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[BigD145]

do you think it's logical to jump in the water at the top of a waterfall?

Yes? alright, a feature
No? pathfinding bug

Do they know it's a waterfall? I can think of many other overarching things in the world that dwarves are oblivious to. Volcano's are one of them. "You want me to make fortifications out of this hot wall, oh mighty Armok? Okay!"

[HiEv]

FYI - There is a bug report for this:
Bug #5158: Dwarves try to cross the edge of waterfalls because water is shallower there, get swept over

It's not a bug. It's a feature of pathing.

It's a result of a failure in pathing to avoid what should be an obviously dangerous path, which causes many unexpected and unnecessary "suicides", through no fault of the player.

I'd call that a bug.

[Beyondrepair]

I'd say it's especially the fault of the player, because you are smarter than your dwarfs and can avoid accidents like these because you have the powers of learning and logical deduction, whereas the dwarf is a programmed entity using 0.01% of your home computer's CPU cycles.

It's in the bug category nonetheless (there's a reason to why dwarfs have AI at all - they should appear as intelligent as possible).

[/pointless semantics argumentation]

[Sus]

But building elevated bridges is a great idea. Only that if you use stairs caravans wonīt be able to pass them, so Iīd use ramps for that instead. Hm, if thatīs possible. Can you construct a ramp at a spot diagonally downwards? I guess first building a stair down then replacing it with a ramp should work though.

Or you could build a 1-wide pedestrian bridge with stairs first, and use that for access when building a caravan bridge? I suppose the latter would require 3-wide walls on both banks of the river, ramps leading up to the top of the walls, and finally the bridge between the wall sections acting as z+1 -level floors.

As for the headline of this topic: Dwarves only have a brain the size of a peanut when it's all swollen up from excessive drinking.

[HiEv]

I'd say it's especially the fault of the player, because you are smarter than your dwarfs and can avoid accidents like these because you have the powers of learning and logical deduction, whereas the dwarf is a programmed entity using 0.01% of your home computer's CPU cycles.

I'd agree with you if you controlled the dwarves directly, but you don't.

Even if you're lucky enough to not embark next to the waterfall and have some fall off before your ready or while they're attempting to hunt, do you really think the average new player would expect their first migrant wave to act like lemmings, leaping to their death off the waterfall between them and your fortress?  (Yes, I know the whole Disney-lemming-suicide thing is a myth, but you know what I mean.)  Even if you figure what is happening after the first incoming migrant or two, you can't save the rest of the wave no matter how smart you are, and that's not the player's fault.  Now, I can understand planning around dwarves being somewhat stupid, but them being unintentionally suicidally stupid for no good reason isn't something you should have to deal with.

Just because we're smarter, doesn't mean that stupid suicidal behavior like this isn't a bug.  I doubt Toady intended for them to act like this, and unintended behavior in software that causes problems is a "bug" in my book.

[BigD145]

1/7 and 2/7 water is not dangerous. If it was, carving through aquifers would be much more tedious than it already is what with wall building job cancellation spam.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I said carving through aquifers not soil cave-in/plugging aquifers.

You can turn off hunting and avoid gathering on the other side of the river, because you know...river....water....drowning. Cut down a few trees and lay down flooring over the shallow path one space at a time. Waterfalls are dangerous. Who knew? I wouldn't expect new players to attempt to run DF (and save) straight out of the zip file, but they do.

[HiEv]

I'm not saying that waterfalls aren't/shouldn't be dangerous or that all 1/7 and 2/7 water should be treated as dangerous.

What I'm saying is that dwarves (or caravans, or whatever) blithely cliff diving to their deaths for no good reason should not be treated as normal behavior.  They should avoid the danger by default, rather than making a beeline to their doom if they try to cross the river.

Yes, you can sometimes work around the problem, but that doesn't make it any less of a bug.

[BigD145]

Spoiler: beating a dead horse (click to show/hide)

They aren't diving off cliffs. They aren't jumping into 7/7 water. They are being pushed when 1/7 water becomes 4/7+ and pushes them over. Do you need your hand held by removing water pressure and water movement? Next you'll want cave-ins removed entirely. Gravity is just too much for new players to handle. It's not as if 14th century Europe had any of that. It's certainly not a good reason for guillotine function. No siree. Must have been a bug.

Yes, dwarves have a one track mind.

[Sphalerite]

The problem is that making dwarves recognize that waterfalls are dangerous will require a major reworking of dwarf AI.  To avoid being swept over waterfalls, dwarves will have to be smart enough to realize that if they step in a certain spot on the map, they will be pushed by moving water over the edge of a cliff.  To to this the dwarf AI will have to be smart enough to predict the result of various actions, which is a fairly complex task and vastly beyond what the current DF AI can do.  I expect we'll see this at about the same time we see dwarves smart enough not to brick themselves up inside walls or step in front of the ballista about to fire.

[HiEv]

They aren't diving off cliffs. They aren't jumping into 7/7 water. They are being pushed when 1/7 water becomes 4/7+ and pushes them over.

I know that.  Don't be so literal.

