[Defense Trap] Drop/Fall pit, 3 types

[Moonphos]

-->There's no longer 3 types, but only 1<--

-->New update, slightly detailing the trap<--

While it's very easy to defend your home base and yourself in the current stage, I feel adding additional means of defending oneself isn't necessary a bad idea anyway. Besides, if more and tougher creatures are to be implemented in the coming future, this will help to establish the beginnings of defensive structures.

The Drop/Fall pit trap will be a relatively easy set up for characters. I'm considering whether it will also require "Time" to build the trap, which will take a small fraction of time (much the same way as Straw Roll, but not the entire night) to construct.

Formula - Cut Stone (2), Log (6), Grass (4)

How it works/Why the resource cost

The trap will be a deep hole, the sides reinforced with Cut Stone, so it will never expire. Logs will be used as Stake, which creatures dropped inside will be instantly killed. Grass is used to conceal the trap.

There will be limited use for the trap (similar to farm), but this can be repaired - Grass to conceal the trap AFTER each use - "The stakes are still pointy" - Trap can still kill, but some monsters may choose to run around the trap... ... ... And also, 1 Log to replace the Spike/Stake so it can be used when - "The stakes in the trap has broke" - The Trap becomes a collision entity to everyone until the stakes are replaced.

The size of the trap is pretty big, enough to catch Hounds, Pigs, Sapling Treeguard and Krampus. However, Boss-type (e.g Spider Queen) and Mid/Big Treeguards (too big to fit the trap) will simply bypass the trap.

When the trap is not hidden by Grass, intelligent monsters may attempt to bypass the trap (Pigmen, Krampus), but Dumb monsters will ignore the trap (Werepig, Hound) as they simply charge right at you.

What about the Player? They can also trigger the trap!

Since the Characters themselves built the trap, they will ALWAYS know where the trap is. The trap will have a collision entity to the Characters, and can never be walked over. Can be examined.

The characters' Naughty and Sanity meter may also increase and decrease respectively, depending on which monster gets killed by the Trap.

*New update*

There will be 2 entity parts (both functioning as 1 item), first part being the pit itself, with the second part a separate "Marker" that the Characters can approach and interact with.

*Home Base*

  Wilson
     V  <- Character's facing direction
     o <- Pit Trap Interaction Entity
__________
|         |
|         |  <- Pit Trap
|_________|

*Wilderness*

The orientation of the whole trap (as ONE item) will be with the Interaction Entity be in front of the Character, and the Pit Trap afterwards. This way, the Character can interact (Repair & Replace) with the Pit Trap, without interrupting with the collision data. The Defensive Trap can be built while within the safety of the "Home Base".

*End new update*

---

Old-version suggestion below

Drop/Fall pit trap is a relatively easy set up for the characters, and can have up to 3 different version. This will require not only resources, but tool durability as well. I'm considering whether it will also require Time to build the trap, costing time of day depending on the type of drop trap.

Lv1 Drop Trap - A fairly simple set up. Requires only Grass (2-4). This will drain 40% of Shovel, or 20% of Gold Shovel. This Drop Trap is a simple, deep hole, the top covered by grass. Predators that run over the Lv1 Drop Pit will be trapped, unable to escape. Predators will need to be physically killed (using any method), or starved to death (over a long time). This can be reused for up to 3 times. Intelligent monsters (Normal pigs) will bypass trap if not hidden by Grass, but Dumb monsters (Werepigs) will ignore. Requires 1 Grass per hiding. Can be improved with Bait.

Lv2 Drop Trap - A better set up. Requires Grass (3-5) and Log (1-2), and drains 50% of Shovel, or 25% of Gold Shovel. Features "Deadly Spikes" in the trap. Deals 100% damage to 20% damage, over max of 5 uses. Requires 1 Grass per hide. Requires 1 Log for every usage counts to improve damage done to monsters. Trap does not trigger again until the trapped predator is dead through any means. Starving to death takes 50% less time. Reverts to Lv1 Drop Trap after all uses.

Lv3 Drop Trap - Best set up, with 50% larger width. Requires Grass (3-5), Log (2-4), and Cut Stone (1), and drains 60% of Shovel, or 30% of Gold Shovel. Deals 100% to 10% damage, over max of 10 uses, and able to trap 1 more predator. Requires 1 Grass per hide, 1 Log for every usage count, and 1 Rock to increase maximum uses. Reverts to 2x Lv1 Drop Traps after all uses.

All of these may increase your naughty meter, depending on the monster killed. Leaving your trapped predator to die of starvation will cause your character Sanity.

All types of traps are considered an entity to your character, so whether it is hidden or not, your character cannot run across the top of the trap.

Edit - I don't know if it was suggested before... I searched Drop, Pit, and Trap, with any combination. Didn't show up. My apologies if it was.

