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[masquerine]

So if I'm understanding this correctly, the rubble would just be a waste product that has to be moved/dumped before you can really make use of the mined out area that the rubble contained (or it'll slow/impede movement if piled up too much)? If you were to dump it and it fills up to a 7/7 wall (making more and more walls as it gets dumped/spills around), you'd essentially need to have either a wide area or dump it from something high to make a mountain of waste, right? Is that the basics of what you guys are on about? It would also not be used for walls or items, just entirely a waste product that becomes a hindrance if ignored?

[Askot Bokbondeler]

it could still have any uses it has IRL, as a large mass of useless material that can be used to obstruct and fill large spaces for example, but it would serve mainly as a hindrance, yes

[Arkenstone]

The enjoyment of the game comes not from having the power to do things, but comes from being able to do things in spite of your limitations.  It is the overcoming of your limitations that give games their meaning and fun. 

And that is were many disagree with you.

I agree with what you said about water, but whenever someone does something with water it's because they knew it was challenging and decided to take up the challenge.  Or they're a noob and are about to have Fun.

Either way though, they were never forced to deal with it.  Something such as rubble would be persistent, and come up every time someone wants to do something underground.  Now, that being said, I would not be apposed to rubble if it had an init option associated with it; but it just seems odd to have Toady code something in that many wouldn't used -and which would probably need to be disabled by default lest the learning curve go supervertical.



To try and explain this better, I would like now to propose the concept of Fun vs. Tedious obstacles.

An obstacle that is Fun is one that doesn't force you to deal with it, but will kill you if you don't.  You are never forced to depressurize your well's water supply, or to trap the entrance, or to even set up a still.  But, if you don't... Fun happens.  And then you yell at yourself, because deep down you know it was your own fault for being sloppy.

But obstacles become Tedious very quickly when you're forced to deal with them whether you want to or not.  And by 'deal with', I mean spend your own, personal time to manage (or even micromanage) how it's dealt with.  Now, although I call this latter sort of obstacle 'Tedious', that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable.  It only requires the right mindset to get enjoyment out of it (such as by turning it into a logic puzzle on how to avoid the tedium), yet sadly that mindset is in the minority.


Of course this isn't a true bivariate distribution, but rather two ends of a balance scale.

The whole 'rubble as objects that must be hauled to the surface with ~1:1 displacement' is far out on the Tedious end as a large amount of time would have to be spent to manage it.  Although, I will admit that the end result of huge backfill piles would look neat.  I just don't think that the game's ready to handle that sort of thing properly yet (maybe after 'shifting/pseudo-liquid sands' are in...).

If rubble was implemented as a contaminant that slows dwarves down, maybe tripping them with a bad thought occasionally, and blocking buildings/construction, that wouldn't be too bad.  It could be ignored as long as you're willing to take the speed loss, and removing it would take no more than a single designation.

Cave-ins however would probably be a better way to add a Fun challenge to mining.  You could always ignore (or forget) it, if you're willing to risk it...  And the consequences are direct, obvious, and come all at once instead of being dragged out.

[Manveru Taurënér]

The enjoyment of the game comes not from having the power to do things, but comes from being able to do things in spite of your limitations.  It is the overcoming of your limitations that give games their meaning and fun. 

...
 Now, that being said, I would not be apposed to rubble if it had an init option associated with it; but it just seems odd to have Toady code something in that many wouldn't used -and which would probably need to be disabled by default lest the learning curve go supervertical.
...

The same could be said for the init option for invaders, but some people prefer to play without what many would consider the core of the game (dealing with all the dangers assailing your dwarves), and thus the option is there. New players are often adviced to turn of invaders to ease the learning curve as well. That doesn't mean Toady should ignore the whole siege/invaders aspect of the game, as it's something many people enjoy. I'm sure there will be people who will think the upcoming army and better siege content is a waste of time, and they are entitled to their opinion, but many others would rather have the game improved and expanded in all its aspects for a more complete and fulfilling game, and thankfully those who don't like it can just play without it.

[Arkenstone]

True, true.  I guess then that perhaps we are looking at this from the wrong angle.

Maybe we just need to work the idea until it fits well into the game, instead of rejecting it outright because in its current form it doesn't...

[unseenmage]

Inquiring mind wants to know; why couldn't we have a new set of mining designations for too-big-to-lift stone > furniture grade boulders > blocks > craft grade boulders > rubble > then empty space?

When a dwarf mines a tile he tries his best to achieve the desired designation and fails to a greater or lesser degree. The degree of failure would be based on his skill level and the worse he fails the farther up or down the above size/quality scale the resulting mined material would be.

Also, as an aside, I have always wanted the ability to generate rubble and/or dirt for use in aboveground (and now natural cavern) landscaping.
Rubble could be dumped onto and consumed by tiles that trees/shrubs/grass can't grow on to change them into fertile plantlife supporting tiles.

Aside aside again, buckets. Rubble should probably be carryable in small handfulls, then more in buckets, then a lot more in wheelbarrows. Just a thought.


Thanks for all the awesome Toady.

