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Total Members Voted: 22

[Othob Rithol]

Really cool ass mine carts. *IMO*

Sure, cool idea. It has already been suggested some 20 or 30 times.

Drastic understatement.

I don't READ ANYWHERE that it is the FUCK HEADED DUMBASS ERA!!! Anywhere!

I love amateur cursing...or was that immature? I always get those two confused...

[Pruvan]

If the game cannot handle it then let the dwarf go for a ride visibly, but I was attempting to remove the stalls that occur when dwarfs path find and the lag that comes with it.

I think the real lag comes from jobfinding rather than pathfinding.

how else are we supposed to make judgments on what is appropriate other than look at what has been done.

It's called creativity and a lot of games are lacking it these days. The last thing I want to see is for Toady to go mainstream and make a mini-WoW. DF dwarves are not WoW dwarves...

... our beards are longer.

[Granite26]

It's called creativity and a lot of games are lacking it these days. The last thing I want to see is for Toady to go mainstream and make a mini-WoW. DF dwarves are not WoW dwarves...

... our beards are longer.

At a certain point though, it needs to draw from the basic spirit of the idea, or else calling your critter a dwarf is lying to the player and giving them false impressions.

[DanielLC]

Lying? Our dwarves are all the same. Look at our entry:

Dwarf Fortress is essentially built around this trope. There's even a system in place to automatically generate dwarfy names.

• Dwarven children drink as much alcohol as their parents and those damn elves are always coming around to bug us about the stupid trees. What they don't know is that we cut those trees down just to spite them.

[Hoborobo234]

You could do something similar. You could have a straight track and a truck onto of it. I am aware of the need of a whole reboot of the Workshop mechanics in order to work this but you could make it so that instead of the craftsman walking to the stockpile to get resources before he got to the workshop, the workshop would issue a 'Resource Needed' order. Stay with me. The order would be affecting the nearest 'No Job' dwarfs. Or you could select the cart to take priority, meaning the dwarf manning the cart would toddle off to the stockpile to get the resource and take it back to the cart to ship it over the large distances of the Fortress if the end point of the track was nearer to the workshop than what he was. This would work most if you seperate the Fortress into districts like I do ( I have a workshop district, a stockplie district and a large bedroom district amogst other things.) .
  You could have a network of tracks and a main 'Hub' which would be connected to the other tracks. P.S. If you don't understand anything just say so and I will try and clarify, My ideas are quite complex.

[Iapetus]

It's called creativity and a lot of games are lacking it these days. The last thing I want to see is for Toady to go mainstream and make a mini-WoW. DF dwarves are not WoW dwarves...

... our beards are longer.

At a certain point though, it needs to draw from the basic spirit of the idea, or else calling your critter a dwarf is lying to the player and giving them false impressions.

But the concept of dwarves dates back to Norse mythology or earlier.  Steam-power etc only dates back a couple of centuries or so.  And steam-punk dwarves are an even more recent idea.

The first time I encountered relatively high-tech steam-punk dwarves was in Warhammer, and when I saw them I thought "Wow - that's a really neat, innovative twist on the "dwarves are skilled builders, craftsmen and metal-workers" theme".  Now that I've seen the same meme copied, cloned and reused in just about everything dwarfy since then, not so much.

Personally, I'd be quite happy to see some dwarves that owe a bit more to new ideas (and/or mythological/Tolkein roots) than "Warhammer and Warcraft and Morrowind and etc do it this way so we should copy them".

[TettyNullus]

I think the general idea of transportation system would be nice, but a bit complicated to implement. Though, well, I can see convoyer belts or minecart trains in work, considering the dwarves already routinely does megaprojects, dig the mountains out, pump water into sky, and magma also. And they can't harness steam to shoot things around a cruddy metal rail? 

Really, I don't see why they can't make trains, fairly crude ones at that too, but considering general state of DF-verse even in vanilla and dwarves' general skills, I seriously wouldn't put it past the stout ones to decide to make a steam tank lobbing dragon-sized shells around when put up to it, eventually  (Good for only one or two shots, I suppose  )

( Really, people, if you're going to claim it's such and such age in DF-verse, consider there're demons, megascale engineering, magma works and cannibal tree-hugging zergs... har! I consider it a fantasy with big element of schizo-tech tossed in form of Dwarven engineering. Who else could build traps that'll either turn you into pin cushions or shred you with nearly a dozen blade?  )

[Silverionmox]

Let's wait for a consistent 14th century world first. If afterwards technology is added, it'll be that much interesting because you'll be able to see all its effects cascading through the world. Mobile energy sources have a very pervasive effect, as history proves, and they shouldn't be added lightly.

