Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Dwarf Mode Discussion => Topic started by: QuantumMenace on January 19, 2011, 08:44:51 pm
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As some of you know, some types of furniture and traps that require a floor do not check for support after built. Constructing a wall, building the furniture on top of it, and removing the wall will leave it hovering.
Curious about what would happen to a sleeping dwarf when his bed suddenly had no floor under it, I tried this. The results: the dwarf falls out of bed, wakes up, and does not get a negative thought from it! The wall can then be rebuilt, allowing the bed to be used again. This has potential for cutting down on the downtime of an important dwarf, but it has limited utility because it takes a while to deconstruct the wall.
The same floor-removal trick also applies to drawbridges, which require a floor on one edge in order to be built. A hovering drawbridge can serve as support for retracting bridges. Anyone up for ominously floating magma cauldrons above your entrance?
Liquids will trigger a pressure plate without a floor under it (haven't tested falling/flying creatures). May be useful for fluid/mechanical logic, where the pressure plate is built at the output of a screw pump, and the water will fall below and clear the tile immediately when the pump stops. Another option is to drop a block of water many z-levels, triggering a pressure plate at each step, perhaps linked to spikes that activate in a wave pattern for an adventurer to try to outrun!
Any other ideas to take advantage of this "feature" while it exists?
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Easily reusable noble elimination device, anyone?
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This could be useful in hospitals, when you need to slightly re-injure dwarves so the doctors re-diagnoses them. Just drop 'em a couple of Z-levels!
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Ain't hard to find a use for such great inventions of dwarven physicists.
Nice job finding it, QuantumMenace.
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especially useful in hospitals. It means I don't have to deactivate and designate a new hospital zone when I want a dwarf to take a short fall.
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the bridge thing is interesting. Also you could build an epic multi-z level window with it, although you could do that anyway by putting in floors.
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Unfortunately, creatures don't seem to be able to see upward/downward through windows even without floors, which ruined my attempt to make a pitted animal spot downward while protected from arrows. Creatures don't even appear to see through floor grates either, for whatever reason.
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If this works for upright spikes, then deep pit traps just got even better. Imagine a goblin falling ten z-levels and encountering 100 spikes along the way.
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I tried it with weapon traps, but all I got was the combat report from the falling impact.
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I tried it with weapon traps, but all I got was the combat report from the falling impact.
Falling creatures or creatures in "projectile mode" are protected from being attacked, targeted, seen, or even magma as long as they are in flight. There was a bug that could result in creatures permanently in this mode (it had something to do with saving the game?) and they would be in stasis. *searches* Link: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=45586.0
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And now, I know what to do with my next hospitals. Best euthanasia method ever! Cheap, easily replaceable, quick to implement, and does not leave big smears of blood/mud/water/magma to be cleaned off (I love magma as much as the next dorf, but that thing is slightly inconvenient when there are burnable things in the room). Sure, it's not as fast as a pull of the lever... unless you make the "floor" chess-patterned and hold walls with supports.
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As some of you know, some types of furniture and traps that require a floor do not check for support after built. Constructing a wall, building the furniture on top of it, and removing the wall will leave it hovering.
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Any other ideas to take advantage of this "feature" while it exists?
I had a wall built over a pit. A cat cage was then placed on top of the wall and hooked up to a lever. The wall was removed. The cat cage stayed floating. I then had a dwarf pull the lever. The cage and mechanism appeared beside where the cage was placed, on solid ground, so they could be retrieved. The cat appeared over the pit. Gravity ensued.
Many of you know how, in order to pit goblins or other dangerous creatures, a dwarf has to remove them from the cage first? You can build the cage next to a hole to minimize the travel distance and the risk of escape, but there is still risk (especially if you are trying to pit goblin snatchers). If you build the cage somewhere and pull a lever to release the contents, you can't put a death trap on the same tile as the cage, so the creature has to walk onto a weapon trap or something to be executed.
The hovering cage feature allows you to pit* any creature that you can cage, 100% risk free*, and even retrieve the cage and mechanism immediately!
*We assume you won't try to pit a flying creature
You could also build floating, troll-safe, war dog dispensers outside.
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Furthermore, I was able to build floating floodgates that open/close with a lever. This may advance dwarven computing or traps, as a floating floodgate would permit fluid flow on all 6 faces/sides.