Edited December 25, 2012 by Moonphos

[jujubomber]

I really like this idea. Also intriguing is that the item durability is accounted for as well. Though for the normal trap, I would expect that the spiders would be able to climb out easily. Maybe add something to the trap walls to make sure the spiders stay in? Slick up the edges with Slime from the swamp perhaps? Add Rope and Silk/Twigs to have a slam-down gate to seal the predator in? Just some ideas.

[EDIT] Also oil instead of slime?

Leaving your trapped predator to die of starvation will cause your character Sanity.

I would think that along with the sanity decreasing, you would be getting extra naughty points for allowing this to happen.

Edited December 19, 2012 by jujubomber

[Moonphos]

Well, maybe to leave it as that, in terms with Spider. It adds more flexibility to certain situations, like A works well against B, but not C, so choosing wisely based on your resources and set up adds certain decision-making into the game.

The slam-down gate is a good idea! It can be an add-on, so when the Drop Trap is made, additional material is used to create the add-on for the Drop Trap.

Edited December 19, 2012 by Moonphos

[mobius187]

Drop/Fall pit trap is a relatively easy set up for the characters, and can have up to 3 different version. This will require not only resources, but tool durability as well. I'm considering whether it will also require Time to build the trap, costing time of day depending on the type of drop trap.

Well, first off, who doesn't like a good pit trap? I know there are forum members who wanted a larger trap for creatures like spiders, now that they can no longer be caught in rabbit traps. Not to mention the hounds and maybe even the Krampus (though I think he should probably be too smart to trick with such a trap).

I guess my first question would be, can the player fall into their own trap? I wondered this about the bee mine, whether we could trip it (thankfully no), but with a pit you would think yes... which creates all sorts of problems in terms of what that causes to happen.

Now I noticed that the shovel is used, and I'm thinking of this in terms of a crafting formula. In the invention tab it would show you what you needed to craft the trap, but you've only mentioned grass and the shovel. If that's feasible, what happens if, say, you're building a pit that uses 40% of your flint Shovel, but you only have 10% remaining? Does it not work? Is it partial? With trees you can chop them with an axe and it remembers how many chops you have made on it which gives you a chance to use a new axe to finish the job. However this is more of a "crafted placeable", either you can or cannot create it.

Lastly, I don't think we would need three versions of the trap. Why? because every player is just going to make the Tier-3 pit and never bother with the other two. That's why there's only one rabbit trap and one bird trap. I think a pit trap should work the same way.

All of these may increase your naughty meter, depending on the monster killed. Leaving your trapped predator to die of starvation will cause your character Sanity.

I agree about naughtiness, if you're killing pig men with your trap. The sanity loss... I'm not sure. I say this because I think the pit should always be fatal because otherwise you're potentially trapping "live" creatures. Then how do you resolve that? There could be one or more of them in the pit after all. Better to have it that any creature that falls in the pit is killed. Obviously large creatures, like beefalo, treeguards, and spider queens are too large to fall into the trap and can just ignore it.

All types of traps are considered an entity to your character, so whether it is hidden or not, your character cannot run across the top of the trap.

Hahaha! Sorry, I'm laughing at myself. This is what happens when you respond to a post before reading all of it.

So yes, this answers my earlier question. Preventing the player from crossing it altogether works best. Also, the hammer should be able to destroy/dismantle the pit trap. Even if that sounds a bit odd.

Edit - I don't know if it was suggested before... I searched Drop, Pit, and Trap, with any combination. Didn't show up. My apologies if it was.

It was brought up briefly in a thread about creating new traps... I think it was referred to as a "tiger trap". Or a covered pit with spikes along the bottom. With this in mind, and my suggestion that maybe there should only be one pit trap, I would go with the crafting formula that uses/includes logs.

[Moonphos]

Now I noticed that the shovel is used, and I'm thinking of this in terms of a crafting formula. In the invention tab it would show you what you needed to craft the trap, but you've only mentioned grass and the shovel. If that's feasible, what happens if, say, you're building a pit that uses 40% of your flint Shovel, but you only have 10% remaining? Does it not work? Is it partial? With trees you can chop them with an axe and it remembers how many chops you have made on it which gives you a chance to use a new axe to finish the job. However this is more of a "crafted placeable", either you can or cannot create it.

I guess the coding process to make use of this will be nerve-wreckingly hard, if not troublesome.

Item Formula, shown in a way similar to current system, would have the Shovel Icon (xx%), and if the character has only a shovel with lesser value than that, he/she would react with "I need a better tool than this".

Coding example

Minecraft (Just an example) has almost everything coded with its own data ID, even for durability. An unused shovel (without durability bar) is Item ID 273, and a used shovel (with durability bar) would be 273:xxxx.

