Urist McPickswinger (and many Overseer) knows that the danger of cave in is not based on crushing of an opponent under the ceiling only, but also in the dust is capable to knock out dwarf and to push him around in an arbitrary direction. The new trap design utilises the dust to push an opponent into a pit.
The reminding of the post is structured as followed. First I will discuss the condition for a cave in to occur. Afterwards I introduce the heart of my defence - a Cave in Facilty (CF) that does not rely on support, but casts an obsidian wall over open space. The next section discusses an Automated CF (ACF) and at the end a conclusion and outlook is given.
The Cave-In
As everyone knows, a cave-in occurs if a single tile has no support. In the following figure a single tile produces a cave-in.
$$$ $$$ $$$ '$' wall
$$ $$ $$ $$ $$^$$ ' ' open space/ downward ramp
$ $ $ 1 $ $^ ^$ '1' wall that caves in
$$ $$ $$ $$ $$^$$ '^' floor or upward ramp
$$$ $$$ $$$
z=1 z=0 z=-1
Cave-in Facility (CF)
To cast the wall that caves in, I use two pumps to pump exactly 7 units of water/magma from an 1x1 large fluid reservoir to the same tile.
I guess I don't have to mention that this design is susceptible to the build ordering in time of the buildings. Both pumps have to be activated at the same tick. Initial failures tests indicates that the magma pump has to be build before the water pump. Building the water pump first, may result in an atomsmasher for magma, but the water accumulates at bottom of the structure. Usually I build both pumps at the end, after the power supply and the mechanics finished to perform all relevant linking tasks .
side view
##### '#' wall
### ### z=1 ' ' open space
%% %% z=0 '~' a stack of 7 magma/water
#~# #~# z=-1
#### #### '%' hanging pump
Automated Cave-in Facility (ACF)
To build an automatised version of the CF a complete cycle has to be made: activate pumps - deactivate pumps - fill reservoir open floodgate - close floodgate - reset the trigger that activated the pumps. In contrast to the figure above, I use floodgates to separate between the 1x1 fluid reservoirs and the fluid baths. Here I use the term fluid bath as an infinite large area filled with magma or water i.e. taking 14 unit [7 for the reservoir and 7 gets atomsmashed by the floodgate] of the fluid does not alter the state of the bath.
The cycle of the ACF requires that the power transmission to the pumps switch off before the floodgates open and it is offline until the floodgates close. In principle the first one, to turn off the pumps might be possible by linking a pressure plate that measures the content of the reservoir, to a gear assembly directly which transmit power to the pumps. But latter, the repowering of the pumps requires a timer. Here I show simple minecart in the loop with impulse ramps as timer.
To start the discussion of a cycle, imagine a volunteer goblin triggers a pressure plate (not shown) that activates the gear assembly a in the ACF. The pressure plate [pP] [0-6 fluid triggers] measures the fluid amount. Once the pump empties the reservoir the plate [pP] opens hatch cover [cC] in the Timer and opens the adjoining floodgate X. Because the floodgate opens 60 ticks after it receive the signal, the minecart in the timer, located on C, has enough time to fall down and start its loop. It will roll over the (impulse) ramps (0-3-4-0), over the pressure plate q and thereby toggles the gear assembly b in the ACF. This will disconnect the pumps from the energy source. As long as at least one reservoir does not contain 7 units of fluid either the hatch cover C or c is open and the minecart continues its loop over the impulse ramps and the pressure plate. As soon both hatch cover close the minecart stays on the z=z_0 level till it reaches the closed hatch cover C where it stops. Depending on the state of gear a another cave in occur or the trap waits for the next volunteer.
The ACF
---------------------------------------------
Side view
##### '#' wall
### ### ' ' open space
%% %% 'p/P' pressure plate with 0-6 fluid triggers
Xp# #PX->to bath 'X' Floodgates to separate the 1x1 reservoir from the bath
#### #### '%' hanging pump
----------------------------------------
Top view
#####a# 'a' gear assembly (default: off)
##*═══b## 'b' gear assembly (default: on)
#~%% %%~# '*' gear assembly (always on)
#### ####
###
------------------------------------------
===========================================
The Timer (impulse ramps do not have a matching downward slope)
-----------------------------------
z=z_0
###### 'C' hatch cover (over 0)
##╔═c╗# 'c' hatch cover (over 4)
#╔C#╔╝# 'q' plate, minecart triggers
#╚q═╝▼# 5=NW impulse ramp
##5═6╝# 6=SW impulse ramp
######
-----------------------------------
z=z_0-1
###### 0=NS
#╔══╗# 1=NE (impulse ramp)
#1#4╗# 2=SE (impulse ramp)
#0##2#
####0# 4=WE
###
-------------------------------
Automated Cave In Defense (ACID)
To turn the whole toy into a weapon, I force the invaders to stay next to the shaft, where the cave in occurs, as long as possible by using 6 z-levels. Goblins have to move 6 z-levels down get to the next section, then they have to move 6 z-levels upward and so on. Here you see a defense system with 2 ACF. The 2 open space in the middle is the shaft where the obsidian wall falls down. The dust reaches the stairway through fortifications.
