The Castle Doctrine Forums

An idea that I've been toying with is similar, and more expensive to safely get past it.

http://castledraft.com/editor/GIjo48

This is almost the exact same trap as before.  However, it costs 1800 per tile to be completely safe instead of 400.  Because of that, it's much more likely that the robber will use the plan with the first trap, go along until they see the dog about to turn off the pits, then use a tool to get out.  The *safest* thing at that point is to use a ladder, and step on it - then, you saw through the walls.  However, the robber could easily think of a cheaper option - saw through the wall immediately, saving that ladder for later in the robbery.  Both sides seem to be powered, so they might not think it matters, giving them a 50/50 chance of survival (although they think it's 100).  If they think one side of walls is a trap and not powered, they'll be much more likely to think the bottom one is powered - the electric door (which is the most expensive way of keeping someone from sawing through the supporting walls from the beginning) connected to it is closed, and the switch seems to be connected to the bottom.  So, they'll cut the top wall - and promptly die by falling into a suddenly unpowered pit.  The design needs to be worked on a bit to not make it obvious that the door and wire direction are red herrings, but I think it could work well.

I'm another new player and I feel your pain.

I assume that most people test their houses often during construction. When I test a new house, I always go back to the entrance rather than the vault so it doesn't validate. But this limits the kind of traps I can make, and forces me to use indicators and chihuahuas, which particularly sucks if your solution requires frying a dog in a logic puzzle. My current setup needs to have an electric floor on one square for the puzzle to work, but that square needs to be an indicator so that I can get back out while testing. It's a catch 22.

One fix to this problem that would still be in the spirit of the game is if after a successful test run you had the option to either validate and view your neighbors as usual OR return to your house without validating.  Of course, if your problem is wanting to move a pit after your house earned a little cash overnight, well, my suggestion doesn't help you, so I agree with your idea of at least a partial refund. Notice that dogs work exactly the way you describe, you can move them around freely between validations, so not being able to do the same with walls and pits must be deliberate. It seems like there is a lot in this game that is deliberately annoying.