EDIT: However, when I build floating doors over a 1x1 pit, dwarves and pets "know" that they can't walk through it and path around. I was hoping that they wouldn't notice the open space until they open the door and fall in...
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What about...floating HATCHES!!!
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What about...floating HATCHES!!!
I'm not near my game at the moment, but hatches can already be built over open space, so I suspect they actually bother to check for edge support. Maybe the same for grates.
I just realized that floating floodgates/"bridge walls" could be used in making a better "cave-in cannon" (devices that mix water and magma to form obsidian in midair). Some cave-in cannon designs suffer because the obsidian attaches to the weapon and plugs up the muzzle. Floating bridges or floodgates could support fluids without being able to support obsidian walls, so they couldn't jam.
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Time to drop some dwarfs from 30 z-levels up?
Blood for the Blood God, anyone?
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This is totally ingenious! Floating war dog dispenser is the best idea I've head in awhile, as are hanging cages for prisoners.
Well, except instead of war dogs I would probably use rutherers or draltha. Somehow I always wind up with a lot of those.
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So, I don't see grates on this list... going to have to go try it. If grates can float & support wagons, magma trapps just got cooler (float bridges of grates).
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Unfortunately grates won't float, and fortifications or bridges won't hold them up either.
Another finding: paved roads can float and are walkable.
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Somebody needs to put these findings up on the wiki >>
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More results:
I was able to float a chain (restraint), however the puppy attached to it didn't want to walk around.
You can't float supports. They check for edge support and cause cave-ins. This makes sense, as you can't float walls either.
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I imagine anything that can cause a cave-in by being removed will refuse to float, as they constantly check for support. However, I'm definitely going to be using this. I imagine wave-triggering spike traps should be absolutely gorgeous.
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Remember when you could dig downward staircases in the floor that a workshop occupied? I think if workshops manage to float like these other things do, we could get those glorious days back with constructed ramps. (too lazy to check this myself)
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Floodgates float, by the way. You can have that massive, multiple z-level gate you've always wanted, and other dastardly plans that have stewed in the back of my twisted mind for millenia untold.
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You could theoretically create a floating fortresses out of drawbridges, since they can be used as both walls and floors.
I think I know what my first megaproject will be.
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How did you get a constructed ramp to float?
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You could theoretically create a floating fortresses out of drawbridges, since they can be used as both walls and floors.
Yes, good idea.
Constructed ramps float as well A section of the cavern has collapsed! It's a construction, and checks for support.
ramps ... work when next to adjacent walls (according to the wiki). Drawbridges create walls, so...
Only real walls can be used by ramps. Creatures won't willingly walk onto floodgates, trees, or "bridge walls", but if they fall on them by accident, they can step off onto an adjacent floor.
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You could theoretically create a floating fortresses out of drawbridges, since they can be used as both walls and floors.
Yes, good idea.
Constructed ramps float as well A section of the cavern has collapsed! It's a construction, and checks for support.
ramps ... work when next to adjacent walls (according to the wiki). Drawbridges create walls, so...
Only real walls can be used by ramps. Creatures won't willingly walk onto floodgates, trees, or "bridge walls", but if they fall on them by accident, they can step off onto an adjacent floor.
Yeah, I tried my test again, and I probably had a support I didn't notice still up somewhere. It didn't work with fortifications either (killed a dwarf from a one z level drop, brutally wounded the others that were deconstructing.
You can't support buildings with bridges either (where did I get that idea?), so I guess Dwarves can't really live (productively) on the floating plane of bridges and roads.
How did you get a constructed ramp to float?
By the power of sleep deprivation and supports I didn't notice magic, of course.
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This thread deserves a !!SCIENCE!! award, and a D for dwarfiness.
I'm heading off, going to make it rain goblins now.
EDIT: also, "it's raining cats and dogs" gets a whole new literal meaning
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Prehaps one of those rising water chambers would work, as floodgates and bridges could seal up a chamber that slowly fills with water waterfalled from an unconnected source above the floating fortress, allowing the Dwarves inside to slowly ascend z-levels, with retracting bridges that close underneath the Dwarves, ensuing they continue rising up.
In order to get the Dwarves to leave the chamber (if they don't climb out onto bridges) you could have a floodgate seals the entrance to a "decompression room". When the floodgate is open, the water would flow out into the room, sweeping the dwarf from the "ascension chamber" into the room. After the Dwarf is in the room, the floodgates would seal once again, and a retracting bridge off to the side would open and allow the water to drain back down to the ground, where the external pump system could pump it back up to the top.