OUTSIDE
FORT
╔╝++╠╗+++╚═╗
║·>>╬╩═╬>>·║
║·O═╣X+╠═O·║
║·>>╬·+╬>>·║
║·++║++║^+·║
║·>>╬++╬>>·║
║·╔╦╬╦╦╬╦╗·║
║·╚╩╬╩╩╬╩╝·║
║·>>╬++╬>>·║
║·++║>+║^+·║
║·>>╬·+╬>>·║
║·O═╣<+╠═O·║
║·>>╬══╬>>·║
╚╗++++++++╔╝
╚════════╝
Discussion
The ACF
To deactivate the ACF, I use 2 hatch cover to prevent pumping of fluid. No malfunction should be expected when the hatch covers open while the pumps are supplied with power.
Supporting the pump that is connected to gear b is highly recommended, otherwise it may fall apart while gear b is disengaged. A vertical axle on the z=-1 level below the pump does this job.
Cave-ins may have a very brought spectrum of application. The defence system is just one application. I utilised the ACF for an dwarven gym to train their stats (strength, toughness, endurance, intuition, focus, spatial/kinesthetic sense) by placing them next to a weapon trap (bloodthrone training axes are lethal to non armored dorfs, further testing with other material is needed). Compared with normal work (training a dorf to an adequate swimmer increased his agility by 2), the gym is very effective. In average it increases his strength by 10 per cave in. One note on gyms, they have to be at least 1x2 large, otherwise the gym user won't get unconciseness. ACF has been utilised as an support replacement to produce another, larger cave in to bury FBs
ACF can be used for obsidian farming even with [TEMPERATURE:NO]
I'm sure you have much more creativity and know more Fun(ny) application.
The Automation
For complete automation you have to dig down till you reach the SMR otherwise you can must harvest obsidian.
Using this approach and pressure to refill the reservoirs I manage to produce a cave-in every 180 ticks (estimation). Because the floodgates require about 160 ticks to open and close, the optimisation of the timer my not very beneficial. Replacing the floodgates with doors does not work because the timer would be too slow to toggle gear assembly b. As I wrote this text, I thought of an minecart powered refilling system. In principle the ACF should also work with 2 units of each fluid. I'm thinking of minecarts rolling behind the pumps, when a reservoir is empty, a track stop pops up and the minecart dumps the fluid into the reservoir. But the minecart powered loading station would require a hermetically sealed ACF, otherwise the minecarts get pushed of the track. Are there some volunteer engineers to implement this method? Another interesting method is to overload the energy system. I'm not sure, but I think I once drained more power than my waterwheels were able to produce, but I still saw the pumps pumping water (for 1 tick). If someone knows how to reproduce this feature, no timer would be necessary. Otherwise this is subject to Science.
The ACID
The chance to penetrate the defense system is depends on the path wide next to the cave in shaft. In my last fort, I had a 1 tile wide path. Nobody ever managed to penetrate the system (except of kobolds). On the drawback I had a traffic jam at the entrance to the defense system. This may reduce the change to kill all enemies. At my current fort, I use a 2 tile wide path and about 1 attacker per siege manage to penetrate the system. This part of the system is still subject for optimisation.
Another advantage is that you can completely shut off the ACID and wait for the goblin, to enter deeper into your fort. When cowards decide to flee, the ACID is online and will take out the remaining invaders.
The design of the defense does not require a building on the path to the fort. In principle it can be made waggon passable, though a 3 tile wide path may render inappropriate to push enemies into a pit.
Cave ins causes the game to pause. The ambushers will "announce" themselves by causing a cave in and allowing to set the alert sate accordingly and help to avoid messages like "An Ambush! Curse them" followed by "Urist McTrapcleaner cancel cleaning trap. Interrupted by Goblin"
On the drawback it requires a lot of mandwarfpower, especially the need of water and magma makes it impossible very hard to set up the system against early attackers. In my current fort (with aquifer), next to build the trap, I didn't do a lot (almost no metal industry, rudimentary food and booze industry and 30 z magma elevator). Nevertheless I still needed about 4 years till my main defence system was ready. Next to the fact that I always was short on wood, I'm sure I could be faster if I didn't want smooth all walls.
My current project is an anti clown trap. Something like
#####
# X #
#####
A furniture bites the clown. A cave in pushes them to the right and another will crush them under a collapsing ceiling. But do not
expect any results in near future.
I'm sure that everyone is keen on reading this text. Therefore the most important facts.
The machine I published here is capable to do
- cave in each 180 ticks
- completely automated
- magma pump have to be build before water pump
- pumps do not have to face each other, a perpendicular geometry works also
edit: added missing /font
edit: s/font(\=mono)=/code
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Topic: Automated Cave In Defense - A new defense system (Read 2899 times)