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[chewd]

Okay, ive only been playing DF for about 2 months now, and ive not scanned the whole forum for this. Sorry if any of it is a repeat.

Seems like all the fortresses i build get to a point where theres far more hauling jobs being made than are being completed. The dwarves just cant keep up, and even if you go through & prioritize & such it always turns into a Sisyphean task. So id like to propose a few ideas that would give players some tools to solve this problem.

1. Hand carts..  Hand carts would be made by the carpenter (perhaps with the option of metal ones being available from metalsmiths) and would allow dwarves who own them to do multiple hauling jobs simultaneously. IE carry 5 rocks/furniture/food at a time. Optionally handcarts would suffer a 90% speed reduction on anything but smoothed ground.

2. slaves..  capture a few goblins in cage traps. The dungeon master (perhaps make a new noble, the slave master) could lash them for a few months in the justice room (perhaps the hammerer beats them also) Once their will is broken, they can be leashed to a dwarf in the same way war dogs are, they perform whatever duty their master wouldve been performing (the dwarfs new job is watching the slave) a single dwarf could have 5 or 6 slaves attached all doing whatever hauling jobs the dwarf is set for. Additionally if the master dwarf is not well equipped or is not skilled in any forms of combat the goblins could be programmed to revolt under certain conditions.

3. Horse carts.. theyre already in the game, howcome we cant use them to haul stuff? Sure they would be restricted to hallways that are at least 4 spaces wide, & theyre pretty slow, but its worth it since they can haul so much. Finally a use for all the horses & mules roaming the fort.

4. GRS (gnomish rail system) Put gnomes in the game. Once trade is established with the gnomes you can buy recipes for all the parts you need to build a fully functional rail system. Construction of the rail system would be very expensive in terms of the amount of steel required, plus it runs on coal and/or firewood. Also since it is gnomish it tends to spend about half its time being repaired, but when it does work it can carry virtually limitless amounts of freight between specially made depots allowing you to get that huge pile of food from next to the farm wayy over to your new dining hall on the other end of the map. The depots would be configurable so that you could specify what goes on / comes off the train at each stop. Example: depot A lets dwarves pile food there, when the train comes along all food goes on it, at depot B the food is dumped off and ore is loaded (it acts as an ore pile) Depot C is configured to unload the ore from the train and load up ammo, which is then dumped at depot A.

The locomotive would be made from several different metal-smithed parts. The boiler, wheels, drive train, control cabin, and tinder box are all assembled at a new workshop, the steamworks. Also the train would only run on rails which are made from metal as well & have to be installed much the same way we install channels & bridges today.

The locomotive is run by 2 dwarves, engineer and tinderdwarf. The reliability of the locomotive is determined by the skill of the engineer, the speed determined by the skill & strength of the tinderdwarf, but is also modified by the number of carriages or weight of the freight towed. When the locomotive breaks down the engineer may require a new boiler or some other piece in order to repair it & get it going again, more skilled engineers can repair the locomotive faster.

The steamworks would of course have to be connected to the rail network in some way, and would have to return to it seasonally for maintainence. Its high cost of creation, operation and its unreliability would make it a status symbol that would also be a powerful tool for moving large amounts of goods around the fort... when it works.

I know i had more ideas, theyll come back to me & ill post them... just wanted to see what you guys thought.

[Snuggles]

Along these lines, why not pump/hand operated mine carts (since it's all underground anyways.)  You'd have to set up a long railway for them, but it could provide an efficient way of travelling back and forth when you've tunnelled really, really deep into the mountain.

Hand carts would be good...though I'm not sure how dwarves would take to the idea of slaves.  

[Mzbundifund]

The handcarts idea would be nice but I suspect it would take a massive overhaul of the hauling programming.  Dwarves already run across the world to grab a rock for a stockpile when there's rock all over the place.  

I can imagine the dwarves running back and forth across the fortress collecting one skull at each end and finally dumping them in the craftsdwarf's stockpile that they've passed four times already.

I can't see dwarves keeping slaves.

