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[NW_Kohaku]

Oh how I love a good text cascade. 

If we're making uncomfortably graphic allusions, I guess at this point, we're just shooting the shit?

Anyway, I don't mean to disparage Pratchett by calling him a comedy writer.  Shakespeare wrote most of his plays as comedies.  If I was forced to pick just one fantasy writer's collected works to take with me to a desert island, Pratchett would be it.

In fact, I positively love that what started out as a joke has been expanded upon and gradually backfilled with rationality and reason... it's a common thread of many of my favorite series that they take statements initially made just to connect some plot point, and then expand upon what the actual in-universe meanings and applications of those ideas are, and how they can possibly be made to make a cohesive bit of sense.  (Stargate, Narue no Sekai, and others did things like this, as well...)


As for "muck" and "tainted water sources" (especially downstream of a major city), yes, there's certainly something there. 

In real life, many diseases cause gastrointestinal distress for the specific reason that, pre-sanitation, their infection vector was through being inbibed from water sources tainted by the waste of those with the disease suffering gastrointestinal distress.

Typhoid is an exceptionally vivid example of a disease evolved to take advantage of poor human sanitation.

The notion of dilution definitely needs to be better explored in DF if we are to go purely with a "tainted water" concept rather than just a one-tile item, so that we're not constantly swimming in red water because something once bled into it (or yellow water, in this case).  It could still carry a risk of tainting, but not be visible and obvious unless really concentrated. 

I do again think that something similar to what PTTG? talked about before, with a "dirty well" that dwarves "wash" at to remove "contaminants" occasionally is a good way to be discrete about something that can have serious game impact.

Animals might just start leaving contaminants around, but, well, they're animals. Plus, you should be using those pastures to good effect, anyway.  Anyone that lets a pig into their dining hall at all hours of the day is just asking for it.  Left in pastures, the contaminants they leave can start the process of being converted into soil fertilizers fairly easily, as well, especially when we start talking about crop rotations.

[Starver]

(Ok, let's try again, and hope that it doesn't time-out on me again, it doesn't appear that this will become a double-post, but forgive me you read it as such before I remove/edit-down this duplicate...)

Anyway, I don't mean to disparage Pratchett by calling him a comedy writer.

I didn't actually think you were, it was just a different kind of description to any that would have been meaningful to me.

And he can be dark.  I mean Dark like in Thud, of course (various kinds of Dark also, but I'm not even referencing them), but then you have Dark like right near the beginning of I Shall Wear Midnight...  And that's for kids young adults...


Ok, how about I drag us back on topic while indulging myself with more Pratchett-wise information...

There's the nature of the River Ankh, in the middle of A-M.  Too extreme?  (Also, comes from early in the series, so may fail the rationality test... The Ankh is proper liquid both above and below the blockage, and flowing, yet not always flooding, so can it actually be permeable/have hidden stream-channels beneath the ooze/crust?)  There's the largely forgotten (but apparently viable) Via Cloaca sewer and its tributaries, as well, although I think the likes of the privvy that some of the Guards (in G!G!) fall into is probably not connected, and the various night-soil men (aided and abetted by the dunnikin-divers, as necessary) probably service that convenience, for your convenience.  (Granny just digs another hole and moves the hut along, however, having the luxury of having a low-occupancy household with spare ground.  This wouldn't really work in the City, however much loam it is built upon.)

Animal wastes also abound, especially around the slaughterhouse districts.  And then there's the use of ginger, to prove that animal anatomy (at the very least, but likely also humans if the Ginger Beer trick is meant to have a similar operational effect, when not merely a placebo being falsely advertised) is indeed much the same as with their Roundworld brethren.  (There are other occasions where the mechanics of 'waste management' are briefly described, such as in the beast-powered riverboats in Snuff...)

Of course (also in, and from, Snuff), there's the World Of Poo book , made to fascinate young minds/the young-at-heart (both in-universe and out).

