What kind of weapons do you use for your weapon traps? And how many weapons do you usually put in a weapon trap to ensure a good, if not perfect kill ratio?
Every path into my fortress you have to go past at least two traps filled with a total of at least 6 swords and at least 3 bone xbows. I tend to fill traps with no more then one or two bone xbow and no more then three shortswords. the shortswords are usually first in line for them to go through. I havent seen anything but kobolds and my own creatures (dwarves and pets and livestock) get through any of my lines.
When I make traps, I make a staggered 25% dither pattern like the following:
code:
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
^...^...^
..^...^..
^...^...^
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
That way, only a few of the bad guys hit the traps, and I'm set in case Toady decides to go through with implementing my oft-requested "can't walk over set traps" feature. ;-)
Only one weapon allowed per trap.
[ March 25, 2007: Message edited by: JT ]
I have seen one or two things survive walking into one of these, but they die within seconds after.
I end up with something like this:
trap 1: 3 swords
trap 2: 3 swords
trap 3: xbow
trap 4: xbow
trap 5: xbow
besides, I have never had the game crash from out of ammo messages... and I also have a single craftsdwarf doing nothing but cranking out bone bolts... good way of using the extra bones I always end up getting piled up in my indoor refuse pile. I never run out once that dwarf gets caught up with the demand for them, last fortress I made I ended up with about 20 bins filled with nothing but bone xbow bolts.
~edit~
JT, not every person playing this game relishes in blood gore and war. I personally am an engineer at heart, so I love engineering the fortress. I also love being able to have an agrarian society, no need for a military (save a couple for kobolds et al). If i want to focus on killing, I could always play the multitude of games out there that let me do that, one of the newest being Supreme Commander (which is great by the way).
[ March 25, 2007: Message edited by: Jaqie ]
Which does remind me that we don't have enough dwarf-versus-dwarf political strife going on...
quote:
Originally posted by schnobs:
<STRONG>I end up with a large army mostly because I find it difficult to keep all dwarfes occupied. Once you've made all the armor, set all the traps, furnished all rooms... not that I never played that far. But based on current experience I'd say once you no longer have to keep up with a growing society, a workforce of maybe 60 dwarves all told is enough to keep the place running. Maybe even less. The rest can be nobles or army, I wouldn't know how to busy them otherwise.</STRONG>
Right now I'm facing a food and drink problem. My dwarves eat all the food at a constant rate, and I have two stills set on repeated brew with several brewmeisters and I keep teetering around 10 drinks, never able to get past that mark. I think my dwarves drink and eat alot more than any other dwarf fortress out there, hehe.
My current setup is 3 spiked balls per trap, but that is probably overkill. Especially since they are all masterpiece iron, heh heh... Tons of leftover iron after all the goblin sieges. What else do I do with it all but make legendary weaponsmiths and churn out masterwork trap components?
I even have masterwork iron mechanisms on them all - I don't know if that is why, but I VERY rarely see anything get past the first row of them. An entire goblin siege died on a single row of traps. They never seem to get stuck, and nothing ever moves after hitting them.
quote:
Originally posted by Kylaer:
<STRONG>I generally put 2-3 regular weapons (not specific trap components) per trap. Warhammers, shortswords, and spears, typically, since those are the weapons I mass-produce. I don't make bone crossbows, I prefer metal ones, and certainly wouldn't make crossbow traps, since they need to be reloaded, whereas a warhammer trap will work over and over, with occasional cleaning.</STRONG>
I agree, crossbow traps are just a hassle. You alays have that thought in the back of your mind "but what happens when we DO run out..what do we do then... .WHAT THE HELL DO WE DO THEN!!" Not to mention the annoyingly long time it requires even the greatest of mechanics to load a crossbow traps, and don't even get me started on single bolt stocks.
I use bone bolts to train my army of marksdwarves. And before my fortress fell to the might of mixed up data folders forcing it to be deleted, i had a standing army of 11 elite marksdwarves, several of which were legendary, and maybe only 1 of them had actually "seen action", the rest were chipping away at my target ranges with bone bolts.
Any combination of:
- Goblin/kobold/attacker weaponry
- Metalsmith training weapons (bronze/copper/silver)
- Obsidian Short Swords
- Trap components
I only use 'better' quality mechanisms. This of course relative to the mechanisms available at any given time.
I don't worry too much about exactly what is in any given trap, unless it is at a critical point. Four weapons will generally kill anything.
quote:
how many weapons do you usually put in a weapon trap to ensure a good, if not perfect kill ratio?
