Don't put traps in your colony entrance passage

[muffins]

I thought I could safely pull a Dwarf Fortress and put a ton of traps in my colony's entrances. Instead one of my favourite colonists accidentally set one off as she was walking by and got decapitated.





I'm thinking that the passage should have been 2-wide so colonists could path around them.

[Devon_v]

You were warned. Read the release notes/update page.

She not in any pain though. Decapitation must be comfortable.

[Shinzy]

I'm sorry! and highly amused at the same time =P
be sure to carve her a great tomb

[muffins]

It turns out that traps make great animal traps if you can force them to path though the traps. Muffalos and boars just wander through the traps and bleed to death if they're not killed outright.



I haven't had to send out hunters at all since building a couple of these.

[Coenmcj]

Who put the bear traps on the ceiling?

[milon]

You know, animals are lured to crops if there's no good food around. I'm thinking a farm with walls and doors and a 1 tile wide hallway with traps and no doors.

[muffins]

You know, animals are lured to crops if there's no good food around. I'm thinking a farm with walls and doors and a 1 tile wide hallway with traps and no doors.

I've found that something similar to that is great for manhunter packs. A one tile wide building with traps inside, doors on the sides for rearming the traps, a turret at one end and an opening at the other. The wargs go for the turret and get chopped up by the traps.

[b0rsuk]

Traps are nice in that they don't use power and are relatively cheap. I mean, you can place 3 for the price of a turret, no need to worry about conduits or generators. But isn't the rearming time a little extreme ?

Do visitors walk into traps ?

[Nictis]

Traps are nice in that they don't use power and are relatively cheap. I mean, you can place 3 for the price of a turret, no need to worry about conduits or generators. But isn't the rearming time a little extreme ?

Do visitors walk into traps ?

Only if there is no other way to leave the base sadly. It seems like most raiders are smart enough to avoid them as well, so they function mostly as a really expensive wall that will kill animals when you aren't looking.

[mokonasakura]

No reason to use traps, a lot of reason not to use them. Unless the trap decapitates them its useless, losing an eye would be the next best thing and eyes only really effect range attacks which are no issue. If it can move it can spring the trap, which means animals will spring them long before a raider does making it so they are unavailable when you actually need them. The resource cost is to high for the very small chance of it actually being useful, resources that could of been used on things to actually help you. Its a great way to make factions hostile to you, one wrong step and it gives a little visitor a cut making them pissed at you. Hostiles remember where you placed traps making the already nearly useless traps even more useless and a micromanaging nightmare. As for the IED they trigger on just a single enemy and the chance of it exploding before the enemy gets out of the way is low. Basically unless they have a badback/frail it wont hit.

[Cimanyd]

Traps are nice in that they don't use power and are relatively cheap. I mean, you can place 3 for the price of a turret, no need to worry about conduits or generators. But isn't the rearming time a little extreme ?

Do visitors walk into traps ?

Only if there is no other way to leave the base sadly. It seems like most raiders are smart enough to avoid them as well, so they function mostly as a really expensive wall that will kill animals when you aren't looking.

If I remember right, enemy factions "learn" where traps are, so they will work at least once. They will hit animals (entirely automatic hunting, if the traps get auto re-armed and they're in a home zone so the corpse isn't forbidden), and fleeing enemies will run through the traps they'd otherwise avoid.

No reason to use traps, a lot of reason not to use them. Unless the trap decapitates them its useless, losing an eye would be the next best thing and eyes only really effect range attacks which are no issue. If it can move it can spring the trap, which means animals will spring them long before a raider does making it so they are unavailable when you actually need them. The resource cost is to high for the very small chance of it actually being useful, resources that could of been used on things to actually help you. Its a great way to make factions hostile to you, one wrong step and it gives a little visitor a cut making them pissed at you. Hostiles remember where you placed traps making the already nearly useless traps even more useless and a micromanaging nightmare. As for the IED they trigger on just a single enemy and the chance of it exploding before the enemy gets out of the way is low. Basically unless they have a badback/frail it wont hit.

I'm not sure what you mean about it being useless unless it decapitates in one hit. Enough trap hits will kill something. Use steel traps, stone and wood do a lot less damage and really are useless.

If you have all your traps on auto-rearm, your colonists will re-arm them after something (e.g. an animal) sets them off, and they'll be ready for the next animal or next fleeing enemy.

I'm pretty sure visitors know where the traps are and will path around them, just like your colonists. Have you actually had a visitor trip a trap they could've pathed around? If you do something like in the original post, a visitor might walk over a trap it can't avoid, but that puts your colonists at risk as much as the visitors, like in the original post.

[Toggle]

Visitors getting hit by traps might have the same effect as shooting them yourself.

[Songleaves]

Putting a floor beneath the traps improves the chance that raiders will walk over them and they will view that as the fastest route. I will commonly set up a few traps over concrete floor when some raiders arrive but before the start attacking, and dissemble the traps afterwards. I remember where I have previously laid the traps due to the flooring still being there, and don't put traps there because the enemies will not go back there.

[Romi]

lmao

[Toggle]

Putting a floor beneath the traps improves the chance that raiders will walk over them and they will view that as the fastest route. I will commonly set up a few traps over concrete floor when some raiders arrive but before the start attacking, and dissemble the traps afterwards. I remember where I have previously laid the traps due to the flooring still being there, and don't put traps there because the enemies will not go back there.

That's pretty smart. Would probably actually need to change the ai if they don't already so that if the traps are no longer there, they will once again go that way.