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[Chattox]

Can water break falls in 40d? If so, is there an upper height limit where they stop? And what depth does it need to be? Also, does the same apply for 2010?

[Sphalerite]

Water does break falls to some degree in 40d.  Some experimentation has revealed that a dwarf who falls through ten levels of air followed by ten levels of water will suffer less harm than a dwarf who falls through ten levels of air alone.  On the other hand, a dwarf who falls through ten levels of air followed by one level of water is probably still going to die.  The exact ratio and mechanics of how it works has as far as I know not been worked out.

I have no reason to suspect this has changed for DF2010, but I haven't done or seen any experiments to determine this yet.

[Chattox]

Dang, so falling 10 levels into a single level of 4/7 deep water would probably result in death, yes?

[Sphalerite]

Almost certainly.  From what experiments I saw, the water needs to be comparable in depth to the distance of air the creature falls through.  But I might be wrong.  Someone needs to build a drop tower with a variable-height water pool and perform some Science.

[Chattox]

I see. Well, my sacrificial pit will lend itself to being filled to varying levels, so I shall conduct science and report back.

Another quick question, do creatures in cages take falling damage? Also, does landing on upright spike traps do anything to creatures in cages?

[Sphalerite]

Creatures in cages are immune from all damage.  They don't take damage from falls, they don't drown, they don't even suffer from being dropped in magma if the cage is made from magma-safe materials.

In 40d, upright spikes added no damage to creatures falling on them.  They only cause damage when they are triggered by a lever or pressure plate and extend into a space where a creature is standing.  I don't think this is different in DF2010.

[Chattox]

Damn, I'll have to think of something else equally as amusing and sadistic.. The "injury shaft" on the wiki sounds like a good candidate..

Thanks for your quick answers

[Creamcorn]

In previous versions, I've found that a fall 4 Z level fall into a one 7 tile of water only resulted in minor injuries.

[Starver]

Now, I had in mind (an unproven, and now disproven, assumption) that water was a good fall-mitigator.  Which means I might have to rethink my well (if Dwarfs are still prone to falling down them) as I have already implemented escape stairs from it, but falling the distance that they do (from near-surface to the water I found sumped in the floor of the second cavern down, on an otherwise largely dry map) is probably not going to be significantly survivable or even largely injury-free, if the above is true, with just 7/7ths of water at its base.

Although the only real improvement I can make is to dig extra depth (and adjacent waterlogged escape stairs, for those with the wherewithall/swimming skills to make use of them) and I can't guarantee I won't hit the third cavern or magma in the attempt.

[thijser]

In my experience in 2010 water does seem to render fall damage to nearly none. I had some 10 dwarfs fall down into water filled tiles and only one got minor damage. One even fell 13 z-levels into 5/7 tile of water and didn't even feel anything. On the other hand I had several miners fall 1 z-level and die dirrectly or later. So I think my fall damage might overal be somewhat messed up.

[Chattox]

Interesting, if that's the case then my Horrible Pit of Soggy Misery can become a reality in 2010!

[Starver]

On the other hand I had several miners fall 1 z-level and die dirrectly or later. So I think my fall damage might overal be somewhat messed up.

When digging my aforementioned well, I went down the route of designating a vertical stack of channels, knowing that having dug the top one out, one or other of the miners would jump into it to channel out the next one down, land on the next level's channelling square, etc, until reaching the point at the lowest point that I could give them a release.

No injuries, that I know, despite being a large number of drops (with an accompanying stunning effect, whenever I checked on the little blighter)...  Perhaps 40 levels?

Of course, I was probably immensely lucky.

(Prior to 2010, I'd have assigned a staircase one tile to the side for them to dig and access the channelling from, although I could have arranged the "non-DownRamp" channelling in the same way, I know, if I had somehow managed to persuade the miner to start the whole thing off, which might have involved something like door-building and nefariously attracting the miner into the 1x1 to force the first undermining of themselves.   But because I had to aim 'through' the pillars in the top caverns, I was rather limited for a handy open vertical space, never mind some space to one side to add the construction and access shaft facilities, so I seized upon the new behaviour.)