[Gaulgath]

quote:4. GRS (gnomish rail system) Put gnomes in the game. Once trade is established with the gnomes you can buy recipes for all the parts you need to build a fully functional rail system. Construction of the rail system would be very expensive in terms of the amount of steel required, plus it runs on coal and/or firewood. Also since it is gnomish it tends to spend about half its time being repaired, but when it does work it can carry virtually limitless amounts of freight between specially made depots allowing you to get that huge pile of food from next to the farm wayy over to your new dining hall on the other end of the map. The depots would be configurable so that you could specify what goes on / comes off the train at each stop. Example: depot A lets dwarves pile food there, when the train comes along all food goes on it, at depot B the food is dumped off and ore is loaded (it acts as an ore pile) Depot C is configured to unload the ore from the train and load up ammo, which is then dumped at depot A.  

Uhhh... no? Do we really need another cliched fantasy creature in this game? Oh, and handcarts and such have already been suggested and are on the dev list.

[ May 19, 2007: Message edited by: Gaulgath ]

[irmo]

quote:Originally posted by Mzbundifund:
<STRONG>The handcarts idea would be nice but I suspect it would take a massive overhaul of the hauling programming.  Dwarves already run across the world to grab a rock for a stockpile when there's rock all over the place.  

I can imagine the dwarves running back and forth across the fortress collecting one skull at each end and finally dumping them in the craftsdwarf's stockpile that they've passed four times already.</STRONG>

The problem is that there's no coordination between hauling jobs, no concept of "all of these rocks go into this stockpile".  The logic to combine jobs like that would be extremely nasty (read: prone to obscure bugs that would be very hard to fix without creating more bugs).

The slaves are kind of a cool idea in this respect because they don't require combining jobs.  They just do multiple hauling jobs in parallel.

What handcarts could be useful for is reducing encumbrance.  Instead of lugging the 500-pound rock on his back, the hauler puts it in a handcart and moves at full walking speed.  I imagine a "Use handcart" option on the profile menu; if it's on, the dwarf will go and find a handcart and use it for all jobs that involve moving things around, hauling and otherwise.

Larger-scale transportation (rail carts or wagons) would, I think, best be handled as movable stockpiles.  Everyone loads ore into a "stockpile" that's actually a cart, then they pull the lever to send it to the smelter room.  So they have to do the same number of hauling jobs, but they're all very short.

<STRONG>  

quote:I can't see dwarves keeping slaves.</STRONG>

Given the nature of Dwarven Justice, I could see them keeping dwarves as slaves.

[ May 20, 2007: Message edited by: irmo ]

[Anticheese]

Slaves fit in well with the Dwarves of Armok. We already have the particularly harsh Dwarven Justice and cage traps..so why not slaves?

Another use for the military, another free dwarf to do more useful things.

Failing slaves, trained animals would work well.

[Funkadelic Jive Turkey]

IF implemented, slaves should:

1) Not fight unless in self-defence

2) Consume their share of food (though less then a dwarf, and never high quality items)

3) Not be able to engage in production jobs, only hauling.

4) Attempt to flee if distance from nearest dwarf = x

5) Attempt revolt if slave population = x% of dwarf population in a given area.

That said, I can't really see dwarves keeping personal slaves either. (Perhaps as gladiator fodder.) Outside dwarf-lore, I'd still like to see it. Doesn't seem like a feature to recieve priority (if any attention), though hauling job work is.

[I3erent]

How abou barges to float down the channels?

[TakiJap]

quote:Originally posted by chewd:
<STRONG> Optionally handcarts would suffer a 90% speed reduction on anything but smoothed ground.
</STRONG>

Would be quite needless and unrealistic. Price of one log would be enough for handcarts. After all everything can still be hauled one piece at a time, for free!

[chewd]

guess im just partial to gnomes... point taken.

I can also see your guys' points on the coding nightmare it would take to get dwarves to "batch" hauling jobs like that, and the havoc that could result.

I cant think of any good way around it either... Perhaps 'base' a particular cart in a specific area, and it batches all the hauling jobs in the immediate vicinity... Kinda like how you can clear an area of rocks by placing a mason shop there.

You would have to keep reassigning them whenever the area was cleared, but then we'd finally have a way to pinpoint hauling jobs to clear an area.

I still like the idea of slaves tho... hmm gladitorial combat... i like that!!

anyway thanks for the comments guys