[Taffer]

I'm rather neutral on this, and will likely be pleased either way. I liked the suggestion to have both "dig" and "quarry" designations. However, I can't help but feel that given how divisive the issue seems to be, Toady should err on the side of simplicity rather than complexity. Better to have a few grumbling about a missed opportunity than a few that end up drifting away from the game (or avoid it entirely) because it's started to become tedious.

[Arkenstone]

Better to have a few grumbling about a missed opportunity than a few that end up drifting away from the game (or avoid it entirely) because it's started to become tedious.

This.  I've personally have started to be moved by some of the pro-rubble arguments, but I still think the chance of it going wrong is much higher than the chance of it going right.

[GoldenShadow]

Look at it this way. The eternal suggestion that toady is working on was to improve hauling, nobody wanted rubble or mining changes to go with it. Me included. I will accept whatever Toady does because I believe he knows whats best for his own game. If he adds rubble, he has a plan for us to deal with it.

[NW_Kohaku]

And that is were many disagree with you.

I agree with what you said about water, but whenever someone does something with water it's because they knew it was challenging and decided to take up the challenge.  Or they're a noob and are about to have Fun.

Either way though, they were never forced to deal with it.  Something such as rubble would be persistent, and come up every time someone wants to do something underground.  Now, that being said, I would not be apposed to rubble if it had an init option associated with it; but it just seems odd to have Toady code something in that many wouldn't used -and which would probably need to be disabled by default lest the learning curve go supervertical.



To try and explain this better, I would like now to propose the concept of Fun vs. Tedious obstacles.

An obstacle that is Fun is one that doesn't force you to deal with it, but will kill you if you don't.  You are never forced to depressurize your well's water supply, or to trap the entrance, or to even set up a still.  But, if you don't... Fun happens.  And then you yell at yourself, because deep down you know it was your own fault for being sloppy.

But obstacles become Tedious very quickly when you're forced to deal with them whether you want to or not.  And by 'deal with', I mean spend your own, personal time to manage (or even micromanage) how it's dealt with.  Now, although I call this latter sort of obstacle 'Tedious', that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable.  It only requires the right mindset to get enjoyment out of it (such as by turning it into a logic puzzle on how to avoid the tedium), yet sadly that mindset is in the minority.


Of course this isn't a true bivariate distribution, but rather two ends of a balance scale.

The whole 'rubble as objects that must be hauled to the surface with ~1:1 displacement' is far out on the Tedious end as a large amount of time would have to be spent to manage it.  Although, I will admit that the end result of huge backfill piles would look neat.  I just don't think that the game's ready to handle that sort of thing properly yet (maybe after 'shifting/pseudo-liquid sands' are in...).

If rubble was implemented as a contaminant that slows dwarves down, maybe tripping them with a bad thought occasionally, and blocking buildings/construction, that wouldn't be too bad.  It could be ignored as long as you're willing to take the speed loss, and removing it would take no more than a single designation.

Cave-ins however would probably be a better way to add a Fun challenge to mining.  You could always ignore (or forget) it, if you're willing to risk it...  And the consequences are direct, obvious, and come all at once instead of being dragged out.

The thing is, this whole discussion has gone and convinced me a little more that people generally don't understand what they actually find fun in a game. 

I mean, maybe I should poll people on what forts they've made and what parts of the game they were having the most fun when they were doing it for more data, but...

I see most of the things people generally find fun, aside from the construction set building are the things that are the problems in the game: they enjoy learning how to play in the first place, the discovery and novelty aspects of the game, they enjoy the storytelling aspects, but they also enjoy the challenge and the ability to overcome threats like military threats, but they somehow refuse to accept the notion that a difficult challenge that comes in the form of farming or mining can be fun while military threats are always considered fun, regardless of the fact that they use the same basic mechanics of challenge.

Much like the mineral densities, I think this is a game feature that needs to go in and get people used to it, and as soon as they are used to it, they'll scoff a the noobs who don't play with rubble or the people who use danger rooms.

I mean, I consider sieges less interesting than most of the domestic and economic problems, because I've never understood this military fetishism thing in the first place, and sieges are generally as simple as controlling the access routes to my fort and laying down traps and guard dog cages with maybe a crossbow nest box.  The military since 0.31 has been so much of a hassle I only train serious militaries after I've completed most other aspects of my forts. 

Look at how much contaminants are tedious things forced into the game that are a challenge to deal with (including building dwarven baths), yet nobody has cried out for contaminants and syndromes to be pulled out of the game. 

This would be a far more automated process than syndromes could ever be, and yet you somehow think THIS is the tedious process - I think you're just not viewing this idea with the proper perspective. 

Rubble doesn't need a designation at all - it just needs a zone for dumping, and it will automatically be dumped.  The only thing it requires of the player is wheelbarrows/minecarts, haulers, a place to dump, and a little time.  It's a part of the automated system, the ants in the antfarm at work.  The development of the system is what gives the game its life and charm.

Rubble fits perfectly into place now.  It's just that the mindsets of many of the players are dead-set upon their old ways of doing things, and view any change as a negative. 

