat reports though, mine keep targeting the lower body, bruising muscles through trousers and causing ambushers to pass out from the pain.
Screws- Looks very promising, only one thief so far but one trap severed both arms and a leg. He had an iron mail shirt, iron helm, and copper shield. EDIT: Extremely deadly, severs a part of everything that steps on it, prone to jamming. Lost an epic mason when an ambush crossbow bolt knocked him out ontop of the trap he was cleaning, the trap took his head in 1 attack.
Blades- No testing yet.

[Maklak]

I'm rather surpried, how everyone here likes serrated discs. They are too messy for me, turning one invader into many separate parts, and splatting them all over the place. More hauling jobs, and more refuse stockpile space. Inefficient.  I normally use whatever crappy weapons I have at hand, including bows, leftover no-quality spears from danger rooms, stuff from dead merchans, that I don't bother to melt, whatever. If I were to carefully choose weapons for my traps, I'd prefer something that turns invaders into bloody pulp without dismembering them, and weakening anything that passes through, so my military can handle them. Therefore judging from Neowulf's post 8 Spiked Balls + 2 Menacing spikes per trap would be great.

[Lagslayer]

I'll use any reasonably effective weapon in a trap, but if I have to make some, I usually do tons of spiked balls. They can be highly effective if made from something cheap like copper or silver, and they rarely jam. Though, local materials permitting, serrated discs are better for killing things without them getting away (so they can't limp outside, making later item retrieval more time consuming and dangerous).

edit: how much does a base quality green glass serrated disc sell for? I smell a goldmine.

[JmzLost]

252 dorf bucks.  630 for clear glass.  Green glass has a material multiplier of 2.  Clear glass is 5.  Balls and discs have an item value of 126.  Bring sand, make glass discs, buy everything in the caravan, dig for silver, make silver discs.  Easy trade goods without 5 billion hauling jobs for rock mugs.

JMZ

[Neowulf]

Exceptional quality green glass discs and balls sell for over 1000, and masterwork for over 3000. It's fun buying out entire caravans (with them leaving ecstatic) with 10 items an epic glassmaker can churn out in an instant.

Maklak: Glass serrated discs don't actually sever that often, maybe taking an ear or hand when they do. Mostly they cause them to bleed out quickly, which is messy in it's own way. Spikes sever ears too, they just seem to be the best balance between deadly and jam resistant.
And you actually do want the occasional severing. Severed limbs become goblin bones, I've got an artifact ring decorated with bands of bone from the arm of some luckless thief.

[Lagslayer]

Exceptional quality green glass discs and balls sell for over 1000, and masterwork for over 3000. It's fun buying out entire caravans (with them leaving ecstatic) with 10 items an epic glassmaker can churn out in an instant.

Maklak: Glass serrated discs don't actually sever that often, maybe taking an ear or hand when they do. Mostly they cause them to bleed out quickly, which is messy in it's own way. Spikes sever ears too, they just seem to be the best balance between deadly and jam resistant.
And you actually do want the occasional severing. Severed limbs become goblin bones, I've got an artifact ring decorated with bands of bone from the arm of some luckless thief.

I'm trying this on my next fort with sand.

[GotIt_00]

I've fun a glass trap component industry and it's really lucrative. Now that I'm making steel though, even glass seems like a hassle. Once those steel bars are piling up, you can whip up ten steel swords once the caravan shows up on the map and buy everything you want without much hauling. It's time intensive to make the steel, but if you're doing it anyways, it's a cash cow.

[RTiger]

Serrated disks are good for hacking limbs, and get multiple attacks. A trap with 10 disks gets 30 attacks on the target when the trap  triggers, though it leaves a huge mess.

Spiked balls also get three attacks a hit, but are designed more for armored foes or just causing pain.

Axe blades, instead of dealing three rapid hits, do one large hit. If it is better then disks is under debate.

Screws deal huge penetration damage.

And spikes are, well, spikes. Like the spiked ball, but more penetration.

[CognitiveDissonance]

In regards to earlier comments, in about .31.10 or so, I distinctly remember having a goblin that survived all my traps because he leveled up on the weaker outer ones, and then he proceeded to completely annihilate my military because he became so highly skilled. So, unless that was changed, be aware that many glass traps could potentially result in super-goblins. You know, faster than a speeding bullet...

[Misterstone]

I think that other properties such as various 'yields' and so on determine how good a material is at slicing through other materials.  I notice for instance that glass has low elasticity and very high impact yield, perhaps this makes it good at piercing metal armor.  No one really knows how these calcs work, though.