Only one, but I make up for it with lots of traps. I've never tested, but I've generally assumed that the 'jam' test occurs for every individual weapon firing, so a trap with four weapons is more likely to jam than a trap with only one. So, if true, four traps with a single weapon each is somewhat better than one trap with four.
quote:
What kind of weapons do you use for your weapon traps?
I tend to not go out of my way to produce weapons for traps, so I mostly use whatever is available, and I use a lot of stonefall traps. Certainly there are reasons to NOT do this, but it works for me. Stonefall traps seem to do a lot of damage, and it's so much easier to supply stone to fill a 5x30 anti-siege entry hall, than to make 150 weapons to do the same. I mostly only use weapon traps at chokepoints. For example:
code:Weapon Stonefall Weapon
|Traps Traps Traps
| | |
v v v
#######################
^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^#####
^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^+ + +
^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^#####
#######################
That way, the weapon traps on either side will take out the casual group of ratmen, or the occassional elephant, without having to reload anything, but the stonefall traps provide a great deal of stopping power if anything serious comes along.
Bucket Man
quote:
Originally posted by LordBucket:
<STRONG>code:Weapon Stonefall Weapon
|Traps Traps Traps
| | |
v v v
</STRONG>
Hey, that looks familiar. Only that in my case the layers of weapon traps are a bit thicker. And I hope and pray that nothing ever comes reaches the stone-fall traps. They are, in fact, just one means to despose of stone and the thought that someday it might become necessary to reload them is rather frightening.
quote:
Originally posted by Paul:
<STRONG>I like using spiked balls. They kill things without chopping them up, so the bodies are just 1 item and not a messy pile of limbs. When I used the large serrated discs before, I would have a couple goblin thieves come by and my dwarves would fill my entire refuse pile with arms, legs, hands, feet, heads, lower bodies, upper bodies, etc. With spiked balls I just look over and see a pile of 4 bodies, instead of 40 assorted parts.</STRONG>
quote:
Originally posted by Paul:
<STRONG>I like using spiked balls. They kill things without chopping them up, so the bodies are just 1 item and not a messy pile of limbs. When I used the large serrated discs before, I would have a couple goblin thieves come by and my dwarves would fill my entire refuse pile with arms, legs, hands, feet, heads, lower bodies, upper bodies, etc. With spiked balls I just look over and see a pile of 4 bodies, instead of 40 assorted parts.
</STRONG>
Thats the part I enjoy the most about sieges, seeing the parts fly around =D
My traps are filled with at least 3 dismembering kind of weapons. That's if I put any traps at all. I'd rather have a standing army to protect my fortress though. I just keep 2-3 squads per location to guard various places around the fortress all year long (rotating between seasons so they don't complain).
quote:
Originally posted by LordBucket:
<STRONG>Only one, but I make up for it with lots of traps. I've never tested, but I've generally assumed that the 'jam' test occurs for every individual weapon firing, so a trap with four weapons is more likely to jam than a trap with only one. So, if true, four traps with a single weapon each is somewhat better than one trap with four.
</STRONG>
i think this is wrong. i used single weapon traps when my fortress was poor, and i found that they needed cleaning all the time.
then i started using tripple-bronze-disc traps, and i never had to clean them, because the corpses were chopped into such little bits and flung out of the traps.
one row of these would be good enough, except that traps have a "reload" time and large hords can overwhelm even the best traps.
3 rows seems to be quite sufficient, though. especially if you leave some gaps between rows.
edit: my latest thing is using warhammers in traps, because i want to see enemies flung about and slamed against walls and made to explode. havent had a chance to see them in action yet, though. and sadly, dwarfs cant dwarfufacture any Mauls...
[ March 27, 2007: Message edited by: puke ]
I've had whole lines of enemys swarm over a single trap and pile up on it, and I think it may be because I am using masterpiece mechanisms. Or it could be the masterpiece trap components. Either way, quality seems to make a big difference.
For instance, my chasming hall leading to the chasm where all the ratmen invade from has a single trap on it, and I frequently get a pile of ratmen corpses on it before my haulers start dragging them off. I have yet to have a ratman get past it. One time my refuse pile was full and I ended up with an entire invasion of ratmen, around 35, all piled up on that one tile.
quote:
Originally posted by Paul:
<STRONG>One time my refuse pile was full and I ended up with an entire invasion of ratmen, around 35, all piled up on that one tile.</STRONG>
You better order your craftsdwarves to make those little green pine trees, cause things are about to get NASTY!
quote:
Originally posted by puke:
<STRONG>i thought you had to trade with the elves for those?</STRONG>
Hehehe, nicely put. Anyway, I really really appreciate everyone's input, and I have decided to, for now, make a few traps consisting of three obsidian short swords each, and those spiked balls later. Also, ColonelTEE3, what you said had me cracking up, thanks :D