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[Vicid]

Yes I kind of obsess about this but I've got a fun video so it is ok.

I know I'm building off other people's work like drop a sub into Lava ETC.  But I've made a recording of a dwarf surviving a fall from good amount of Z levels because he is in 7/7 water and so are the two cubes of 7/7 water below him.  Water has been proven to slow down a dwarf's fall but apparently being submerged in falling water works as some kind of impact absorbing gel.

In my recording I have a proof of concept with one test dwarf in the situation described above surrounded by five control dwarfs.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-2369-dropwaterconcept

As you can see the control group (Dwarf 2 through 6) is grievously wounded while the test dwarf (dwarf one) doesn't even register that he's impacted with the ground.

This means dwarfs could be deployed easily from a tall tower/sky fort or into the depths of a cavern with a few levers, a couple of floor hatches and water.

I imagine that this property of dwarf physics could also support a real dwarf drop pod.  One that utilizes water as an impact shock absorber.  I wish I could make this my self but I don't have the technical skill it would require. (I've never used pumps etc)

Even so I'm very sure my !!Science!! is sound.  Below is my late night ramblings on how to construct such a drop pod.  Of course my video above shows that a drop pod isn't necessary over to top ridiculousness that can go terribly wrong is always much more interesting.

It would be 3 Z levels and made of cast obsidian.

First you cast a 3 z level tall 3x3 column of obsidian.  On the top mount a support on one of the corners that connects to a roof or launch dock or whatever.  (that support exists on the 4th Z level connecting to something above it on the 5th)  Also there should be a shaft going through the middle from the floor of the 4th Z level going down to the floor of the 1st Z level. Don't dig through the 1st floor.  Leave it.  Cap this central shaft with a floor hatch.  Also access to this part should only be possible with a retractable bridge.

The 3rd Z level is a little tricky.  You've got to place a floor grate there.  If you can mine a wall, place this then link it to a lever then re-seal it with obsidian that'd be great.  Otherwise I suppose a floodgate would do.

2nd Z level is just water storage (a 1x1 room with 8 walls around it)

*1st Z level is the same with one difference: four of the walls are mined out and replaced with floodgates.  I'm pretty sure constructions deconstruct when collapsing so they don't need to be linked to anything.  This will give our dwarfs four exits to choose from when leaving the pod and also give the water plenty of room to drain.  Also note that the floor of this Z level should stay intact (don't mine it out)


Remove the mold the pod was cast in and smooth all the obsidian for style.  Maybe carve some engravings of dwarfs falling to their deaths, I donno.

Now your Drop Pod should be hanging by the roof support.  Fill it with water (by opening the top hatch) and seal it.   Does water evaporate in a sealed container? W/e just fill it with more water later.

Once it is ready and you've got baddies below extend your bridges to give access to the pods, have your drop dwarfs stand on the floor hatches.  Open those up and close 'em.  You now have a Dwarf Warriors drowning and waiting to go into combat!  Pull the level that knocks out the support, your cast Drop Pods fall, crush gobbos and spit out wet angry dwarfs! YES!

*I just remembered reading that the roof of a cast item also collapses.  While my drop pod doesn't have a solid roof it does have solid walls on multiple Z levels.  Does this mean they would condense into one Z level?  If so the bottom 'floor' should be an upward ramp.  The 1st Z level would also have to be expanded to include cast upward ramps around the 8 walls.  This should allow the dwarf to climb up over the wall and down onto the battlefield.  Again this is unnecessary if a cast wall does not condense.

[Urist Da Vinci]

TLDR; Dwarf is left in midair, at the very center of a cave-in, in a water raindrop. The cave-in dust blows him sideways and causes an injury/renders him unconscious (merciful!), and he falls to his death, splattering to pieces on an obsidian wall far below.

[Girlinhat]

Idea: sideways view:

Code: [Select]

#_#
# #
#_#Crude example, but the upper-most level is the dwarf level.  Some sort of pressurized water source would push water through a ceiling hatch to flood this with 7/7 quickly, too quick to drown hopefully.  Meanwhile, the 2 layers beneath should already be flooded, giving you 3 layers of water with 2 hatches.  To activate it, both hatches open, on the top and bottom, leaving the dwarf suspended in midair with nothing but 2 layers of water under him and the water he's standing in.  This all falls, and should let him fall safely to the ground, if the video was accurate.

The top hatch can be replaced with a grate, allowing you to flood all 3 levels in one motion.  However, I don't think that grates react as quickly as a hatch, so there may be timing issues.  Creative use of fluid clocks is suggested, or just use two hatches and keep it simple.

This would do the same thing as the arena video, wouldn't it?

