Dwarf Fortress > DF Suggestions

Always-on (more complicated) traps

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Sowelu:
So your hidden weapon trap is going to spear a goblin or two.  If they're not distracted by your raining crossbow death on them, it should be pretty easy to notice "Oh hey, there's that pressure plate, and I can just not step on it!"  That, and of course, there's thieves who are good at spotting those things anyway.But we've all seen Indiana Jones.  Some of the most awesome traps are the ones that are *always on*.  So what if it's a perpetual motion machine:  I want my axe blades that swing back and forth constantly, my razor blades that keep going up and down, my spiked balls constantly whirling around the corridor.  You can't dodge the pressure plate and you can't avoid setting it off:  It's simply always going.It seems to me like this would be a much more interesting form of weapon trap.  You could have a lever to turn them on and off...and while turned on, your own dwarves wouldn't want to go through there.  Sure, trap the heck out of your front door, but don't expect your dwarves to be coming and going.  The traders might be a little shy about going through there too.This is very important for thematically trapped areas.  If you go and build some secluded tombs that are crammed full of expensive things, you really don't want anyone to sneak in and steal it...so load it full of traps and NOBODY will come or go.Of course, smart enemies in sufficient numbers may just try to disarm or destroy your traps instead, and I think that's just fine.  If you aren't constantly harassing that goblin horde, they should be able to find a clever way through them...but if they're being shot at, well, it seems safer to just charge through and try and dodge the swinging blades.So:  Hidden weapon traps are very likely to hit something, as long as it hasn't been spotted.  Once it's spotted, it is very easy to avoid.  Always-on weapon traps are harder to dodge through once enabled.  A good defense should have both of these.  Plus, if the bad guys can remove your traps, you'll actually have a use for more mechanisms.  (And better mechanisms means harder to disarm!  Woohoo!)Maybe, if you dodge a trap once while crawling, you can stay in its square forever without getting hit (and that means you have time to disarm it...again, if not being shot).  That makes it seem a little less lopsided.Plus, you'll also have the fun of a long entrance corridor FULL of turned-off traps.  Once the invading army is far enough inside, flip a switch and watch them all get squished!  It's a lot more fair than simply flooding them to death, or crushing them by a drawbridge...Just stab them with pointy spears from the ceiling, whirling blades on the walls, etc.  Some of the critters will undoubtedly survive by being quick and sneaky, and they can disarm their way across the room.  Maybe disarming one trap also disarms nearby ones?  Or maybe dodging one trap means you can keep sneaking through to other traps?  (The odds should be in your favor, but not VASTLY in your favor.)Just as long as some of them can get through, or the next time they come back, they know what's coming.More mechanism use is fun.  More purposes for levers is nice.  And feeling like Indiana Jones when you come back in Adventurer mode is utterly priceless.  Ooh, maybe there should be a way to jump through a row of traps and only have to make one roll...  (It's effective at keeping unskilled people out, but high-experience, high-agility folks can clear it.)There had BETTER be negative thoughts when someone desecrates a tomb by stealing from it.  I want a reason to trap the bejeebus out of those things, and come back later to steal from them myself.

Armok:
Seconded!What we also need, whit associated powergoal, is:
...pedestals that activates something when you remove what's on them, culd also be liked to the statue-outfleshing. (placing the items on statues instead of pillars)
PowergoalXXX:after many advetures and a long series of traps you enter the tomb of Urist Fikolastid, mason and creator of satresu gaderis, on his coffin stands a statue of him. the eyes are made of rubies. the statue are holding the artifact scepter satresu gaderis (the real one, not a statue of it). the statue is rising the scepter.
when you take the artifact you hear something clic and the hands of the statue rise a few centimeters. you here a voise like stone grinding against stone: "fore what do you want this power?" you think quickly and answer: "for the good of dwarwenkind". a steel spike comes from the mounth of the statue. it inpales your forehed! you has ben struck down!  :D Oups, this became very long,and its late and I will (probobly) continue tomorrow.

Skeeblix:
Yeah, I think traps need to be redone in at least some way in the near future. Right now, all you have to do is lay a carpet of traps into your fortress and you never again have to even pay any attention to a siege, save to go clean out the traps and reset or reload them. I think this is kind of broken gameplay.I want military dwarves to actually be something impressive, too. They die way too easily. I think a bunch of highly trained, roaring drunk guys in full plate armor should be a force to be reckoned with. Even non-military dwarves should at least be able to defend themselves a LITTLE bit, if they get cornered or the absolutely have to.I just woke up, but I can come back later and edit this when my brain is running a little better.[ October 07, 2007: Message edited by: Skeeblix ]

JT:
My long-standing trap-related request has been to make traps "dense" -- anyone who enters a trap tile is attacked by that trap, regardless of friend or foe.  Enemies who are not yet aware of the traps will thus blunder into them, while anyone who is aware of the trap will realise that the trap is there and will consider that tile forbidden from access.  Thus, carpeting your entry hallway with traps is absolutely not a good idea, since no one would be able to walk through it.  Also important is that nominally friendly civilisations would not know about the location of your traps unless you explicitly shared that information, so putting your trade depot behind a wall of traps would be all manner of politically dangerous (unless "Political Danger" is your middle names).A possible addition would be to allow traps to be armed or disarmed with the use of a lever, so a passageway that is normally carpeted with traps could be rendered inert in peacetime, then armed in times of war.  This would subject you to possible accidents from gremlins or the possibility of being caught with your pants down with no one able to pull the lever to arm the traps before the bad guys get inside your fortress.The optimal trap pattern would be:code:     |
    |  traffic in this direction
    v. ^ . ^ . ^ .
. . . . . . .
^ . ^ . ^ . ^
. . . . . . .
. ^ . ^ . ^ .

Sowelu:
Hmm...I'm concerned that you would get some random roaming human bodyguard all over your fortress, and you'd have to micromanage switches to keep him from getting skewered.When it comes to explicitly sharing trap information with other civs, I can't think of a very good interface.

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