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[Urist Da Vinci]

Reference posts:
Internal physics of minecarts:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=112831.msg3536975#msg3536975
Velocities of falling creatures:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=117154.msg3751309#msg3751309
Exploding grizzly bears with a watergun:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=119831.msg3839178#msg3839178
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=119831.msg3841445#msg3841445

Device description:
1. Make an "exploit ramp" linear minecart accelerator, ideally 30-50 tiles long. At the "muzzle" end should be a 1-tile-long hole, followed by a fortification (this allows a minecart to pass through the fortification because it is airborne). On the far side of the fortification should be a 1-3 tile long space (a hallway or room) in which is the victim. There needs to be a solid wall just behind the victim.
2. Load a single supermassive minecart. A platinum minecart full of platinum stuff, native platinum boulders, or if possible cheat-mined slade boulders. Anything to increase the cart's mass. Bonus points to readers who can come up with heavier carts.
3. The cart accelerates down the track and strikes the victim. Minecart collisions roughly preserve momentum, so if the cart is heavier than the victim, the victim gets tossed really fast. This can cause the victim to "slam into an obstacle and blow apart".

Mechanics:
If the victim strikes a surface at velocity 200000 or faster, it will blow apart (tested in arena using DFHack to modify velocity).

I modded minecarts to hold very large volumes of stuff, and then filled a minecart in arena mode with several giant sperm whale corpses. I then used DFHack to accelerate the minecart to velocity 270000:

The iron minecart strikes Giant Sperm Whale 2 in the upper body, bruising the muscle and bruising the left lung!
The Giant Sperm Whale 2 slams into an obstacle and blows apart!
Giant Sperm Whale 2 has died after colliding with an obstacle.

So the physics is there, waiting to be exploited. This weapon should kill anything that can die from decapitation, instantly.

A platinum minecart full of 5 native platinum boulders weighs 11556 kg.
A platinum minecart full of 5 slade boulders weighs 100856 kg.

Giants weigh up to about 14000 kg as measured in the arena (but many are less). Giants are size 9000000 creatures.
Giant sperm whales (size 200000000) weigh around 300000 kg. See http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:List_of_creatures_by_adult_size

So platinum boulders would allow you to explode most non-megabeast creatures. Slade boulders would allow you to explode organic megabeasts and organic FBs/Titans, but not whales or inorganic large creatures.

Fun Falling Mechanics:
air accelerate 4900/tick
water deaccelerate 5700/tick
magma deaccelerate 8100/tick

26+ z-levels to blow apart in 41+ ticks
50+ z-levels to max velocity in 56+ ticks

So if you fall 10z, and land in water shallower than 10z deep, falling damage happens
Water needs to be 44z deep to stop damage from a fall from any height

EDIT:

I just verified that a few cages containing large numbers of massive creatures can be loaded into a minecart, bypassing the volume restrictions on minecarts, and allowing any fort with sufficient caged creature mass to build the above weapon. The downside (upside?) is that the caged creatures will be released on impact due to the shotgun effect. The creatures need not be tame or friendly, just heavy. This isn't necessary for smashing humanoids like goblins, since an empty iron minecart is sufficiently heavy to explode them.

[Silicoid]

I just verified that a few cages containing large numbers of massive creatures can be loaded into a minecart, bypassing the volume restrictions on minecarts, and allowing any fort with sufficient caged creature mass to build the above weapon. The downside (upside?) is that the caged creatures will be released on impact due to the shotgun effect. The creatures need not be tame or friendly, just heavy. This isn't necessary for smashing humanoids like goblins, since an empty iron minecart is sufficiently heavy to explode them.

You could have a literal catsplosion by filling cages with cats(heh) or you could use this to kill something and deploy your war animals

[TKGP]

I recall reading somewhere that you can put 12 or so minecarts in a minecart, regardless of what any of them contain. So in that way it shouldn't be too difficult to create a cart of more-or-less arbitrary weight. Thread in question.

[rhesusmacabre]

Yep, minecarts are recursive. A platinum minecart containing 12 platinum minecarts all containing 5 native platinum boulders would weigh 139528kg. If you put 12 of these in another platinum minecart, you'd have a total of 1675192kg.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Yep, minecarts are recursive. A platinum minecart containing 12 platinum minecarts all containing 5 native platinum boulders would weigh 139528kg. If you put 12 of these in another platinum minecart, you'd have a total of 1675192kg.

In any case, it will take an in-game month to reload the weapon between shots. It's more of a device used to kill things when a cave-in isn't more practical or when you want to recover the body parts.

[Sutremaine]

You can recover body parts with a cave-in. You just need to drop constructions on the creature.

[Di]

And what about platinum bars? You can cram a hundred of those into a bin and around 50 bins in a cart.

[flameaway]

The velocity info for falling confirms the problem I'm having with my gun.  There are so many posts on this site that it can take a long time to find the info you need.  So thanks for those reference links.

Blowing up whales?

Blasting blubber?

Yep that sounds like a dwarf.

[Urist Da Vinci]

I just verified another horrible concept with some arena+DFHack testing:

Orbital Strike:

1. Dig a shaft 30-50 z-levels tall, or build a tower 30-50 z-levels above the target terrain (50 is preferred).
2. Drop minecarts loaded with items (supermassive loads are preferred).
3. Anything that is hit from above and weighs less than the minecart slams into the floor with enough force to blow apart.
4. The contents of the minecart stay in the minecart. Creatures stay in cages. The shotgun effect only works for horizontal velocities.

Reload time is short, depending on how fast the carts can be moved back up to the top. Automated reloading is possible given rollers on the floor. You could possibly have carts strike the target zone once every few seconds in an automated loop. This probably will only work for a 1-tile-wide hallway.

You could use non-minecart projectiles if you don't want a stack-up-jam, as long as they are more massive than the target creatures and dropped from high enough (so they accelerate to the required velocity). I ought to see what happens when I rain plain boulders from 50z above.

[Eric Blank]

Call it a dwarven meteor shower.

[thegoatgod_pan]

To hell with this, I am learning to use mine carts, all these recent experiments make magma seem dull.

[Sutremaine]

How about a single non-supermassive minecart dropping down the stairs? You can get a loop going pretty quickly. Minecarts can be moved one level upwards per tick, which is much faster than anything in the game moves.

[Urist Da Vinci]

So I generated a world with 50z above ground, built a 50z staircase, and simply dumped a granite boulder from the top:



Concept is proved. Granite boulders are 260 kg, and this is typical of most non-ore boulders.

[Oaktree]

A boulder drop would work as a quick defense.  For a repeating small area defense I'd say to use a mine cart since it can be automated without needing haulers to go fetch the boulders with the attendant need for shutting it off, other safety measures, or fortress casualties.

[Noble Digger]

I love it. It's like putting many thousands of gold coins inside the same pouch in adventurer mode and then throwing the pouch at some poor victim.