[Vicid]

Idea: sideways view:

Code: [Select]

#_#
# #
#_#Crude example, but the upper-most level is the dwarf level.  Some sort of pressurized water source would push water through a ceiling hatch to flood this with 7/7 quickly, too quick to drown hopefully.  Meanwhile, the 2 layers beneath should already be flooded, giving you 3 layers of water with 2 hatches.  To activate it, both hatches open, on the top and bottom, leaving the dwarf suspended in midair with nothing but 2 layers of water under him and the water he's standing in.  This all falls, and should let him fall safely to the ground, if the video was accurate.

The top hatch can be replaced with a grate, allowing you to flood all 3 levels in one motion.  However, I don't think that grates react as quickly as a hatch, so there may be timing issues.  Creative use of fluid clocks is suggested, or just use two hatches and keep it simple.

This would do the same thing as the arena video, wouldn't it?

That's right.  In the arena video the dwarf starts on the top Z level with 7/7 water and two 7/7 below him.

As to dust... can dust push someone who's in water?  I suppose there would be a lot of dust but this only adds to the effectiveness of the drop pod.  It kills/stuns the baddies below and leaves the warrior refreshed and ready for battle! 

[Girlinhat]

Cave-in dust is the most powerful force in the game.  Don't include it near your soldiers unless-  Nevermind.  We can add more weaponization once a prototype is functional.  Have you tested this design at greater heights?

[Vicid]

No but unless water breaks up as it falls I think it should be fine. Testing the water at greater heights simply requires a shaft water and two hatches. I leave further testing to the community as I'm mostly a forum lurker these days.

[Girlinhat]

Well, that worked fine at like 5 levels, sure, but how well does the water cushion work for, say, 50 levels?  Does it work at 2,000 levels?  Someone managed to gen a world with infinite sky, it's entirely possible to build a tower several thousand Z's tall and drop soldiers from literal orbit.

[MarcAFK]

I like this idea because it's relatively more sound than gamey kitten cushioning.

[Thatdude]

I will start a new fort to test the authenticity of the original post's claims! Wish me luck.

I plan to test this at 5, 10, 15 ect. z-levels and either keep on testing until it either a) doesn't work, b) I run out of z-levels or c) I get bored and give up. I'll probably use some method similar to Girlinhat's design (seeing as that's how I pictured it'd work anyway).

Anyway, to dwarf fortress!

[Di]

Actually, even one tile of 7/7 water is sufficient but water seems to fall at a different speed than dwarf somewhere twice slower than dwarf.
Non falling water seem to soften landing as well but only if considerable part of fall is through water (say 1 level of water and 3 levels total).
Magma softens falling as well 
Falling dwarf seems unaffected by cave-in dust. But if you surround them with obsidian nor the nor water will escape pod resulting in drop drowning chamber.
If all these exploits were to create magma sea exploration pod, I regretfully inform you that wouldn't work. I went ahead and created small magma sea in top right corner of arena and tested several pods there. Either it's lava that teleports inside or roof that crashes explorer also, I'd like to point that magma isn't just teleported atop, it is sent higher away like a fountain.

[Thatdude]

Exactly what Di said I found as well. The 5 z-level worked perfectly twice for me whereas the in the 10 level drop, the dwarf hit the ground way before the water. A rough guess of how a dwarf falls compared to water from the first two tests I did is a dwarf falls 5 levels in the time it takes for water to fall 3. We need to try huge drops and try to calibrate water to be in the same tile at exactly the same time and see if that works.

[ThatAussieGuy]

So we're testing to see if we can deploy semi-drowned belligerent dwarves via deadly drops encased in water by dropping them to their death until we get the timing right?   I love this game and all of you, you crazy magnificent bastards xD.

Once you get the ratio right, see if you can rig a timer to auto-drop the dwarf at X-seconds after the water so they'll impact at the right moment together every time.  Bonus points if it deploys them into a cavern.  Cavern-dropped Dwarven Marines, anyone?  Those FB's and cave spiders will never see them coming.

edit:  Actually, if you're dropping them over a larger distance, you don't even have to risk drowning the dwarf - you can just fill a section of the dropchute under them.

[Biopass]

Fluids do wierd things to falls. I once embarked on a volcano, but disliked the site, so I built a platform out over the magma, made a burrow on it, sent everyone to the burrow, and collapsed it.

Despite a 150 Z-level fall, everyone survived, and was alive (and uninjured) when they hit the bottom of the magma sea. They melted a few seconds later, but when they hit, they were stunned but unhurt. A few even started walking around.

Magma sea was something like 10 Z-levels deep.

Is this because semi-molten rock has odd properties? Or is this fluids being wierd?

Either way, a modded dwarf race that's magmaproof could actually be dropped, SPHEES MARINE style, without even the need for a drop pod.

[o_O[WTFace]]

Greatest !!scientific!! study since that undump machine. 

[Vicid]

Has anyone tried dropping a container (cast) filled with water?  If the roof of this container is a hatch does the water fall at the same rate as the cast item?  And if there was a dwarf in this water?  Tonight I may have to carve out a drop pod and a drop shaft of 20Z levels just to see what happens.