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[knutor]

Has this been proposed? 

.........................xxx
.........................xxx
..CxxxxPxxxHHxxxxxx
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. open
x land

Pen/Pasture a kitty(C) on an outcropped cliff(x).  Put a pressure plate(P) in an unavoidable path to kitty.  And on that path, place two hatches(H), such that when pressure plate is triggered the first H opens.  As pressure plate resets, H does not reset.  Next time the villain triggers pressure plate, the other H opens.  Leaving a 1x2 gap.  The villain will be able to kill the kitty, but not leave the outcropped cliff.  No matter how many times the villain steps on the plate, the hatches never reset.  This will lock the villain on the outcrop. 

Maybe set two levers somewhere, linked to both hatches to reset the capture trap, after ya plink it safely to death from a safe distance.  This won't work with ranged or flying villains, however. Only ground pounder melee types.  I haven't tried it, I'm gonna test and see if it works.  Have you done anything like it?

Sincerely,
Knutor

[CapnUrist]

I assume that the land there is supported underneath in some way.

Seems like an idea, but too much involvement for too little gain; you're unlikely to get more than two or three invaders on a small outcropping, which doesn't help much against a siege. Maybe with several of these, but it would mean sacrificing a high number of animals for the same gain as one animal in a spiral of walls filled with weapon traps.

[knutor]

Your right. The ends don't justify the means.  Too much is going into this, but ya have to admit, that it would trap a Forbidden Beast, until ranged damage overcame its regenerativenesses.  Thanks for reply.

Sincrely,
Knutor

[Aspgren]

It's needlessly complicated and a hazard to cats.

I'll take twenty!

[i2amroy]

I'm just a little confused on your idea here. You are proposing that you hook a resetting pressure plate up to a hatch, but then you state that the hatch doesn't reset with the pressure plate, which is currently impossible. The only way that you could currently make this work would be to set up a non-resetting pressure plate that you then rebuilt after every time the trap was triggered. You might also be able to get it to work by connecting it to some other weird logic system, but all in all it would be a fair piece of work to accomplish, much more then it would take to just rebuild the trap each time. Also I would like to point out that the very first thing that a troll on your map is going to do is walk up to the far edge of the cliff and destroy the hatches on the non-cat side of the trap.

As for creating something similar to this, the closest I have gotten is a trap specially designed to trap invaders riding mounts, megabeasts, titans, and other large creatures. What you do is create a large gap and then instead of bridging it straight across, you create ten or so bridges sideways over the gap. When the lever is triggered all of the bridges are told to retract, however if any of them have a creature too large on them they fail to retract. The end result is that the large creature is stranded on a bridge sticking out from the side of a large gap, making them perfect targets and virtually harmless (a few types of material breath will get around this unfortunately).

[Nil Eyeglazed]

Hope this reply isn't too late.  On break from DF, just checking in on forums every couple of months.

What you propose is possible (assuming your ground is supported by layers underneath) but it won't catch FBs.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  First, FBs don't trigger pressure plates (nor does anything with the trapavoid tag).  Second, most (all?) FBs are building destroyers, and rather than walk over the hatch, they'll destroy the hatch.

It is possible to make one-use resettable pressure plates, using water or creature logic.  However, that's kind of needlessly complicated, because a very simple alternative exists.

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 cx^hx
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top view; . is open space, c is cat, x is ground, h is hatch over channel, ^ is pressure plate linked to hatch

It's not necessary for the hatch to not reset, because delay to trigger a hatch is zero.  The bad guy goes to kill the cat, tries to return, and finds path blocked.  It will be unable to path off of your peninsula.  You send out marksdwarves at your leisure, the bad guy dies, the hatch closes, you rebait the trap.

If your end goal is FB trapping, it is possible, but it requires using a bridge instead of a hatch, using a stationary domestic to trigger a pressure plate, signal inversion, and a very long peninsula to make up for the latency involved in bridges, pressure plate deactivation, and signal inversion.  Simpler confinement traps can be made for building destroyers if you have appropriate artifact furniture.

[Loud Whispers]

I'll think I'll stick with my over-the-top ground collapsing traps, kittens involved.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In a 2D view

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Walls :D

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(Ground level support)

c^#####
cat, pressure plate and floor grates.
(Ramp placed somewhere suitably).

baddy walks up to cat, triggers pressure plate, support buckles over, grates deconstruct, baddy is now penned inside your walls. (Walls have to be in a minimum 7x7).

Inefficient, a pain to reset and build, but using 3 I had captured 2 titan's and a demon leader, ALIVE.
A bit tricky getting them out though :d


[Iton Ibrukrithzam]

Your right. The ends don't justify the means.  Too much is going into this, but ya have to admit, that it would trap a Forbidden Beast, until ranged damage overcame its regenerativenesses.  Thanks for reply.

Sincrely,
Knutor

It wouldn't trap a forgotten beast in the current design.  However, replace the hatches with a drawbridge linked to a lever inside your fort, and be sure to cap it off with walls and a ceiling(in case they can fly), and then it would catch FBs.  You'd have to watch it and actually pull the lever manually, so it's a bit more hassle but also more reliable.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

It wouldn't trap a forgotten beast in the current design.  However, replace the hatches with a drawbridge linked to a lever inside your fort, and be sure to cap it off with walls and a ceiling(in case they can fly), and then it would catch FBs.  You'd have to watch it and actually pull the lever manually, so it's a bit more hassle but also more reliable.
[/quote]

And the length of the path has to be much longer to make up for unpredictable timing of the lever pull.  You could get around that by having a few dedicated lever pullers on duty, or by using a high speed creature logic switch.