Everyone would naturally be adequate+ swimmers.
And as far as food goes, you could drawbridge-launch small animals into a drawbridge wall. Cage traps float, and animals are a renewable resource, so if you embarked with a sizeable number of animals or cage some livestock from the surface, you'd have near infinite food.
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More results:
I was able to float a chain (restraint), however the puppy attached to it didn't want to walk around.
You can't float supports. They check for edge support and cause cave-ins. This makes sense, as you can't float walls either.
Or ever again, for that matter.
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More results:
I was able to float a chain (restraint), however the puppy attached to it didn't want to walk around.
You can't float supports. They check for edge support and cause cave-ins. This makes sense, as you can't float walls either.
Or ever again, for that matter.
Perpetual pressure plate triggers?
When a goblin kills the puppy on the trap, it'd activate whatever trap was kept in check by the pressure plate.
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More results:
I was able to float a chain (restraint), however the puppy attached to it didn't want to walk around.
Or ever again, for that matter.
I tried removing the wall under the restraint and puppy, and it fell 1z onto the floor below without injury. It was then able to walk around on that floor, provided that it stayed within the 3x3 area under the restraint floating above it's head (it was still listed as being chained and assigned). It only never moved anywhere when it was on the same z-level as the restraint.
It's easier to make a perpetual pressure plate trigger with a "tightly closed" door that goblins can open (but the puppy can't!), and a fortification or window to allow the goblins to see/shoot the puppy.
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It was a joke, guys. I was inferring that you hung the puppy.
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I must do my own science now. what happens if you restrain an animal multiple z levels up and remove the wall? how far will the puppy fall without damage when connected to a chain? will edit this post with results.
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I must do my own science now. what happens if you restrain an animal multiple z levels up and remove the wall? how far will the puppy fall without damage when connected to a chain? will edit this post with results.
From my tests, it appears that the animal will become free from the chain the moment it moves more than 1 tile away from the chain in any direction.
Chains in DF work by mind control. They don't physically restrict the attached animal at all. All a chain does is prevent the attached animal from voluntarily moving more than one tile away, they don't do anything to prevent any other force from moving the animal away. Furthermore, it appears that if you force an animal to move away from a chain by pushing it with water or removing the ground under it, it becomes impossible to assign anything else to the chain without first deconstructing and then rebuilding the chain.
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I must do my own science now. what happens if you restrain an animal multiple z levels up and remove the wall? how far will the puppy fall without damage when connected to a chain? will edit this post with results.
From my tests, it appears that the animal will become free from the chain the moment it moves more than 1 tile away from the chain in any direction.
Chains in DF work by mind control. They don't physically restrict the attached animal at all. All a chain does is prevent the attached animal from voluntarily moving more than one tile away, they don't do anything to prevent any other force from moving the animal away. Furthermore, it appears that if you force an animal to move away from a chain by pushing it with water or removing the ground under it, it becomes impossible to assign anything else to the chain without first deconstructing and then rebuilding the chain.
strange. from my tests they become a squishy mess at the bottom of the drop (fall damage, as expected, is still calculated), but are still registered as attached to the chain.This attachment does not seem to be limited by drop height, although I can't say for certain if they will break free if they try to move away from the restraint.
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strange. from my tests they become a squishy mess at the bottom of the drop (fall damage, as expected, is still calculated), but are still registered as attached to the chain.This attachment does not seem to be limited by drop height, although I can't say for certain if they will break free if they try to move away from the restraint.
Are they attached to it, or just assigned? When you move the cursor over the chain, does it say 'Assigned: Puppy' and 'Chained: Puppy', or just 'Assigned: Puppy'?
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strange. from my tests they become a squishy mess at the bottom of the drop (fall damage, as expected, is still calculated), but are still registered as attached to the chain.This attachment does not seem to be limited by drop height, although I can't say for certain if they will break free if they try to move away from the restraint.
Are they attached to it, or just assigned? When you move the cursor over the chain, does it say 'Assigned: Puppy' and 'Chained: Puppy', or just 'Assigned: Puppy'?
if they're still alive, chained. death does 'free' them, but if they survive the fall they are still chained. nor do they seem inclined to move away from the restraint, though I can't be sure if they cant or simply haven't yet.