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[Vattic]

I have seen this suggested within other topics, I suggested it myself in the [For or Against] Tunnelers units topic and I have seen it suggested by others but I couldn't find a topic on it in its own right and I think its deserves one. On to the idea.

I think it would be useful to have the ability to hide and unhide underground tiles on the map which you have dug out. Ideally it would work like the d - b - ? for hiding and dumping items on mass. The difference would be that it would replace the tile with the black unexplored tile in the normal view.

I will give an example where I encountered a situation where this would be useful. I was digging out my pre-planned housing district when I hit a vein of Gold nuggets, I mined them out for much profit, the problem was that half the rooms were now joined by the now mined vein and even after I walled it all off it looked very messy. Yes I know I'm being a bit of a perfectionist but I don't think I'm the only one .

One problem would be dwarves moving through hidden tiles, but I would suggest that you can only hide tiles that dwarves cant see, so if you wall off an area you can hide all that lies behind it for example. If the area gets mined into again it would remove the hidden status automatically.

Any thoughts?

[Savok]

I think that Toady will do this when the time comes, and he will do it far more elegantly than our simple minds can contrive.

I think that we post a lot of stuff like this.

I also think that math is neat, but that probably isn't too related to the topic on hand.

[Nesoo]

Seeing as how I seconded it in that For/Against thread, I should here as well. I'm kind of torn on whether I'd rather have it be something I can do myself with a designation or just have it automatically do it when a location is no longer visible (i.e., when completely rewalling that vein you mined out). I'd prefer the latter, but I can see situations where someone might be making a design or something that requires those areas to be visible though, so I'm not sure...

Regardless, I do think it should only affect tiles that aren't visible.

[Sowelu]

What's the difference between an empty ore vein you wall off, an empty room you wall off, an empty room with a closed door that has its entrance now obstructed by magma, and an empty room with a closed door that just nobody ever goes to?

They're all places nobody is going to look anymore...

I don't think "not accessible" is a good way of distinguishing what you can hide or not.

[Vattic]

Sowelu that's exactly why I suggested it be something the user has control over although I do realise you weren't talking to me there.

[Footkerchief]

What's the difference between an empty ore vein you wall off, an empty room you wall off, an empty room with a closed door that has its entrance now obstructed by magma, and an empty room with a closed door that just nobody ever goes to?

They're all places nobody is going to look anymore...

I don't think "not accessible" is a good way of distinguishing what you can hide or not.

I almost feel like those areas should get grayed out or something so you won't know if enemies are sneaking around in there.  There would be some complications with fortifications, windows, etc., which can't be moved through but still allow sight.  But I do think areas that your dwarves can't see or access should become hidden or pseudo-hidden.

[BonSequitur]

I think the simplest standard is to hide areas that are completely sealed off - if it is completely walled off and inaccessible even to a hypothetical creature that can destroy buildings and move through any tile, then it should be hidden. So a door wouldn't hide the area beyond it, but a constructed wall would. Underground features would be exempt from this.

[Nesoo]

Good points. I think BonSequitur has the best standard for when to hide something.

I was still stuck in "fill in the Tunnelers' tunnels" mode, so I was only thinking of filling in a tunnel completely, but hiding a walled off room/corridor/tunnel/empty vein makes just as much sense.

[Hectonkhyres]

I can see three real choices here. The first is what we have now: you see practically everything, even things you shouldn't be able to or don't want to, regardless of where it is. The second is that some areas, which ones being up for debate, get completely blacked out when certain conditions are met.

The third, and I like this one, is that areas suitably out of the sight of your dwarves fall under something of a fog of war. A room nobody has been in is rendered in greyscale rather than color and its image is nolonger updated. Even if everything in the room burned down two years ago or your supply of plump helmets has changed into 20 dog-sized giant rats, you won't know if nobody has been down there. If we don't add in some sort of color change, people would have a really hard time figuring which information they can trust and which they can't.

Perhaps flashing colored icons (periods or dashes for quiet sounds, asterisks or coin symbols for loud sounds) pop up in tiles where something is making a lot of noise and there is a dwarf on the other side of a wall to hear it. I might even change the color of the icon depending on the basic type of noise: Red for crunches or pounding against rock, aqua for blades or shattering sounds, blue for water sounds, brown for scuffling or rummaging, yellow for vocalization.

I would also add an option to 'forget' what was in a given set of tiles, wiping your knowledge of what used to be there and rendering those tiles black.