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[TrombonistAndrew]

This is really just an asthetic suggestion, but I think that it could be neat if the game had actual boulder fields in addition to the scattering of useless boulders in certain terrain.

Some pictures of actual boulder fields:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/HickoryRunBoulderField2007.jpg

A google search of 'em:

http://www.google.be/search?q=boulder+fields+photo&hl=nl&biw=1536&bih=873&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=yS53TtefOsSj-gam5LjHDA&ved=0CCkQsAQ

There, the boulders literally make up the entire groundspace, so a boulder field could actually be a rare type of biome which is ENTIRELY covered with boulders, which is devoid of plant life but could occur where plant life might otherwise occur. Movement over that kind of terrain is challenging, and would reqire a lot of work just to build anything on it - in game, I suppose this could be the equivalent of smoothing the boulders before being able to build anything on them.

On Earth, such boulder fields sometimes happen when glaciers retreat; in a way, it's a kind of gravel but the rocks haven't been broken down as much. Note that this would be different from general mountainous terrain, because the boulders are piled up and not just laying around on bare rock. As a suggestion for DF, because moving glaciers aren't really emulated in world gen, these boulder fields could happen basically anywhere that is below a high enough mountain peak, or on the edge of existing glaciers.

[Forumite]

Is that a natural formation? I know something similar happen due to glaciers, but then it gets overgrown by plants. I donīt see a reason why the rocks would just stay bare like that, unless itīs at a very high altitude.

[Starver]

Once Toady gives boulders the "Make houses out of boulders in Adventure Mode" functionality that I think he intends to do, as opposed to the current situation where they're mere decoration (albeit that, back when we had trader wagons, they were also wagon-pathing barriers, needing smoothing away), I could see boulder-landscapes.

Although I think that boulder-fields deserve to be a "soil type", and perhaps moreover one that will cave-in with no Z-1 (or Z-1 and X/Yą1) support, and no mamby-pamby hanging off of similarly composed material to either side for dozens of X and Y tile distances.  And materially as useful as normally mined stone (for small to medium-sized things... not sure if you should make tables out of them[1]).

Incidentally, I've walked over boulder fields (and scree slopes, which maybe should be considered similar, or an alternate interpretation of a similar surface but on a slope) of various sizes, some almost "large pebbled beaches" and resulting from recent flood-water activity, through to truly boulder-sized (larger than those shown) in areas left behind by glacial activity, and I can show you a few spots in the Pennines (England's "spinal" range of hills) where a similar effect has been created by both natural and artificial quarrying away of an "edge"/hardstone cliff, with the resulting rubble/unwanted spoil-pile being laid along the various valley bottoms involved.  The more troublesome of these don't actually look like a boulder-field, because of the verdant nature of the plant growth over them, but try walking on them without care and you're liable to get a twisted ankle, or worse.

Sorry, probably far too much chatter, there.  TL;DR; = aesthetically it could probably be done, but I think there could be a useful aspect to making it functional.





[1] For this, it would need a revamping along the lines of those prior suggestions that better skilled miners can extract better-quality raw stone, pulverised stone from any-old-miner being good for smelting and other minor purposes, in an area designated for quick and necessary digging, but for stone thrones you need a particularly good miner and a quarry-quality stone-digging designation to extract large rocks.  In-between there's rock chunks good enough to make mugs, etc...

[Mel_Vixen]

More then a year ago i asked toady about that stuff on one of the FotF thread. If you are interrested here is the answer (link):

Toady you spoke of "Boulders" Buried in the soil. Does that include Multi-tile boulders like "Glacial boulders"?

I didn't think about multi-tile boulders.  It could be like two rock wall tiles sitting in the soil (or on top of the soil, looking at these pictures) instead of anything treated as a special object.  At that point, it's probably more for whenever we get canyons and mesas and interesting above ground stuff, rather than for this "adventurers and soil-bound dwarves get more access to large stones" change.

[kasan]

[1] For this, it would need a revamping along the lines of those prior suggestions that better skilled miners can extract better-quality raw stone, pulverised stone from any-old-miner being good for smelting and other minor purposes, in an area designated for quick and necessary digging, but for stone thrones you need a particularly good miner and a quarry-quality stone-digging designation to extract large rocks.  In-between there's rock chunks good enough to make mugs, etc...

