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[Qloos]

It's time to list off terrain features we wish we had in DF, create a list, check it twice and make sure everything on it is naughty or nice.  I know some of it is probably already on Toady's list and that he's busy with other great things.  But this is my dream thread, don't stomp on it.

Add these tags onto your wish list:
[Common] 12+ per normal sized map
[Uncommon] 3 per normal sized map
[Unique] 1/3 normal sized maps have it
[Rare] 1/50 normal sized maps have it



Cliffs[Common]
Even if they're only 1 Z level high.  I'd love to see a reduction of the number of ramps.  A spot here or there without them would reduce the monotone. 


Magma Chambers [Uncommon]

With whole new and dangerous mega beasts preferably.  Bordering on HFS.


Rivers of Lava [Uncommon]
Which flow from magma vents and end in some sort of obsidian flatland.


Cave rivers - Rivers [Common]
Have a few cave rivers flow out from natural openings into regular outdoor rivers.


Mesa [Uncommon]
A couple spots where the Z level says "screw that! I'm better than the rest of this flatland"


Geiser [Unique]
A couple spots where the Water says "Screw this! I'm better than the rest of this Aquifer!"


Mega Mountain Glacier [Rare]
A mountainous valley location where a Glacier grows and shrinks during the seasons.


Whirlpool [Unique]
Where water meets a random 1x1 bottomless pit.

[SolarShado]

All good ideas!
Incidently, i have seen mesa-like areas, though not on a large scale.

[Granite26]

I'd like to see geisers as emergent behaviour...

[i2amroy]

This is cool, though the geyser would need some sort of limiter on it that didn't make it flow constantly, or that would flood your whole map. Another way to get around that could be to create an aquifer tile 5 or so z-levels above a draining tile. This will mean that the water would appear 5 z-levels up and fall to a tile that sucked the water into an alternate dimension. Not very realistic, and might cause some problems if someone managed to build in the road of the geyser, but it would work.

[Granite26]

just model them like real life....  Water heats up, turns to steam and geyses*.  Aquifer refills the spot with water.

*  Yes, I made that up

[ogion]

.......

[Unique] 1/3 normal sized maps have it
[Rare] 1/50 normal sized maps have it

.....

Just a nitpicking: Unique refers to one of a kind, and thus are more infrequent than rare....

[Random832]

Unique could mean one per world maximum

[Warlord255]

Some of the discussions concerning meteors in the Underground Diversity thread as of late might merit entry here.

[TrombonistAndrew]

Rivers of Lava [Uncommon]
Which flow from magma vents and end in some sort of obsidian flatland.

Magma normally forms basalt instead of obsidian in environments like this - obsidian only forms from extremely quick cooling, like exposure to a lake or ocean.

[TrombonistAndrew]

My idea contribution:

Tar pit[rare]
basically a pipe filled with tar. Associated with oil/coal/peat. The pipe refills with tar if emptied like a magma pipe. Creatures which walk into tar become stuck and eventually drown. Tar pits can be used to dispose of waste, as it will slowly sink. Tar can be used for:

burning
turning gravel into asphault for roads

If one tries to use tar like magma for engineering, tar is even more viscous than magma, and not nearly as useful. It sticks to everything, and flows so slowly and is so viscous that it's practically useless as a drowning trap. But it could be useful to form a sticky floor to slow down creatures in a certain area.

Based on research, tar is also produced as a byproduct of creating coke from coal. Wikipedia rocks.

[TrombonistAndrew]

Geiser [Unique]
A couple spots where the Water says "Screw this! I'm better than the rest of this Aquifer!"

Yeah, this is easily done as a special form of having a magma source of some kind plus an aquifer. Let's see . . . how would that get accomplished . . .

have the water "migrate" up the sides of the magma pipe or river until it gets to the top. Then, the water "migrates" straight up and steams when it gets to air. The rate of steam "migration" is much less than the flow of water, and steam erupts only when a sufficient amount accumulates in the tile below air. Thus, larger magma sources (with a larger surface area on the aquifer level) produce more active geysers. Yes, this involves yet another fluid flow, but if it's slow enough it shouldn't notieably affect frame rates. You can even use this effect for engineering: given a known magma source, build a waterway to the edge of the magma source but leave one bit of rock at the pipe's edge. Viola, artificial geyser. Or steambath. Or whatever.

The rocks transporting steam could be known as "hot wet [rock]" if viewed from the side, and "geiser" if viewed as a floor. No vegetation grows on such floors, and in worldgen creates a kind of "mineral pool" on the surface.