quote:
Originally posted by Shadowlord:
I tried that. The pressure plate never activated, even though the tile was flashing 7/7 momentarily as water dropped on it from below. The system in question consisted of a 1x1 room with a water 1-7 pressure plate, a pump pumping water out of that tile, another pump taking water from the first pump's output and outputting it two z-levels above the 1x1 room, creating an endless cycle. (The pumps were powered by windmills above) The only problem was that the pressure plates never triggered.
Depending on your design the triggerpoint which the waterlevel oscillates around will vary. It's all about building it and observing (or trial and error). I like how you've left out chance in your trigger though, with the hatch and all.
At the time of posting earlier in this thread I hadn't tested the design as upon hooking the pumps up to the windmill I discovered my testmap had no wind. I did however find time later on to power it by waterpower and it works (impaling packs of mandrills). The rather crude automated trap looks like this:
From left to right:
Z+1
A waterreservoir with floor hatches covering the left part. The hatches are triggered by creature on the floor below.
Z+0
A bit of bait to the south. Any creature triggering the plate will wash into the channel on the right. A trapfence extends in both directions to herd animals and creatures through. The door is usually locked unless the trap is used in said trapfence configuration. The bridge to the north retracts as a wall once the trap is sprung to reduce leaks.
Z-1
3-5 wooden spikes per tile, all triggered by the plate on this level. The plate keeps triggering as long as there's still some water left on the level. Ignore the righthand side of this level as the change of powersolution caused a waterleak coming in through the gears from above.
The original idea of the trap was to sweep creatures into a tunnel where the only exit of the tunnel went through my fortress. That way if I placed weapontraps at my end of the tunnel I wouldn't have to haul creatures very far at all, they would come to me, and there would be little risk of injury. A bit like the elephant farm someone had in the previous version.
There's alot of room for improvement on this design. The middle level could have more plates installed to only open relevant hatches for instance. The bridge to the north could be replaced with a grate to encourage more creatures to enter even when the trap is processing a victim. Also, the bait (a wooden corkscrew) could be expanded to contain an animal in an inner room to also attract siegers if placed along the edge.
[ December 02, 2007: Message edited by: Merlon ]