All the above make the world involved fun, of course.  It colours it (albeit not with a rosy tint).  It's obvious that it happens in the world.  But do you actually get to see (with a precious few exceptions) the... shall we say... personal application of this need?  Bathrooms are mostly used as locales for... well, shaving, I think, even more than baths, and less than that even for any on-topic purposes, even assuming that the home involved has a posh internal facility.  Oh yeah, how could I forget young Jocasta Wiggs?  ("It is fatal... eventually...")


I've already mentioned The Sims, previously in the thread...  Certainly in the versions I've played (and without patching them with 3rd-party "de-pixelation" utilities) it's a fact of life (an annoying one, really, but they were aiming for reality, ...FCVO) but is a somewhat discreetly hidden action.  (And even when 'accidents happen', it appears to be only a matter of passing water from the state of the floor afterwards.)



I'd really intended to let the fantasies (if that's the right word, which it isn't) of such mechanics continue without my further objection, but I want to lay my argument on the table that I don't see us adding much to the story of a fort/adventurer by requiring "comfort breaks" be taken by the respective participants.  I'm not particularly squeamish about the waste element (although I don't think it's considered good form to directly fertilise crops intended for human consumption with human waste, with all kind of pathogen-concentrating reasons to avoid this, as well as creating a cycle of growth for certain harmful micro-organisms), but I don't see it as having added value right now or in the near future.

Of course, t'aint me that controls what happens (and I didn't like the idea of vampires coming into the game, either... I still don't particularly[1], but I'm living with their existence, or potential existence), and so my feelings are probably of near-zero value (if not zero itself) when it comes to weighting the possibilities of future development.


But having spent far too long, tonight (now this morning) on this and other online matters, it's about time I leave the forums alone for those few hours of sleep.  Shift-Z, d, <enter>.


[1] For Adventure Mode I tolerate them, because (most of the time, except (ironically!) when they're hiding in the flooded sewers and I can't safely get at them) they kill as easily as any untransformed were-beast, in my Adventurer's experience.  I've also managed to generally avoid them in Fortress Mode (so far!)... whether or not this is because of my recently developed Panopticon design of fortress, that discourages their activities, or because I've never actually had one, I've no idea.  Every immigrant appears to so far be who they say they are, etc...

[NW_Kohaku]

I'd really intended to let the fantasies (if that's the right word, which it isn't) of such mechanics continue without my further objection, but I want to lay my argument on the table that I don't see us adding much to the story of a fort/adventurer by requiring "comfort breaks" be taken by the respective participants.  I'm not particularly squeamish about the waste element (although I don't think it's considered good form to directly fertilise crops intended for human consumption with human waste, with all kind of pathogen-concentrating reasons to avoid this, as well as creating a cycle of growth for certain harmful micro-organisms), but I don't see it as having added value right now or in the near future.

It's not good for most crops to have fresh waste applied as fertilizer.  That's actually called "hot" fertilizer, and it will "burn" the crops.  (They will wither and blacken.) That's why it's part of classic crop rotation - you "fallow" a field by planting clover (a nitrogen fixator) and letting animals graze and drop manure, which has time to decay into more useful fertilizers.

(Inside the human - and animal - body, ammonia is produced as a waste product, but ammonia is too acidic for the human body, so it is converted into urea, which is more benign, and released.  In the open, bacteria decompose urea back into ammonia, which plants can make use of, but the urea and process of decomposition isn't too good for the plants, itself.)

You also get much better results with fertilizers if you have them in the soil before planting, rather than dumping them on top of an established plant, anyway.  Tilling the soil is meant to mix up the soil and stir the nutrients of the fertilizers you added back into the depths of the soil to encourage root growth.  You also burn the clover or till it into the soil to decompose in order to let the most of that "green manure" be available to the next round of crops.  (Although the act of tilling itself causes much of your soil's nitrogen to be lost, and can easily lead to soil erosion, which is why many farmers are trying to move to zero-till systems.)

For more modern/industrialized systems, sewage is sent to worm farms or the like to have more accelerated decomposition.  Chemistry can also be used to separate out a more pure and concentrated ammonia for use in the production of fertilizers.

[wierd]

Rapid aerobic action composters can make use of the nutrient rich waste products to rapidly decompose more difficult to break down bulk filler substances, like grass and wheat straw, into perfectly safe to apply compost in just a few days, however.

