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Author Topic: Dwarven Machine Gun  (Read 26584 times)

Brilliand

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Dwarven Machine Gun
« on: February 26, 2011, 07:27:56 pm »

Pour water and magma onto an open space with no adjacent supports (across floor hatches), and what do you get...?

This idea originated as a technique for smashing HFS, but I soon realized that in order to avoid the mechanism getting jammed, it would have to pour the newly-formed obsidian directly into the magma sea.  After some tests in the arena, I found that rock falling into magma can toss the magma quite a bit higher than the rock fell from, because all of the open space above the cave-in is counted as part of the cave-in!  With a constant flow of water from the side, this could be used to create a good-sized magma fountain, with no use of pumps.  A magma-safe retractable bridge some distance above would allow the flying magma to be harnessed.

I'm still working on testing this (tapping into an aquifer from below to get the necessary water supply resulted in a bit of Fun), but I'm hoping this will be able to double as a not only repeatable but continuous method of transporting magma without pumps, as well as a device for slaughtering HFS as fast as it can come (if an entrance to your fortress is provided high in the shaft, and the clowns are allowed to enter the magma sea).

Downsides: Starting it after stopping it would be difficult; the easiest way would probably involve seeding it with some of the magma that you gathered earlier (it might take a hundred tiles' worth).  While it's running, any area anywhere near the shaft would be off-limits to anything that you want to keep alive, due to the cave-in shockwaves and magma mist (to say nothing of what happens to anything that forces its way into the shaft proper).  Finally, this technique would necessitate turning off the cave-in warning, and even then I worry that rapid-fire cave-ins might be bad for the FPS.
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The blood of our enemies is but a symbol.  The true domain of Armok is magma - mountain's blood.

darkrider2

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2011, 09:07:29 pm »

This is amazing. Just goes to show that even HFS is not immune to feats of dwarven ingenuity.
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PopeRichardCorey

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2011, 09:08:55 pm »

I just had some kind of -gasm.  This is...  So amazingly...  yes.
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xeivous

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #3 on: February 26, 2011, 10:12:11 pm »

I'm not completely sure what is going on, but it's dwarfy.
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Eric Blank

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #4 on: February 26, 2011, 10:36:07 pm »

I think I understand the pumping idea, and I'm sure I could properly compose the weaponized one. I'd like a working example of this machine-piston magma pump to go off of. Can anybody build it?

If I wanted to make the weaponized one, I'd place many 1x1 retracting bridges over a magma-filled tunnel on the highest level of the magma sea through which I'm funneling the hfs, making sure there are appropriate 3x3 rooms with the floors entirely channeled so the blocks would fall into the magma sea and disappear in the 'molten rock' layers. They'll be encased in the obsidian and many smashed against the walls and under the blocks. If each 3x3 room has a 1x passage connecting it to the others, going through the middle of the rooms, the HFS will attempt to path through those and thus go directly beneath the obsidian falls, and any trying to path underneath are still in extreme danger.
Just a few of these rooms could shatter the entirety of the initial HFS assault. I may try it whenever I begin preparations for invading the HFS in my current fort.
« Last Edit: February 26, 2011, 10:48:24 pm by Eric Blank »
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ivze

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2011, 07:05:44 am »

Hmm... If we drop a wall into single-tile shaft down to magma will it push the magma out to the surface? Or what's the physics of the trick?
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Shrike

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2011, 02:53:58 pm »

Hmm... If we drop a wall into single-tile shaft down to magma will it push the magma out to the surface? Or what's the physics of the trick?

Aren't you describing the dwarven magma piston? Only... more like a landmine/geyser.
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Servu

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2011, 03:47:07 pm »

Code: [Select]

     %%M#
  #   #M#
  %% %%M#
~~#   #M#
###   ###
###   ###
MMMMMMMMM
# wall
%% screw pump
~ Water inflow
M Magma

The two pumps will combine water and magma between them to make obsidian.
The pumps don't need floors below the wall tile, so obsidian is not supported.
Obsidian falls down the shaft to the magma sea.
Magma flies upwards and is gathered by the third pump on top.
Some of it is fed back into the system.
Combine in rows to create a obsidian/magma mist waterfall.

If used for defensive purposes, you can remove the upper pumps and replace them with supports. When supports are refracted, the system starts spewing obsidian.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2011, 03:54:54 pm by Servu »
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ivze

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #8 on: February 27, 2011, 04:38:43 pm »

Can we use Water -> Ice (caves in) in winter to start the system?
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Di

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #9 on: February 27, 2011, 05:03:50 pm »

It is inefficient, it is complicated, it is more dangerous for those constructing it than for their enemies. => It's really dwarfy, do it.  :D
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QuantumMenace

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #10 on: February 27, 2011, 11:14:20 pm »

I built this mainly to test the effects of cave-in dust.