Continuing with example, but using DS as platform, Shovel would have an ID value "Shovel", between "Shovel:100" to "Shovel:1", which is 100 different lines of code for every percentage, hidden as a parameter called Durability. So the Trap would accept any Shovel codes between "Shovel:100" to "Shovel:40", which the latter would be cosumed.

... ... ...I don't think that's how it works anyway, I'm not a programmer *lol*

I agree about naughtiness, if you're killing pig men with your trap. The sanity loss... I'm not sure. I say this because I think the pit should always be fatal because otherwise you're potentially trapping "live" creatures. Then how do you resolve that? There could be one or more of them in the pit after all. Better to have it that any creature that falls in the pit is killed. Obviously large creatures, like beefalo, treeguards, and spider queens are too large to fall into the trap and can just ignore it.

What I'm trying to say with that is, players can choose to end the misery of the creature caught by killing it immediately (*). Or they can watch and enjoy it's suffering as it tried to escape and failed, then died because there was no food.

But coding hunger to all catchable predators may end up having Monster Meat and some others magically lying everywhere all over the map, so your reply makes sense.

*Extreme example, will upset people or brings back bad memories, so please don't spoiler this if you can get sensitive.

Sort of what we would do, if we bring our critically wound/severely sick/dying pet to a clinic, and the vets suggest to euthanise to end its suffering. It's the next humane thing to do, I think

It was brought up briefly in a thread about creating new traps... I think it was referred to as a "tiger trap". Or a covered pit with spikes along the bottom. With this in mind, and my suggestion that maybe there should only be one pit trap, I would go with the crafting formula that uses/includes logs.

No wonder I couldn't find it. The search function is horribly bad >_<

I guess one trap would work fine, as it is. I'll switch around the formula and update OP.

[mobius187]

Item Formula, shown in a way similar to current system, would have the Shovel Icon (xx%), and if the character has only a shovel with lesser value than that, he/she would react with "I need a better tool than this".

What about if you have two shovels that meet the criteria? What is one is a flint shovel, and the other a gold shovel? I think the Devs saw this "tool" issue coming and opted to avoid it. Think about the pig house... how do you build one without a hammer... or how are logs cut into wooden boards? The Devs avoided these questions and just opted to focus on what resources were needed to actually build the invention. Now it's you choice, but I suggest that maybe the crafting formula for the pit trap should focus on the traps components and not how the pit was dug.

What I'm trying to say with that is, players can choose to end the misery of the creature caught by killing it immediately (*). Or they can watch and enjoy it's suffering as it tried to escape and failed, then died because there was no food.

True... but would there be any merit to letting the creature starve? Also, if it's alive, how do you kill it? Does it work like the rabbit/bird trap, in that you fish the animal out and place it on the ground... or in your inventory?

But coding hunger to all catchable predators may end up having Monster Meat and some others magically lying everywhere all over the map, so your reply makes sense.

I'm just not sure we need to track hunger for caught creatures. It's basically the same as with the bird/rabbit trap... I caught both and let them stay in their trap without any issue. Now I can't speak for future plans, but I'm just not sure there is a need for starving animals inside traps.

No wonder I couldn't find it. The search function is horribly bad >_<

Sometimes it can be hard to locate a unique piece of information if the search text is too generic. Search can only do so much...

I guess one trap would work fine, as it is. I'll switch around the formula and update OP.

Right-e-o.

[jujubomber]

True... but would there be any merit to letting the creature starve?

Maybe depending on what was trapped, you get a different sort of item that can only be obtained by killing that way. I'll use Pigmen as an example, mostly because I responded to a thread a few minutes ago regarding the problem of hoarding meat and skins from pigs, and I couldn't quite figure out how to solve it at the time, but this could possibly work? Starving a Pigman could allow you to get the skin only maybe? Or if poison gets added, starving Spiders would make it easier to collect the venom?

[NippleKing]

Spiders can still get trapped in rabbit traps i think it's just the smaller capture box that the devs changed it to.

[mobius187]

Maybe depending on what was trapped, you get a different sort of item that can only be obtained by killing that way. I'll use Pigmen as an example, mostly because I responded to a thread a few minutes ago regarding the problem of hoarding meat and skins from pigs, and I couldn't quite figure out how to solve it at the time, but this could possibly work? Starving a Pigman could allow you to get the skin only maybe? Or if poison gets added, starving Spiders would make it easier to collect the venom?

What if we switch it around? I was sitting here thinking about the trap's durability. How would you know what % durability it's at, because unlike other traps, you'll never be able to pick the pit trap up. Then it occurred to me that if clicking on the pit trap only examines it... how would the player ever get anything from it? My suggestion is this, why not make the pit trap a lethal trap that isn't used for catching prey like other traps, but rather simply kills/destroys them? No worries about collecting items from them. No starvation concerns, because they simply die inside the trap. This would make the pit trap not a hunting trap, but a pitfall meant to stop enemies, like the hounds or spiders that are chasing you.

