40d:Mechanism

Mechanisms are created by a mechanic at a mechanic's workshop out of a stone. They can also be forged out of adamantine wafers at a Forge. Building traps, levers, pressure plates, and gear assemblies requires one mechanism. Linking objects to a lever or pressure plate requires two mechanisms per linked item (one for the object, one for the lever). If you want to ever recover those mechanisms you need to deconstruct both the linked object and the lever.

It is a mechanic's job to install mechanisms. Mechanisms can be linked to objects at any distance.

Mechanisms make surprisingly good trade items, due to their high base value of 30, but are heavy compared to crafts and so may not be a good trade good if wagons can't access your trade depot. Since their value is higher than that of a statue, levers and gear assemblies make good alternative room decorations.

Since mechanisms count as furniture, the jeweler's workshop action encrust furniture with [gem] can encrust mechanisms with gems instead of actual furniture.

High-quality mechanisms improve the accuracy of their traps, as stated by Toady here. This means traps with more than one weapon or weapons that strike multiple times (namely the large, serrated disc and spiked ball) will benefit more from high-quality mechanisms.

A mechanism's quality has no effect on how quickly it operates.

The only stones that can withstand the heat of magma are bauxite and raw adamantine, so make bauxite mechanisms if you plan on using floodgates to hold back magma and don't want to use your precious adamantine for such a task.

NOTE: Even if your floodgate and floodgate's mechanism are both made of magma-safe materials (such as bauxite), if you link even a single additional lever to the floodgate using a non-magma-safe mechanism, you will have a very unpleasant last-minute surprise.

Toady One has stated that metal mechanisms will be available soon "probably" for the purpose of managing magma floodgates, though the availability of bauxite makes this largely unnecessary. As an alternative, if one is not averse to a little modding, adding the [ANY_USE] flag to a metal such as iron will give it the same properties as adamantine for forging purposes, including the ability to make mechanisms from that metal at any forge.