(My mom does crazy intensive organic gardening, and maintains active composting systems.)

Medieval "sanitation" involved dumping straw down on top of the "soiled" areas, to prevent the stench from being unbearable as the urea and other nitrogenated compounds in the waste products became ammonia, and other "malodors".  This would make way for a very useful vocational role, given the issues with grazers starving to death as well.

Specifically, hay farming, hay bailing, and composting.

Making dwarves require straw or hay to clean up "contaminants" would be setting appropriate, and would produce the needed "soiled hay" for a composting operation. The resulting compost having a wide assortment of uses, either as a pressed fuel brick, like peat, or as a fertilizer that can be safely applied in bulk. (The current raw potash fertilizer is a *very* hot fertilizer, and would kill just about any crop you put on it except tomatos and strawberries. Mushrooms? Forget about it. Poor things wouldn't survive a single application.)

My mom actually uses horse manure, wheat straw, and collected bags of autumn leaves in her composting operations. Works great. The heat of the composting process kills most harmful microbial and parasitical forms, and raking it out to dry after composting takes care of the rest.

Compost is the preferred "dookie based" fertilizer, and is inoffensive, and earthy smelling.

[KrEstoF]

Wouldn't it just be epic though?

Dragon invading your fort eats several livestock and dwarves.

A few dwarves run up right behind it ready to flank it. Dragon then takes a massive dump, smothering them in a mountain of feces.  Based off the story of the guy who died sorta like that taking care of an elephant!

[wierd]

...erh.. not really no.

Poop the crapping dragon having lethal levels of projectile poo I think would fall into the "Deviant" category that toady would like to avoid.

[Symmetry]

I'm a big supporter of this, for lots of reasons, but perhaps given what Toady has sai we need to approach the problem from the perspective of number and length of breaks of dwarves?

I feel that whole area could do with a real overhaul, and some ideas to limit going for a drink, then getting half way back to your job, then going to sleep, etc. would be great.  I know there are a couple of threads on AI but they're mainly focused on making them more intelligent rather than changing the number and tpe of tasks to make the game more interesting and flexible. 

[NW_Kohaku]

I'm a big supporter of this, for lots of reasons, but perhaps given what Toady has sai we need to approach the problem from the perspective of number and length of breaks of dwarves?

I feel that whole area could do with a real overhaul, and some ideas to limit going for a drink, then getting half way back to your job, then going to sleep, etc. would be great.  I know there are a couple of threads on AI but they're mainly focused on making them more intelligent rather than changing the number and tpe of tasks to make the game more interesting and flexible.

I have put some thought into this in general...

First, there's a problem with the way that DF iterates many of the counters in the game, in general. 

That is, apparently, almost everything in the game that iterates iterates every single frame. 

This is a big problem for FPS because it means that every single frame of the game requires iterating through the entire creature list (living and dead) and iterating things like hunger and thirst and the like. 

Also, because the game stores hunger and thirst in unsigned shorts, the exact number of frames it takes to starve or get hungry is based arbitrarily upon the size of the container.  (The maximum hunger value is the maximum value of an unsigned short - 65535.)

Instead of having iterations of every stat for every creature every frame, we could instead start working off of a "scheduler" system for many of these iterations.

For example, water only gets checked for movement every (IIRC) 11 frames, and only 1 in 4 tiles actually move (in order) during that time.  This keeps the game from having to calculate every single water tile's movement every frame, and cuts the FPS loss from fluids to 1/44 of what it would be. 

This same principle can be applied to hunger and thirst, as well as bathroom breaks:

Each unit has a unit ID, and a place in the vector of creatures. 

You can set up a schedule so that a creature's hunger and thirst are iterated every 1000 frames.  (This is an arbitrary number, and can be whatever makes sense.) That is, in the first frame, every creature with a unit ID ending in *000 adds to its current hunger and thirst levels and checks for things like hair growth and the like.  Then, the next frame, every creature with a unit ID ending in *001 adds to its current hunger and thirst levels.