Veshstal, "Dustbuster"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

On Floor 0, those are 1x1 bridges to either side of the center gap, currently covered by 1/7 water or magma. The X's to the north and south are floodgates, made to float without a floor by constructing a wall on the z-level below to make a temporary floor. This allows the fluid to be funneled into the center tile of the shaft without providing a support for the obsidian block.

Both water and magma are pressurized, but have limited flow from their source. The diagonal choke may be unnecessary. If you have a lot of flow, it might risk pushing one of the fluids across the gap and jamming it.

Most of the time the block would form at level -1 (or at least that's where it zooms to). I never saw it form at level 0.

My shaft went around the magma sea, straight to the semi-molten rock. (expose the magma flow tiles by digging down staircases and then channeling them out.) For some reason it started filling with magma some time after I finished digging it out, possibly because it was in the same embark square as my magma pipe.

The results from my test chamber:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sometimes the horse wouldn't show up on "view". Going to the units list and zooming to its position showed it to be above the floor. So it would appear that cave-in dust causes injury by flinging units upwards, which I think even drawbridges can't do.


On using this against HFS, you could line the sides of the shaft with 1x1 raised drawbridges made to float by the wall-removal method. This will force them to fly up directly in the path of the block (unless they can destroy drawbridges, use magma-safe materials in case they can be ruined by superheated ones).

Since obsidian is technically a glass, maybe this could be called a glass cannon  :P
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parlor_tricks

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #11 on: February 28, 2011, 01:34:45 am »

In that case, can we call this the DGC? The dwarven glass cannon?
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Brilliand

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #12 on: March 05, 2011, 05:48:31 pm »

Code: [Select]

     %%M#
  #   #M#
  %% %%M#
~~#   #M#
###   ###
###   ###
MMMMMMMMM
# wall
%% screw pump
~ Water inflow
M Magma

The two pumps will combine water and magma between them to make obsidian.
The pumps don't need floors below the wall tile, so obsidian is not supported.
Obsidian falls down the shaft to the magma sea.
Magma flies upwards and is gathered by the third pump on top.
Some of it is fed back into the system.
Combine in rows to create a obsidian/magma mist waterfall.

If used for defensive purposes, you can remove the upper pumps and replace them with supports. When supports are refracted, the system starts spewing obsidian.

This is a much better idea than my original.  I had been worried that even a retracted bridge might limit the height of the geyser, but the extra screw pump solves that problem.

Hmm... If we drop a wall into single-tile shaft down to magma will it push the magma out to the surface? Or what's the physics of the trick?

The height the magma will rise is equal to either the distance from the bottom of the magma to the bottom of the block being dropped, or from the bottom of that block to the first obstacle above it that is not falling, whatever is less.  Hence, you get the tallest geyser by dropping blocks from the midpoint between the top of the sky and the semi-molten rock below (if you have that shaft dug out all the way from top to bottom).

For a less ambitious use of this, you should be able to create a miniature magma pipe by dropping a few blocks into the magma sea - since magma doesn't have pressure without a pump, the magma that falls back down will rest on top of the magma sea instead of merging with it.

On using this against HFS, you could line the sides of the shaft with 1x1 raised drawbridges made to float by the wall-removal method. This will force them to fly up directly in the path of the block (unless they can destroy drawbridges, use magma-safe materials in case they can be ruined by superheated ones).

I'm pretty sure you can simply line the shaft with constructed or never-mined walls - the obsidian needs to have no supports where it is formed, but once it's falling, it can only be stopped by an obstacle directly underneath it.
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The blood of our enemies is but a symbol.  The true domain of Armok is magma - mountain's blood.

Girlinhat

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #13 on: March 05, 2011, 06:15:12 pm »

If HFS can still be captured by being knocked by cave-in onto a cage trap, then...

Brilliand

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Re: Dwarven Machine Gun
« Reply #14 on: March 05, 2011, 06:54:14 pm »

If HFS can still be captured by being knocked by cave-in onto a cage trap, then...

Line the shaft with floors carrying cage traps?  (You might end up with the occupied cages falling into the magma sea though.)

I just realized (while reading another thread) that this device would work almost as well with ice, in the proper biomes.

Side note: If a cave-in involves both water and magma, all of the magma is turned to obsidian with no loss of water.  This doesn't affect the device normally, though it might cause the workings to seize up if some water gets into the magma geyser without instantly mixing with magma.  This odd behavior is most likely useless, since magma is usually much more valuable than water.  Someone with a water shortage might use it to cast obsidian without running out of water, I suppose... (Hmm, I wonder if this could be used to construct a self-perpetuating HFS smasher that doesn't require any water or magma inputs?  It would of course be useless for gathering magma.)
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The blood of our enemies is but a symbol.  The true domain of Armok is magma - mountain's blood.
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