Bay 12 Games Forum

We've all heard of fortresses inside magma vents that you can drop with the pull of a lever. I suggest making one that rebuilds itself.

Build a water tower three z-levels high adjacent to the magma vent. Three floors above the ground, build walls where you want your rooms (that is, inside your rooms). On the second floor, build a wall where you want your stairwell, and on each adjacent tile (not counting corners). Attach those to the water tower via the z-level four above the magma vent. On both those floors, fill all the space without walls (where the walls will be on the completed tower) with retracting bridges. Build walls around where the tower will be. Leave a space for the water tower. Hanging down from the walls for the stairwell, build the stairwell itself. Optionally, build magma-safe bars for the floor adjacent to the stairs. If you don't, dwarves can still go between the stairs and building diagonally. Build a hatch on the bottom of the starwell, and one on each adjacent tile. Two levels below where the stairwell ends, build a floor up to one tile before the building. Then build a support on the last built tile, and build a floor on it and between it and the tower. There may be a better way to do that last step. It's intended as a the part that drops the tower. Build a bridge up to the tower on the surface of the vent.

I will leave the required dwarf computer up to you. Here is how the operation will go:

• First, the magma vent is emptied so there is no magma in the z-level directly under the stairwell, but there is just below that.
• The second and third stories above the vent are filled with water.
• The retracting bridges on the second story open.
• Wait until the magma fills another level.
• The retracting bridges on the third story open.
• Wait until the magma fills another level.
• Go to step 2 until the highest floor is built.
• If you want a roof, go to step 2 again, but only use the second story.
• Open the hatches.
• Drain the magma vent at least two stories below where you did the first time so there's at least one empty space between the building and the magma.
• Wait for all the magma to drain out of the building.
• Close the hatches.
• Wait until you want to drop the tower.
• Destroy the support.
• Rebuild the support.
• Go to step 1.

Unfortunately, I'm to lazy and undwarven to do it myself. Any volunteers?

Edit: realized you don't need a retracting bridge at the bottom.

I don't think that's how it works. I think it's more like they'll send you twice as much if you pay twice as much. They should change that to allow you to increase how much you'll pay by more, but I don't think it should be the same system as this.

What does this have to do with trading sand?

Also, you should probably have to have a sufficiently good relationship with the civ you do these trades with.

Come to think of it, this kind of trading would probably be the most necessary to have a liaison, as you need someone you know and trust to actually get the item rather than just taking your money and leaving.

On the wiki there are links to three IRCs. I suggest using one of those. That's what I did.

Replace the floodgates with drawbridges.

For the record: The real Knife Eye Attack. That picture was just Dan McNinja guessing from the name.

I think you can change it so dwarfs wear large clothing.

Would it just be multiple world maps, or are you suggesting some kind of space fortress? Of course, this would happen after the army and caravan arcs, so the space travel would still be involved.

The game currently gives numbers to groups of mutually accessible tiles. It would be possible for the game to also remember sets of potentially accessible groups, where pulling of a lever would allow access. This way, if a dwarf can't pathfind somewhere because he's in the wrong area, the game could check if that area is potentially accessible, and, if so, see if any levers allowing access are accessible. If so, the dwarf pulls the lever.

The problem here is that the dwarf would leave the door wide open. Because it is now on the other side of the door, he can't pull the lever again without leaving. If they add logical operators to the levers, which would allow you to attach two levers to one door, he could close it again, but if you're using a drawbride, or even a retracting bridge, this is a potentially fatal action, and should only be done with care.

If we also add alarms, you could get crazy things where the dwarf pulls a lever to extend the bridge, crosses the bridge, pulls another lever which rings a bell that warns the dwarves to leave the bridge, and then retracts it.