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[Girlinhat]

Another option may be staged water falling.  Referring to my previous diagram, if the setup was...

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#≈#Assume there are hatches on all layers.  If the dwarf is submerged, and the lowest level is submerged, then shouldn't this be sufficient for a 5 level fall?  The dwarf at Z=0 and the water at Z-2.  The dwarf will fall 5 to Z-5 and the water will fall 3 to Z-5, landing them both at the same time.  If this works as intended, it may allow for some water-conservative, expertly timed drop chambers.  If this math is right, you should never need more than 3 cushion layers and 1 flooded dwarf layer.

Now, someone needs to make a barracks like this, with the whole barracks over a drop chamber, to deploy troops automatically when an enemy is detected.  The glory of this design is that the drop distance can be altered without destroying anything - the troops could deploy onto a bridge on the surface, onto a bridge in the cavern, or onto the floor of HFS itself, with just a small tweak to water pressure.

[Xen0n]

I'm not positive I've fully envisioned the proposed pod structure, but if
A. Water falling too slowly and 'leaking out' the top of the pod, and no longer cushioning the dwarf is a problem
and
B. The pod appears to have no roof as it would collapse to the lowest level, crushing our magmanaut,

then could we solve that issue by replacing all the 'open air' space inside the pod with up/downstairs, which I believe will accommodate both water and dwarves while supporting the roof above from collapsing, and then giving the pod a proper ceiling to hold in the water?  This could be done by a 'pre-launch' cave-in just for sealing the roof in order to save time while the dwarf tries to drown.

Or will the water phase out of through the ceiling regardless?

I just want to help get some little people stranded inside molten rock.

[Girlinhat]

My proposition involves no cave-ins, for the record.  It's completely reusable for the purpose of orbital drops.  As for magma sea explorers, that's a bit trickier.  Water acts strange in a cave-in, and almost always appears atop whatever caved in.  This is primarily because cave-ins are instant, while water and creatures take time to fall.  There's also the issue of displacement in the magma-piston style.  And then, ultimately, SMR is all-consuming, and any cave-in that hits it will vanish into the SMR.

[Xen0n]

Ah, now everything clicks for this design.  It's sort of like a Dwarf dispenser that uses water as a flow agent. 

Hmm if the idea is to have a single barracks at the upper z levels and deploy troops to any z level quickly, I suppose if you have a single, uninterrupted vertical shaft with hatches and doors at appropiate stopping points, controlled by levers, you would only need one water source at the same place as the barracks, and not really any specific timing.

If too many cave crawlers come out on, say, Z -40, then you hit the lever to close the closest hatch to that level in your Dwarf Depositing chute, hit the lever that dispenses 3 full tiles' worth of water into the chute from just under the barracks, then a few seconds later (maybe wait until it settles on the now-close hatch) hit a lever to plummet the soldiers into the waiting water.

Then just hit the switch to open the door to release the water / traumatised dwarves out before they drown, and voila. 


...Unless I'm not understanding the idea with having the dwavres start already submerged in water and tweaking the pressure?

[Girlinhat]

That's pretty much the idea.  A shaft through the map could be used to transport dwarves to any Z level instantly.  It would just need some tweaking for water in the drop chamber to accommodate for drop distance, or fully loaded if you don't care about preserving water.  Floor grates as each "stopping point" may allow the water to drain out the chute harmlessly, but that may also cause the dwarf to take damage.

Now we just need an adventure mode dungeon that abuses this concept.

[Vicid]

I have now MADE PROGRESS. Experiment number 5 proved to be a major success - I dropped a 5x5x5 cube with a 3x3x3 hole in it with the lowest level filled with water with a dwarf swimming in it. He survived the fall completely unharmed. This proves beyond doubt that dwarves can survive in falling objects. I will now do more testing, but so far it seems that this is actually doable. At the end of it all, I hope to have a fully functional mini-fortress on the very bottom of the magma sea.

Here's a quote from the magma submarine thread... >_> I won't give up hope for my drop pods until I've made them myself.

[Thatdude]

Hmmmm, it seems my 3:5 estimate was a little off. Doing the experiment again with only the bottom layer filled  with water (3-z-levels above the landing spot), the dwarf (5 z-levels above the landing platform) hit *just* before and took full damage. He will join his friend in the hospital from the 10 z-level experiment 

It seems to me that the next test I should do is have a block of water and a dwarf fall the same distance and time the fall in ticks. This will be laborious.

I will drop a dwarf 5 z-levels without ANY water to accompany him just to see how fast he does it. I have a feeling there might be inaccuracies so I might have to drop more to their not-quite-deaths. For science, of course.
I will then drop a 7/7 block of water and time the fall as well as drop a two high column and a 3 high column because I have a feeling that might affect things.

brb

EDIT: Ok! So my test for dwarves falling turned out to be pretty simple. While I have only tried this once so this number may not be all that reliable, it was pretty constant during the one test I did for all the squares.
Results: Apart from the from the first drop (Z-level 0 to -1), a dwarf falls at 6 steps per Z-level downwards, and the first drop took 7 steps. This may be some interference with the hatch just opening underneath the dwarf (I see it as Toady just programmed in the cartoonish flailing of limbs before any drop but that's just me). It's important to note that there is a full 6 steps between where the dwarf appeared at the bottom level and actually hitting the bottom.

So between pulling the lever and taking damage there were 37 steps. From this I guesstimate the equation for how long it takes to fall and hit the ground for a dwarf is: 6Z+7 where Z=the number of z-levels fallen. Feel free to test again and prove me wrong/right.