Never mind the fact that you could take rock crushed into a fine powder and by adding a bit of water and sand you end up with a very easy to mold material similar to cement which smooths down exceptionally well into small bricks/blocks which can intern be mortared with more small bricks to make anything out of stone/brick etc.

I can get behind the quality of said stone tho.  Whole raw granite looks much better when chipped and shaped into a statue than a piece-mail collection of stone bits plastered together would.

[TrombonistAndrew]

Is that a natural formation? I know something similar happen due to glaciers, but then it gets overgrown by plants. I donīt see a reason why the rocks would just stay bare like that, unless itīs at a very high altitude.

The boulders don't get covered by dirt immediately because they're deep. Dirt simply trickles down to the bottom before enough dirt builds up for plants to grow on.

[Starver]

The boulders don't get covered by dirt immediately because they're deep. Dirt simply trickles down to the bottom before enough dirt builds up for plants to grow on.

Depending on the locale, there might not actually be much dirt to lay down upon the boulders concerned.  I'd have expected lichens/etc to pattern the rocks first, anyway, but again it depends upon the environment, and the evergreens suggest it might be a bit cool, and maybe (except for perhaps the odd flood event, like the one that may have caused that depression to be boulder-filled in the first place, if that was the cause) not much precipitation.

But it does look fresh.  (Or, from memory, it did, when I looked at the OP)  Possibly a flood-event/landslide/cliff-collapse combo that dumped a whole lot rock and other debris into a torrent that tore through the tree-line and deposited all the heavy boulders in this particular depression but let the lighter gravels, stones, biological detritus and remains of any unfortunate hikers below the visible layer of boulder-field, either in down-stream terms or vertically...  Sub-dried, it would have looked like that from sometimes well within a few days of it having happened for some indefinite period (possibly a few years, but more likely topping out at a few months) with the vegetation obviously overlooking the edges being just the trees that were just high enough to escape the initial damage, before the thinner rim was actually grown-through with new growth, and then leaf-litter (or evergreen equivalent, at least) started to untidy the edges and provide footholds and biomass for even more edge to be grown out from.  Eventually I'd expect that the green-tide would sweep over the rock-filled basin such that the surface would have gone beyond moss and lichen and actually had its own layer of loam deep enough for saplings to grow, even while the mid-levels of the deepest areas of boulders might have significant rock-voids between the original/flood-lain floor of the formation and the upper surface that might look substantially like a loamy flood-plain (perhaps with better drainage).

Purely speculation on my part, though.  Not sure if regular flood-events could keep the formation scoured back and so clean-looking without depositing more obvious gravels in the backwaters and eddy-points, but it could happen.

[TrombonistAndrew]

But it does look fresh. 

In geologic terms, it is fresh - formed by retreating glaciers from the last ice age.

[Starver]

Wow, remarkably lacking biological incursion.  (Excepting the graffiti, now I actually bother to look at the picture again.)

Cool climate (sub-temperate, either by latitude or altitude, as guessed by the tree types, even before you mentioned glaciers, which was always likely anyway), and a huge amount of drainage from the nature of the field...  but would that stop all lichen growth?  I'm more used to wetter climes, though.  (Today is an example.  I positively reek of peat-bog.)  Always open to a geological education, 'cos round these parts that would not have stayed anything like as fresh-looking for that kind of timescale.  Unless you have ice-ages more frequently than us, of course.

[TrombonistAndrew]

Speaking of boulder fields, here's another:

http://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=582700905#!/photo.php?fbid=10150253247340906&set=a.10150253293695906.324312.582700905&type=1&theater

That hole in the 'foreground' is actually a glacial stream poking out; the stream goes underneath the field, coming from a glacier off to the right. With the exception of the little hill I was standing on when I took the picture, pretty much the whole thing is a huge mound of boulders deposited by retreating glaciers. This one is below the peak of Mont Blanc du Cheilon.

[antymattar]

I like the idea. Just because its not "dusty" doesn't mean that it's not new. I would like to see this plus moss and stuff.