Did you first verify that the pressure plate would trigger if a puppy stood on it normally? The minimum weight on pressure plates can be weird, a puppy might not be enough to trigger it.
Set the weight as low as it will go. Set the pressure plate to be triggered by civilians. Then, pasture a puppy on the pressure plate to make sure that it's actually triggering when a puppy stands on it. Then pasture the puppy on the elevated floor hatch and do the drop test.
Don't forget to check that a live puppy not falling to his doom will also set off such a plate of course.
Don't forget to check that a live puppy not falling to his doom will also set off such a plate of course.
I'm not sure if I follow the logic here. So... how do we kill the puppies?
Don't forget to check that a live puppy not falling to his doom will also set off such a plate of course.
I'm not sure if I follow the logic here. So... how do we kill the puppies?
Well, they're falling on the pressure plate.
I regret to inform the community that the mass murder of puppies does not create a viable clock.
or a caged goblin if you really want flesh in the mix - fill the bottom plate with magma, include the slower drop rate of the cage through the magma in the calculation, and you've got a clock that still kills stuff.
maybe we'll have to skip killing puppies but we can still get our clock
Alternative idea:Hmm.
Place the puppy on a pressure plate. Have the pressure plate near the top of a large chamber that is slowly filling with magma. When the magma reaches the puppy, it will die, un-triggering the pressure plate. This will activate a mechanism that drains the magma from the chamber, and then drops a fresh puppy on the pressure plate, restarting the cycle.
It may be necessary to use a pump to remove the magma from the pressure plate tile so that a 1/7 pool of magma is not left behind. Magma can take a long, random time to evaporate, so we cannot simply have a fixed delay before dropping another puppy.
The problem will come in developing a means to fill the magma chamber at a controlled, consistent rate.
Really, would any of us feel like we truly succeeded, if we created a Dwarven device which accurately measured time but did NOT consistently and mercilessly slaughter innocent animals? I fear that each time it tolled out the hour, some part of our souls would mournfully yearn: "A puppy should have died just now, but didn't."
I like both Xen0n's and SuicideJunkie's ideas
i also hate youtube for being a fucking enabler for copyright monkeys - i cant see that damn video cause its blocked in my country
THEIR LOSS
Really, would any of us feel like we truly succeeded, if we created a Dwarven device which accurately measured time but did NOT consistently and mercilessly slaughter innocent animals? I fear that each time it tolled out the hour, some part of our souls would mournfully yearn: "A puppy should have died just now, but didn't."
lol sooo siged.
I had some more thoughts on the original concept.
The problem with the timing scheme in the OP is that the puppies die on impact before they can trigger the pressure plate. There are a few ways around this.
The first option is to have the puppy fall through a column of water or magma instead of air. As far as I know, creatures fall through liquid at the same speed as through air, but are cushioned from falling damage. The puppy will fall, hit the pressure plate, trigger it, and then drown or be incinerated.
The problem with this is the bug which causes creatures falling into magma to sometimes be immune to heat damage after landing. The puppy might also be able to swim to the surface instead of drowning.
The other option would be to isolate some hostile and dangerous creature, preferably one with trap-immune, on the pressure plate. A captive titan or forgotten beast would work. The puppy will land on it. Both the puppy and the target creature will be stunned but otherwise unhurt, and the pressure plate will trigger. Then the target creature will kill the puppy, and the pressure plate will un-trigger.
In either case, the time the puppy takes to die after hitting the pressure plate is unpredictable, so the event you need to use for timing is from when the puppy is dropped to when it hits and triggers the pressure plate.
At any rate the dropping onto another creature should definitely work. We could even combine some of the ideas, and have the puppy drop onto a tame kitten (who is deposited onto the puppy-detecting pressure plate beforehand via a duplicate, parallel animal delivering system), and then have magma/water pour onto both to reset it. The kittens would be the primers and the puppies are the triggers for the device.
I had some more thoughts on the original concept.
The problem with the timing scheme in the OP is that the puppies die on impact before they can trigger the pressure plate. There are a few ways around this.
The first option is to have the puppy fall through a column of water or magma instead of air. As far as I know, creatures fall through liquid at the same speed as through air, but are cushioned from falling damage. The puppy will fall, hit the pressure plate, trigger it, and then drown or be incinerated.
The problem with this is the bug which causes creatures falling into magma to sometimes be immune to heat damage after landing. The puppy might also be able to swim to the surface instead of drowning.
The other option would be to isolate some hostile and dangerous creature, preferably one with trap-immune, on the pressure plate. A captive titan or forgotten beast would work. The puppy will land on it. Both the puppy and the target creature will be stunned but otherwise unhurt, and the pressure plate will trigger. Then the target creature will kill the puppy, and the pressure plate will un-trigger.
In either case, the time the puppy takes to die after hitting the pressure plate is unpredictable, so the event you need to use for timing is from when the puppy is dropped to when it hits and triggers the pressure plate.
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b^bd
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b is raising bridge, d is any piece of destructible furniture, trapavoid BD enters from the left
For that matter, why not have a pasture on top of a pressure plate, where the puppy activates the plate, then a stonefall trap far above kills the puppy, releasing the plate? Wiki says plates disengage after 100 ticks.
I don't understand - is the kitten to cushion the puppy's fall or to activate the pressure plate, leaving the plate to be deactivated when the puppy falls on top of the kitten and kills it?
For that matter, why not have a pasture on top of a pressure plate, where the puppy activates the plate, then a stonefall trap far above kills the puppy, releasing the plate? Wiki says plates disengage after 100 ticks.
Dropping rocks on puppies must be almost as good as dropping puppies on rocks.
EDIT: Or the stone would block the pressure plate. >.>
What might be interesting is to drop fish onto a kobold in a semi-submerged space
If DF is anything like real life, then everything falls at a constant rate.
Dear Armok, what monster have I brought forth?
This is excellent, actually.
Dear Armok, what monster have I brought forth?
This is excellent, actually.
This is what Toady thought when hemade Dwarf Fortress and Bay12Opened the Bay12 Forums.
If DF is anything like real life, then everything falls at a constant rate.
I'm sorry, but I have to nitpick here. The rate at which something falls is not constant until it hits terminal velocity, and even then, it can change somewhat if the shape of the object changes.