I mentioned the possibility of using artifact furniture to build a FB confinement trap-- that has the advantage of being very compact (tested on clowns with an artifact hatch cover, not on FBs, and I'm not confident that all FBs are BD2 anymore), can capture any number of BD2 baddies, and is easily resettable.  (Highly recommended for circus colonization efforts because confinement is SO much more convenient than violence for that-- can't wall off when they spawn as fast as you kill them.)

I'll think I'll stick with my over-the-top ground collapsing traps, kittens involved.

How does that work?  Aren't both titans and clown invaders trapavoid?  They shouldn't be setting off the pressure plate-- and if they're BD, aren't they just destroying the grates as soon as they have path?  Have to confess I don't understand the diagram though; are the grates and plate built on top of the support?

[Loud Whispers]

It wouldn't trap a forgotten beast in the current design.  However, replace the hatches with a drawbridge linked to a lever inside your fort, and be sure to cap it off with walls and a ceiling(in case they can fly), and then it would catch FBs.  You'd have to watch it and actually pull the lever manually, so it's a bit more hassle but also more reliable.

And the length of the path has to be much longer to make up for unpredictable timing of the lever pull.  You could get around that by having a few dedicated lever pullers on duty, or by using a high speed creature logic switch.

I mentioned the possibility of using artifact furniture to build a FB confinement trap-- that has the advantage of being very compact (tested on clowns with an artifact hatch cover, not on FBs, and I'm not confident that all FBs are BD2 anymore), can capture any number of BD2 baddies, and is easily resettable.  (Highly recommended for circus colonization efforts because confinement is SO much more convenient than violence for that-- can't wall off when they spawn as fast as you kill them.)

I'll think I'll stick with my over-the-top ground collapsing traps, kittens involved.

How does that work?  Aren't both titans and clown invaders trapavoid?  They shouldn't be setting off the pressure plate-- and if they're BD, aren't they just destroying the grates as soon as they have path?  Have to confess I don't understand the diagram though; are the grates and plate built on top of the support?
[/quote]

All of mine have had at least 3 wide grates, as soon as they saw the kitten they ignored the grates and rushed to the kitten, kitten jumps on pressure plate....

[stormtemplar]

It's needlessly complicated and a hazard to cats.

I'll take twenty!

Sigged

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

An easier way to do this is with a bait animal and a bridge.
How? Well, it's simple. Build a 1-tile raising bridge(any direction, it doesn't matter) at the entrance, and then attach a pressure plate to it from the inside of the 'cage'. The plate should be 1-time use, otherwise the creature could escape. Attaching a lever to the bridge is a smart idea, too.
Here's a diagram: (W=wall, ^=Pressure plate, B=Bridge, A=Bait animal, >=Entrance, O=Empty Space)

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WWWWW
>BOAW
WWWWW
It's a surefire way to capture any creature, provided they have line of sight and have no ranged attacks.

[NonconsensualSurgery]

An easier way to do this is with a bait animal and a bridge.
How? Well, it's simple. Build a 1-tile raising bridge(any direction, it doesn't matter) at the entrance, and then attach a pressure plate to it from the inside of the 'cage'. The plate should be 1-time use, otherwise the creature could escape. Attaching a lever to the bridge is a smart idea, too.
Here's a diagram: (W=wall, ^=Pressure plate, B=Bridge, A=Bait animal, >=Entrance, O=Empty Space)

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WWWWW
>BOAW
WWWWW
It's a surefire way to capture any creature, provided they have line of sight and have no ranged attacks.

PURRcat{bridge1}[plate1]RAWRmegabeast[plate2]{bridge2}Rest of Fortress

Link plate 1 to bridge 1 and plate 2 to bridge 2. The creature will enter, then path back and forth endlessly as the bridges constantly open and close. Remember that no creature can destroy buildings from below, so if you build the pacing chamber down a level and have the bridges close from above then you can contain anything except [TRAPAVOID] things like clowns that will not activate pressure plates.

Also,

PURRcat{bridge1}{bridge2}[plate1]Goblins!

Dig a pit under where you want the bridges to be. Both bridges (you do need two) retract before the invaders reach the other side. Some goblins wind up in the pit below and others are stuck standing on the pressure plates just before the bridges, holding the bridge open. As you pick the leading goblins off with siege equipment or archers, the bridge will cycle rapidly and each time it closes the goblins will surge forward only to have the bridge disappear from under them.

[GaxkangtheUnbound]

Alternatively, have the bridges raise towards each other. Sandwich machine, anyone?

[Nan]

The easiest way to do this would be to exploit the fact that retracting bridges block passage in their default state, and allow passage when activated by a pressure plate (that is, when going up or down ramps or staircases).
Channel a single tile on flat land, then dig a suitably long horizontal shaft. At the end of the shaft, build the pressure plate and pasture the bait animal on top of it. Build a retracting bridge over the entrance ramp and link the retracting bridge to the pressure plate. Seal off the secondary access used to pasture the animal and the trap is ready.

Now when a creature goes in to kill the bait, the bait will move off the pressure plate, the bridge returns to it's default state - un-retracted, and the victim(s) will be sealed in.