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[JasonMel]

This is more of a long-term idea. Possibly even multi-generational.

I propose going back to the Dragslay ideal at some point, and re-implementing the game as a continuous 3D world without tiles, z-levels, or other discontinuities. This sort of has the city-builder game Foundation as inspiration.

I'm trying to imagine the changes to mining and construction. While designating, corridor width and height would be fixed, but elevation angle could and should be easily controllable, with quick defaults available: down, angled-down, horizontal, and angled-up. I assume corridors would always be rectangular solids. For rooms (i.e., non-corridors), I imagine they would always be prismatic solids of uniform height with floor and ceiling horizontal, but arbitrarily-drawn perimeter. Intersecting rooms and corridors could create more elaborate terraces and so forth, involving the same sort of labor workflow as now, mining them from top to bottom and/or constructing from bottom to top.

It would be nice to create quarried stone from carving out these designations in some believable way rather than having something pop into existence. Maybe each pick strike could be at or near the edge of the current mining direction, and each strike around the perimeter of this direction has to fail to crack the stone in the middle. As soon as it cracks, we go into "who cares" mode and whack the nearest stone bulge, which crumbles and disappears. If it doesn't crack, the new raw stone cube (because what other shape would it have?) thuds to the ground and the miner walks around behind it and continues. This is a lot of attention to give to one game mechanic, but it's such a core part of the dwarven mythos/pathos that I think it's warranted.

Internally all walls and surfaces would use minimal geometry, but natural cave, rough-hewn (which should be different from natural cave), smoothed, engraved, rough block, block, engraved block, etc. status would be conveyed with bump-mapping. Since there are no tiles, smoothing and engraving would be on a per-surface basis.

Constructions would be composed of either some very simple parametric shapes or pre-figured building parts included with the game as a resource, placed to intersect. The final shape of a construction would be the union of its placed shapes during designation, though each shape could be constructed separately. Each shape would have a (possibly optional) interior, and the final construction interior would be the union of its shape interiors. And it would be possible to designate mining through constructions just like through living stone, but without the possibility of quarrying.

Well, that's enough for now. Fun to think about, anyway.

[DPh Kraken]

What do you want to see accomplished with such an involved rework, beyond just aesthetics? Is it so that mechanisms could be more involved with seesaws, hanging platforms, etc? Physics puzzles are cool, primarily for adventurers. Still, that sort of thing can still be accomplished with "blocky physics", imagining the various ingenious things that Minecraft players have been up to.
I don't know how this would be communicated with ASCII tiles, and a good chunk of the premium world assets would be invalidated as well as the entirety of the game that deals with units moving through tiles.

[JasonMel]

Well I think that, right there, is a pretty interesting idea! My thoughts had only ranged as far as what I think of as the two signature game mechanics, mining/building and combat. But mechanisms involving simulated physics sounds incredible. Actual falling cages and retracting bridges would be very cool. Having to place actual clockwork gears, shafts, and so on in a way that could plausibly work in the real world would be lots of fun. I do think that free-form building/mining already has the potential to be a lot different than it is in ASCII.

I have never seen 3D combat that came close to a real simulation like what DF does with it in ASCII. The problem seems daunting, but the adventure-mode potential for fun by putting combat under player control in a full 3D simulation would be enormous. Everything I've ever seen is, in terms of the underlying software technology, basically unchanged since Pac-man. To make melee truly physics-based would be revolutionary.

Would there be sacrifices involved in moving away from tiles? Beyond just asthetics again, and beyond the obvious sacrifice of time?

[Tilla]

This sounds like 'write a different game' to me and I don't see any way in a million years that this will happen with DF itself. For one thing you'd need to write a whole new 3d engine which i don't believe anyone involved is qualified to do, . Nor do they particularly want to size up the team to the level needed for good 3d production. Even if they could afford to do it without eating the brothers Adams and cos entire retirement fund.

[Telgin]

It would be cool, but yeah, zero chance of this.  It honestly might be easier to start over than try to rebuild DF to support something like that.

Some of the math would probably actually be easier, like doing real distance calculations without weirdness for diagonal movement, but a lot would be way more complex.  Instead of tiles for navigation, occupancy, and collision, suddenly you need a navigation mesh, collision capsules, etc.  It's just so very different internally that it wouldn't really be possible.

[Eric Blank]

Honestly it might be easier to make a minecraft mod. There's Minecolonies which lets you control a colony with a population and assigning them tasks, building houses for them etc. Maybe a sub-mod for that that further implements some better underground living considerations. The player isn't an abstract overseer with that mod though, you have to worry about yourself too.

[Funk]

You what a flying pig to carry you to the moon and then you can bed the moon princess and win the super moon lottery too?
One thing at a time, and goals that might happen.