[Hoborobo234]

I think the general idea of transportation system would be nice, but a bit complicated to implement. Though, well, I can see convoyer belts or minecart trains in work, considering the dwarves already routinely does megaprojects, dig the mountains out, pump water into sky, and magma also. And they can't harness steam to shoot things around a cruddy metal rail? 

Really, I don't see why they can't make trains, fairly crude ones at that too, but considering general state of DF-verse even in vanilla and dwarves' general skills, I seriously wouldn't put it past the stout ones to decide to make a steam tank lobbing dragon-sized shells around when put up to it, eventually  (Good for only one or two shots, I suppose  )

( Really, people, if you're going to claim it's such and such age in DF-verse, consider there're demons, megascale engineering, magma works and cannibal tree-hugging zergs... har! I consider it a fantasy with big element of schizo-tech tossed in form of Dwarven engineering. Who else could build traps that'll either turn you into pin cushions or shred you with nearly a dozen blade?  )

OMG!!!! You write like Yahtzee. Everyone look Yahtzee is here. I love you Yahtzee

[Granite26]

At a certain point though, it needs to draw from the basic spirit of the idea, or else calling your critter a dwarf is lying to the player and giving them false impressions.

But the concept of dwarves dates back to Norse mythology or earlier.  Steam-power etc only dates back a couple of centuries or so.  And steam-punk dwarves are an even more recent idea.

I'm not arguing that steam punk needs to be there, just that dwarves should be short, gritty, and mechanically advanced for the setting. 

(Or at least 2 out of 3)

I get sick of the 'I'm going to be creative by completely ignoring the theme' types.  I'm sure you've encountered them...  "I'm going to be a dwarf, only I'll be tall like a human and get mistaken for one",  "I'll be the CIVILIZED orc, it's so creative".  Or the mack-daddy of them all "I'm going to play a GOOD member of the classic villain race".

Negating tropes randomly is not creative.  Applying them in creative ways is.  (Sure steam punk has passed creative and gone mainstream.  Not my point at all)

[Draco18s]

I'm sure you've encountered them...  "I'm going to be a dwarf, only I'll be tall like a human and get mistaken for one",  "I'll be the CIVILIZED orc, it's so creative".  Or the mack-daddy of them all "I'm going to play a GOOD member of the classic villain race".

Negating tropes randomly is not creative.  Applying them in creative ways is.  (Sure steam punk has passed creative and gone mainstream.  Not my point at all)

See sidebar on page 104 about "What is a Distinctive Style?"

In 2070, cybernetic modification and replacement
is not uncommon. Bioware, genetech and nanotech
are seen as the modern solutions, while cybernetics
are often seen as slightly crass and the poor man’s
option. That said, most augmentations don’t carry
a social stigma, and are even viewed as a sign of
ambition and self-improvement. Nonetheless, any
augmentation that significantly deviates from the
human norm, any blatantly transhuman modification,
or excessive amounts of visible augmentation,
are still frowned upon and will draw attention.

While
megacorporate monoculture and approved dress
codes dominate a wage slave’s workplace and living
enclave, personal dress style, body art and modification,
and even cosmetic augmentation is increasingly
popular in all circles of society as a form of selfexpression.
What is distinctive also varies with the
local culture and sub-culture; something that stands
out in a Seattle nightclub, might be unremarkable in
feral Chicago.

ShadowRun FTW.

But yes.  Inverting tropes at random isn't cool, neither is conforming to them.  Creating them is where it gets interesting.

[Whiskey Bob]

Where do people come up with this idea that steampunk dwarves are some kind of primal archetype?  They're a relatively modern invention, and only notable because of their inclusion in a few popular game settings (such as Warhammer and Warcraft).  It's implying that the only proper theme is the current flavour-of-the-month.

[Justyn]

Anyhow.  The basic design is a player lays out a track on the floor of their fortress and when a dwarf needs to go some where he steps on the transport system and it calculates the time it takes for him to get to his destination.

After that calculation is done the dwarf is held in a buffer until the time has elapsed and then comes off the line wherever he is supposed to come off at.

I disagree with this on the premise that dwarfs should never 'vanish' from the world/map to re-appear some ware else, it presents all kinds of programming problems with things that depend on location and distance values existing for a dwarf at all times.  Its also confusing to the player as well.  Any transportation system that is implemented must maintain a dwarfs physical location at all times to be even remotely compatible with the present system. 

I also don't think what your proposing is tech-level appropriate.  Its not even clear WHAT your proposing as you listed components without actually clarifying what kind of system it is, my guess is your talking about pneumatic subways because of the air-tank component.

Simple mine carts that move on rails and require a dwarf or draft animal to move them is a long standing eature request which is accepted as tech-level appropriate.

The dwarf doesn't have to be removed from the map, the embark/destination points can simply be considered next to each other for the purpose of pathfinding, or moving along the rails simply increases the rate of movement for the dwarves on it.