Water on the other hand is another matter. I truly hope that I was miscounting on one test or the other since it seems water has no 'set' falling speed. On both tests the single 7/7 of water reliably took 10 steps to fall the first level but after that it varied from taking 9 steps to 22. The exact results were:

For the first test: 0 to -1=10, -1 to -2=20, -2 to -3=22, -3 to -4= 21, -4 to -5=21, -5 to dispersing on the ground=10 (the last two results are estimates as I couldn't see when the water arrived at the bottom due to blood from the dwarf test subject )
Total for 1st test: 104

For the second: 0 to -1=10, -1 to -2=17, -2 to -3=21, -3 to -4=9, -4 to -5=18, -5 to dispersing on the ground=21
Total for the 2nd: 96

As you can see, it varies but for the first test at least it stays a pretty average 21. It's just the second that screws me over. I would like some of you people to test this one please as I think I may have counted wrong. I'll test a bit more myself too...

[Xen0n]

Hmmmm, it seems my 3:5 estimate was a little off. Doing the experiment again with only the bottom layer filled  with water (3-z-levels above the landing spot), the dwarf (5 z-levels above the landing platform) hit *just* before and took full damage. He will join his friend in the hospital from the 10 z-level experiment 

It seems to me that the next test I should do is have a block of water and a dwarf fall the same distance and time the fall in ticks. This will be laborious.

I will drop a dwarf 5 z-levels without ANY water to accompany him just to see how fast he does it. I have a feeling there might be inaccuracies so I might have to drop more to their not-quite-deaths. For science, of course.
I will then drop a 7/7 block of water and time the fall as well as drop a two high column and a 3 high column because I have a feeling that might affect things.

brb

Not sure if it'll help, but you could set multiple hatches to drop a dwarf, and some water linked to the same lever and just compare as they fall to save time, right?

[Girlinhat]

In the end, we don't know the falling rate of creatures or fluids.  Once we understand this, it seems simple enough: submerge the dwarf in water, and place a square of water under them X distance, where X relates to the falling rate of water.

Also, if there's a square of un-moving water at the bottom, will the dwarf survive that?

[lanceleoghauni]

if you wanted, you could mod cages so they provide support, then you just capture your nobles BRAVE GEONAUTS in a collapsegun dust cloud, thus cage trapping them, drop the cage/casing into the earth, and lever activate them open.

while we're at it, make an amphibious caste of dwarf and make water give support

[Thatdude]

In the end, we don't know the falling rate of creatures or fluids.  Once we understand this, it seems simple enough: submerge the dwarf in water, and place a square of water under them X distance, where X relates to the falling rate of water.

Also, if there's a square of un-moving water at the bottom, will the dwarf survive that?

I've edited my previous post with some answers to this!

Also, @Xen0n: that would mean making more copies of the rig I have in my world. I cba to do that.

[Sphalerite]

This agrees with my own experiments.  Creatures and objects fall at 1 Z-level per 6 tick.  Water falls at an unpredictable, pseudorandom rate.  Cave-ins fall instantaneously.

[opsneakie]

If you're looking to get surviving dwarves into a submarine, there is a way to do it, a bunch of us tested it quite a while ago. If you magma-cast the right shape, you can drop it into the water, and then mine through the top, allowing a cave-in to plug the tunnel leading to the surface when you're done.

The basic idea is to build a cube of the size you need, and then a 'hammer', a 3x3 pillar of obsidian you can drop onto the top of whatever your dorfs will be living in. Once you hook them um, you simply dig an up/down stair through the center of the hammer, and collapse it, using it to plug the way you came in. Then you have a completely sealed underwater (possibly undermagma, although we didn't test) capsule. I'll see if I can dig up the thread. - well, I can't find it, but the best way to get dorfs underwater is the have them dig down and collapse something to plug it.

[Vicid]

Cave ins include cast cave ins?

Darn.

Well... I can still think of a 'safe' way to drop warriors down.  What if the drop dwarf rode a waterfall down to the ground?  A stream of water that is many Z levels tall (as many as necessary) 

This could be accomplished by having the dwarf stand on a retractable bridge.  Under this bridge is a container of water (how ever many cubic squares it needs to be) and below that is a hatch.  (or maybe he's submerged in water too but still standing on a bridge within the room)

One lever opens the hatch and retracts the bridge.  The hatch opens immediately but as you know the bridge is delayed.  Once the bridge retracts the dwarf falls in the waiting column of water.  He lands the water falls into a drain and he kills people.  Haha I'm desperate   

===

Alternatively maybe a pump could push the warrior down through a metal grate.  Water pushes objects through grates right? How long dose that take?

[Vicid]

If you're looking to get surviving dwarves into a submarine, there is a way to do it, a bunch of us tested it quite a while ago. If you magma-cast the right shape, you can drop it into the water, and then mine through the top, allowing a cave-in to plug the tunnel leading to the surface when you're done.

The basic idea is to build a cube of the size you need, and then a 'hammer', a 3x3 pillar of obsidian you can drop onto the top of whatever your dorfs will be living in. Once you hook them um, you simply dig an up/down stair through the center of the hammer, and collapse it, using it to plug the way you came in. Then you have a completely sealed underwater (possibly undermagma, although we didn't test) capsule. I'll see if I can dig up the thread. - well, I can't find it, but the best way to get dorfs underwater is the have them dig down and collapse something to plug it.

Have you done this? Because it doesn't have to go under water, it simply needs to deliver the dwarf safely to the ground.  How does this sub keep the Z level of water contained within it if cave ins happen instantly but water falls over many steps?