Editing 40d:Dwarven atom smasher

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The '''Dwarven Atom Smasher''' is a euphemism for a [[Drawbridge]] in waste disposal or militarily-significant applications. It [[exploit]]s the implementation of drawbridges to utterly destroy any objects and most creatures in its target area.

== Smashing Against the Floor ==
In this design, a drawbridge is built to come down on at least one tile of solid floor. The drawbridge is raised, the targets are placed (or move of their own volition) into position on that floor, and then the drawbridge is lowered, squashing the targets flat. In Dwarf Fortress, "squashed flat" is implemented as "erased from existence".

This is the most common design, for two main reasons:
* Large areas (up to 9x10) can be affected per bridge; it's easy to create one big corridor of death and kill an entire goblin raiding party in one fell splat.
* While waiting to strike, only the small raised portion of the drawbridge is vulnerable to creatures with the [[Building destroyer|BUILDINGDESTROYER]] tag. If you point the drawbridge down your only entrance, they don't make contact with it until it's erasing them from existence. If you put a channel in front of the bridge, it's unreachable by any except flying building destroyers - (and then you have bigger problems.)

== Smashing upon Raising ==
In this design, a very compact drawbridge (as little as one tile long) is used, and the target area is the one-tile wide anchoring area. This often uses walls, locked doors, or other solid objects, leaving the targets nowhere to go. The drawbridge is lowered, the targets are placed (or move of their own volition) into position on the tile(s) that the drawbridge will occupy when raising, and then the drawbridge is raised, squashing the targets flat.

This design has one main advantage: it's compact. By placing a pit above it, you can create a one-tile trash compactor.  By linking it to a clock generatort, it's as good as magma (but not as warm and homey).

== Immune Creatures ==
Creatures with a size larger than 10 cannot be crushed by a lowering drawbridge - instead, the bridge will deconstruct into its component parts. Such units will also prevent a lowered bridge from raising, as well as a retracting bridge from opening. [[Vermin]] seem to be entirely impervious to the atom smasher - it passes straight through them, leaving them on top of it.

[[Category:40d:Game mechanics]]