You don't have to just add 1.  You don't have to just add 1,000, either.  You can add 647 if you want to, because you don't have to deal with whole integers for whole frames, anymore. 

This means that you can set creature metabolism modifiers so that creatures like elephants don't starve so much. 

You can then also make this number based upon attributes (so larger, stronger, faster creatures burn more calories and need to eat more often, while small, lethargic people keep their calories) and break down the need for all meals to instantly reset hunger to 0 in dwarves, so that dwarves with large appetites will take stacks of food with them when eating. 

By doing this, you can actually make dwarves take breaks less often than they already do, since you can adjust the rate of those meters filling up because you are no longer bound to the one-frame-one-iteration standard.

AND it saves FPS!

The only cost is that, depending on the size of the scheduler period, and the size of the iteration to hunger/thirst/sleepiness, there may be sudden large jumps in the hunger/thirst/sleepiness values, so keeping a reasonably small period (that is, keeping it to something small like going for a full loop every 1000 frames rather than 100,000 frames) has to be balanced against making a situation where a dwarf has only a single scheduler period to eat or die. 


Beyond that, there's combined breaks - when a dwarf goes on break, instead of going on break to do a single thing, they can make a combined break, where, if they're thirsty at all, they will also take a drinking break during the same break as their eating break.  They can even grab food and drink in the same trip now that we have code for carrying multiple stacks of items going to the same location. 

This leads to a simple solution for where to find time for bathroom breaks: Just make them go when they're done eating or drinking.  It can also simplify where you need to put the bathrooms: right next to the dining halls. 

That way, you don't have any actual extra number of breaks dwarves go on, and if you make the actual time (number of turns) spent during the process of eating or drinking shorter, then you can even make the time spent on a given break not even significantly larger than it already is, provided you have an efficient fortress layout.

[Symmetry]

If you go down that path you probably want a calendar queue and to make parts of df event driven rather than cell update driven.  It should be much better, but it's slightly orthogonal to the matter in question I think.  Also redesiging the core of the game engine probably isn't needed

Combined breaks are a good idea.  Also I was thinking routines might be a good idea, so the dwarf wakes up, then eats something, then goes to work, etc.
Some would always skip breakfast, some would want to take a walk outside when they wake up, some would visit their family tomb before bed etc. based on what they like.

I think this approach would make it easier to balance the game as you're not constantly fighting dropping food/thirst/sunlight values and you have more controls as a designer to make sure work still gets done.

[NW_Kohaku]

Since water motion events are already a sort-of calendar queue, I don't think it would be a major overhaul.  If anything, I'm thinking DF would benefit from having multiple different calendars, since you'd want to have a larger calendar for other types of events.  (And for that matter, farming/crops are based upon one growdur tick coming every 100 frames, as well.)

Besides, the game currently has its hunger mechanics constrained to the size of an unsigned short and all creatures getting hungry at the same time.  If we're talking about ways to make breaks more flexible, then talking about ways to make the mechanics more flexible to allow those more flexible breaks is the place to start.

On the topics of scheduled breaks for food and sleep, that's actually a pretty good extension...

We already have the capacity to set how many soldiers in a militia are training at any given time.  Having some sort of schedule for workers so that we can order workers to be operating in "shifts" like a factory schedule, and have scheduled break times for them to get their shit in order during their downtime when we won't be depending on them working is a good idea.

[Gauteamus]

A+++ thread!

No lengthy displays of historical accuracy or exhaustive pro et contra listings here, just my personal opinion:

I think the added content and "internal logic" of forts would far outweigh any squirmish downsides to adding the whole cycle of sanitation->feces/urine->fertilization->waste disposal->dyes->phosphorus !!Phun!!
It should be able to implement sh*t it in a "tasteful" way, without unhealthy focus on catapults and pooping dragons.

Google fun: "nobility drowning in excrement basement" has a Dwarf Fortress reference as hit number #11. I did however not find any references to the anecdote on european medieval nobility and their notorious bad hygiene, resulting in a whole feast hall drowning in the excrements in the basement after the floor beams having rotted away. What a shame.