Mountain drop-trap (aka 'Rocks fall, everyone dies')

[Rahjital]

Tonight, I saw UrbanBourbon's post in the "Your Best Screenshots" with an idea for raider killbox with wooden supports to bring down the roof on the enemy when shot. Naturally, my first thought was "How can I make that automatic?"

Here is a first prototype of such an automatic drop-trap.

The way the trap works is simple: Raiders run in and once they are in about the middle of the chamber, they notice the turret and take positions behind the generously prepared sandbags. (the hydroponic tables are there because they block movement but don't hold roof) Eventually the hostiles explode the turret and bring the overhead mountain on their own heads. Raiders die without colonists having to shoot a single shot and for much cheaper cost than an equivalent turret farm would cost.

It has its disadvantages, of course. Everything is crushed, there are no clothes to strip and no guns to sell. It is inefficient against smaller raids and even larger raids can become clustered when you have things built outside. Joggers and scythers are also a problem as they outrace the rest of the raiders and can set off the trap prematurely.

This is only a 30-minute prototype design I came with a few moments ago, though. I'm sure that somebody smarter with more time would be able to come with something much better

[UrbanBourbon]

I'm proud of you, kid.

To crush your enemies.
To see them squashed before you.
And to hear the lamentation of their women.

[theapolaustic1]

This is wonderful.

I can only imagine the sorts of traps people will begin to design once we're at a further stage of development with more potential tools at our disposal.

[Lazarus]

This is awesome but at the same time is it a one use only trap?

What  mean is that when you have a roof collapse doesn't that make a hole in the area where you've had it?

May have to try this myself

[milon]

@Lazarus, you can only have an "infinite" roof if you dig into rock far enough to have "overhead mountain".  If it's thin rock or a constructed roof, then when it falls, it's gone.  You can always rebuild, it just takes that much more work.

[Tynan]

I'm proud of you, kid.

To crush your enemies.
To see them squashed before you.
And to hear the lamentation of their women.

In fairness, you crushed their women too so you probably won't hear much in the way of lamentations :/

[Rahjital]

In fairness, you crushed their women too so you probably won't hear much in the way of lamentations :/

I'm afraid the trap is not that advanced yet... and won't be for quite a while


In other news, I started testing how useful the trap is in actual play. Apart from the first few raids that had to be routed by turrets, the trap has been working well so far. It seems that Randy is interested in the trap as well, as he refused to give me any colonist past the first three and is sending raids so strong that I could never hope to beat them without the help of the mountain itself.

[Lazarus]

I'm proud of you, kid.

To crush your enemies.
To see them squashed before you.
And to hear the lamentation of their women.


Lamentation of their children then?

In fairness, you crushed their women too so you probably won't hear much in the way of lamentations :/