The durability of the pit trap could then be visual... and after 5-10 enemies fall into the pit (with the grass only hiding the trap initially when dealing with multiple enemies) the trap could become clogged... with bones. After which everyone could walk across it without pathfinding issues, just they cannot stop on top of it.

Also, instead of logs to repair the trap's spikes, how about using the shovel... to clear/clean it out by clicking on it (/w the shovel)?

Just some thoughts. I'm suggesting the item destruction in part to balance the effectiveness of the trap at catching multiple "dumb" enemies.

Spiders can still get trapped in rabbit traps i think it's just the smaller capture box that the devs changed it to.

They can...? I thought that was updated so they couldn't? Did the Devs change it back?

[Moonphos]

What if we switch it around? I was sitting here thinking about the trap's durability. How would you know what % durability it's at, because unlike other traps, you'll never be able to pick the pit trap up. Then it occurred to me that if clicking on the pit trap only examines it... how would the player ever get anything from it? My suggestion is this, why not make the pit trap a lethal trap that isn't used for catching prey like other traps, but rather simply kills/destroys them? No worries about collecting items from them. No starvation concerns, because they simply die inside the trap. This would make the pit trap not a hunting trap, but a pitfall meant to stop enemies, like the hounds or spiders that are chasing you.

Also, instead of logs to repair the trap's spikes, how about using the shovel... to clear/clean it out by clicking on it (/w the shovel)?

Just some thoughts. I'm suggesting the item destruction in part to balance the effectiveness of the trap at catching multiple "dumb" enemies.

Hhmm, I certainly wasn't thinking much about the loot drops when creatures are killed. Destruction of loot doesn't sound too far fetch.

Also, currently, the Shovel works only if the character is directly on top of the entity in question (e.g Tree Stump, Graveyard). Since the trap has collision entity, it can't be shoveled as the character won't be able to get on it.

So I'm thinking, a little more with design, that there will be 2 entity parts (both functioning as 1 item), first part being the pit itself, with the second part a separate "Marker" that the Characters can approach and interact with.

*Home Base*

  Wilson
     V  <- Character's facing direction
     o <- Pit Trap Interaction Entity
__________
|         |
|         |  <- Pit Trap
|_________|

*Wilderness*

The orientation of the whole trap (as ONE item) will be with the Interaction Entity be in front of the Character, and the Pit Trap afterwards. This way, the Character can interact (Repair & Replace) with the Pit Trap, without interrupting with the collision data. The Defensive Trap can be built while within the safety of the "Home Base".

What do you guys think?

The durability of the pit trap could then be visual... and after 5-10 enemies fall into the pit (with the grass only hiding the trap initially when dealing with multiple enemies) the trap could become clogged... with bones. After which everyone could walk across it without pathfinding issues, just they cannot stop on top of it.

Interesting - Farm plots currently have something similar as well, although it's a simple color-visual change between being "fertilized" and "not fertilized". This can work as a visual cue how much more uses its left before being completely piled up.

[jujubomber]

What if we switch it around? I was sitting here thinking about the trap's durability. How would you know what % durability it's at, because unlike other traps, you'll never be able to pick the pit trap up. Then it occurred to me that if clicking on the pit trap only examines it... how would the player ever get anything from it? My suggestion is this, why not make the pit trap a lethal trap that isn't used for catching prey like other traps, but rather simply kills/destroys them? No worries about collecting items from them. No starvation concerns, because they simply die inside the trap. This would make the pit trap not a hunting trap, but a pitfall meant to stop enemies, like the hounds or spiders that are chasing you.

The durability of the pit trap could then be visual... and after 5-10 enemies fall into the pit (with the grass only hiding the trap initially when dealing with multiple enemies) the trap could become clogged... with bones. After which everyone could walk across it without pathfinding issues, just they cannot stop on top of it.

Also, instead of logs to repair the trap's spikes, how about using the shovel... to clear/clean it out by clicking on it (/w the shovel)?

Just some thoughts. I'm suggesting the item destruction in part to balance the effectiveness of the trap at catching multiple "dumb" enemies.

That's a good idea, and I thought of something to add to your unclogging idea. How about you can only harvest items when you have to unclog the hole? I figure that if you're going to dig out the bones you're going to eventually hit the loot at the same time.

[mobius187]

That's a good idea, and I thought of something to add to your unclogging idea. How about you can only harvest items when you have to unclog the hole? I figure that if you're going to dig out the bones you're going to eventually hit the loot at the same time.

Anything is possible. Although if they ever add rotting into the game that may play a factor on any meats you find.