Do you need your hand held by removing water pressure and water movement? Next you'll want cave-ins removed entirely. Gravity is just too much for new players to handle. It's not as if 14th century Europe had any of that. It's certainly not a good reason for guillotine function. No siree. Must have been a bug.

Ugh.  You're suggesting a stupid fix I didn't ask for, then calling me stupid for suggesting it?  Ever hear of a straw man argument?  Because you're making one.

There's no need to be so insulting either.

The problem is that making dwarves recognize that waterfalls are dangerous will require a major reworking of dwarf AI.  To avoid being swept over waterfalls, dwarves will have to be smart enough to realize that if they step in a certain spot on the map, they will be pushed by moving water over the edge of a cliff.  To to this the dwarf AI will have to be smart enough to predict the result of various actions, which is a fairly complex task and vastly beyond what the current DF AI can do.  I expect we'll see this at about the same time we see dwarves smart enough not to brick themselves up inside walls or step in front of the ballista about to fire.

Or, Toady could use the far simpler method of marking those tiles as dangerous when he creates the waterfall initially, and then simply make pathing avoid those dangerous tiles.  I mean, dwarves already avoid walking into lava or crossing deep water, really, how hard would that be?

You guys are making this bugfix far more complicated than it need be.

[Sphalerite]

The problem is that making dwarves recognize that waterfalls are dangerous will require a major reworking of dwarf AI.  To avoid being swept over waterfalls, dwarves will have to be smart enough to realize that if they step in a certain spot on the map, they will be pushed by moving water over the edge of a cliff.  To to this the dwarf AI will have to be smart enough to predict the result of various actions, which is a fairly complex task and vastly beyond what the current DF AI can do.  I expect we'll see this at about the same time we see dwarves smart enough not to brick themselves up inside walls or step in front of the ballista about to fire.

Or, Toady could use the far simpler method of marking those tiles as dangerous when he creates the waterfall initially, and then simply make pathing avoid those dangerous tiles.  I mean, dwarves already avoid walking into lava or crossing deep water, really, how hard would that be?

What criteria do you suggest the game use to determine those tiles are dangerous?  Magma is automatically marked as impassible at any depth.  Water is marked as impassible when at 4/7 or deeper.  The tiles on the edge of the waterfall are at less than 4/7 deep, so they aren't marked as impassible.  To mark those tiles as dangerous, you'd either need to mark all water at 1/7 or deeper as dangerous, or add in a special status to just those river tiles marking them as dangerous even when the game wouldn't normally consider them as such.  Presumably they'd then remain marked dangerous even if the player did something like divert the river.  It would be a bit of a clumsy way to solve the problem, adding a special-case exception to the normal game logic.

[Jelle]

If dwarves are clever enough to figure out they need to follow a certain path to reach an objective I'd say it would be fair for those dwarves to also figure out moving water is dangerous and should not be path through.
I'd say it's on par to a dwarf attempting to path through 3/7 or lower magma filled tiles. Sure they can do it from a pure pathfinding point of view, but it wouldn't make one bit of sense.
Opinions ofcourse, and the game gives you the tools to keep it from happening so meh.

[knutor]

Revert it.  In orders, add an avoid ALL for mists, smoke and clouds.  Game doesn't have to produce happy thoughts from waterfalls, it could produce terror thoughts, instead.

[Garath]

getting a bit complicated. For now, might as well use dfhack to remove some of the ramps for now and wait and see what future updates will bring.

[MarcAFK]

The problem is that making dwarves recognize that waterfalls are dangerous will require a major reworking of dwarf AI.  To avoid being swept over waterfalls, dwarves will have to be smart enough to realize that if they step in a certain spot on the map, they will be pushed by moving water over the edge of a cliff.  To to this the dwarf AI will have to be smart enough to predict the result of various actions, which is a fairly complex task and vastly beyond what the current DF AI can do.  I expect we'll see this at about the same time we see dwarves smart enough not to brick themselves up inside walls or step in front of the ballista about to fire.

Or, Toady could use the far simpler method of marking those tiles as dangerous when he creates the waterfall initially, and then simply make pathing avoid those dangerous tiles.  I mean, dwarves already avoid walking into lava or crossing deep water, really, how hard would that be?

What criteria do you suggest the game use to determine those tiles are dangerous?  Magma is automatically marked as impassible at any depth.  Water is marked as impassible when at 4/7 or deeper.  The tiles on the edge of the waterfall are at less than 4/7 deep, so they aren't marked as impassible.  To mark those tiles as dangerous, you'd either need to mark all water at 1/7 or deeper as dangerous, or add in a special status to just those river tiles marking them as dangerous even when the game wouldn't normally consider them as such.  Presumably they'd then remain marked dangerous even if the player did something like divert the river.  It would be a bit of a clumsy way to solve the problem, adding a special-case exception to the normal game logic.

I never thought of that, perhaps a good solution would for the ramps to be automatically removed from the edges near the shallow water when a waterfall is first created. That would stop the shallow water from being pathable unless the player did something stupid like ramping down to them. It wouldn't create a clumsy exception that would bug the tile into being impassable later when modified, and as a bonus it would be a little more realistic since the waterfall creates a fair bit of erosion that you would expect would wash away the ramp that close to the fall.