Clearly, the Orthodoxy needs a challenging every now and then for everyone's good.

[ohgoditburns]

If I had to choose, I'd rather have waste/filth than rubble. At least you can drown elves in waste.

[bombzero]

gah, too much to reply to!

although one thing, I don't strip mine, I build as I go, usually end up with 2-3 dining rooms, several major hallways, a few workshop areas, 2 hospitals, 4-5 farming areas, several massive sleeping qaurters throughout the fort, all of this spanning 10-12 Zlevels with multiple spaces in between for water, shortcuts, magma pumping, and storage areas. And with minecarts coming ill need to dig out even more to make room for all my infrastructure.

So I could quite conceivably bury the surface with 1:1 returns, as my average fort runs 100-400 dwarves depending on just how high I want to set the population.
also you contradict your desire for the final major achievement in DF to become a mountainhall with hundreds of dwarves, as you could never accomplish this without flooding the map and the caverns with stone.

Im quite torn between whether true conservation of mass would be better, or should even be included, if it is, we need some efficient way to dispose of it in larger fortresses later on.
possibly something it could actually be used for that would save space? making concrete, powderizing it for various applications, some way to get it off the map basically beyond just stuffing it in a pile. however this should be a complex or expensive method, or you could possibly sell some of the rubble/gravel to humans, hell im sure they would love concrete.

[Buoyancy]

Here's the thing I can't understand why you won't acknowledge: That IS adding something to the game.  That is exactly what SHOULD happen.  Having to put the mass you remove somewhere else in the game IS adding depth and value to the game. 

Part of the reason your ideas receive so much hostility is that you want to take a game that is already extremely slow paced and make it even slower paced.  Right now, the game runs at around half to a tenth of the speed that it would need to run at to be truly enjoyable.  If I could simulate a year of game time in ten real world minutes then I wouldn't care so much if building a functioning fort takes years of game time.  But since the current speed is closer to a few hours per year, that's just not workable.  I have about five-ten hours a week at most to play games, I'm not about to spend an entire real-world year on a single fort.

The second reason you're receiving so much hostility is that you're openly hostile to those players who value DF as a sandbox, and don't really care about making it a better game.  Games are commonplace.  Sandbox simulations are rare.  Rarity is valuable.

The third reason you're receiving hostile responses is because you're treating people as though you are a teacher and they are students instead of treating them as your equals.  You don't get to tell people that they don't know how to have fun, or rail that they shouldn't find the things fun that they do.  You are not the universal arbitrator of fun.

People already spend all day in their working lives dealing with economics.  They don't spend all day dealing with military conquest.  That's why the military is treated as fun.  Since you don't understand even this most basic part of the human psyche, it leaves me wondering what else you fail to understand about what people enjoy.

[reality.auditor]

How it will not cost even more FPS?

Because it prevents more items from being produced until you eliminate the old ones.

In what way? making it harder to move through rubble is flimsy defense against almighty FPS rapist. And what elimination? Dumping on rubble stockpile will not eliminate anything.

Considering way that Toady program things, useless data will be preserved for eternity, regardless of end result: dumped rubble, 7/7 rubble wall (after all, OCD in Toady will want to track which 1/7 was from what rubble of what stone) or whatever.

[Werdna]

So, I'm making this thread to carry on a discussion that has derailed the FotF discussion.

Spoiler: My take on the issue (click to show/hide)

I believe that we already have rubble to deal with, but in an abstracted form that fits so well into the game it's barely noticable.

Firstly, when a dwarf mines an area out it is abstracted that at least part of his time is spent hauling out rubble, placing abstracted supports, etc.  Where the rubble goes is also abstracted; however, much of it could be considered concentrated in the boulders.

Boulders are abstracted representations of all forms in which stone could be gathered.  If used for a statue, it is assumed to represent a single large block; if used for a road, it is thought of as gravel; if a wall is constructed of it, that wall is presumed to be backfill; and if hurled down a chasm -well, that's where all your rubble's been going.  Additionally, the size of a boulder might be larger than you'd think: moving it out could just be an abstraction of multiple trips.


And so we could be thought to already have the effects of rubble included in the game.  However, there is a point to be made for a direct representation instead of abstraction, as the closer the game follows reality the more potential enjoyment from the 'simulationist' point of view.

As with everything else, this must be weighed based on its individual merits.  I've seen a lot of 'shouting contests' between people who claim opposite 'facts' about the issue, for example: "clearing rubble will/won't be tedious".  This is not a fact, it's a value judgement, and everyone must form their own judgement based upon the facts.

Here are the facts, as near as I can tell them:

• Dealing with rubble can make for deeper immersion through realism.
• Dealing with rubble can potentially take a lot of realtime.
• The Rubble items will need memory.

The two downsides can, as has been pointed out, be mitigated by companion systems (ex. the recent hauling updates and better ways to deal with trash); however the fact remains that working with rubble with those systems in place will still be harder/slower/etc. than without rubble but WITH those systems still in place.

Therefore, any argument for rubble before those supporting systems have been released and tested by the general public must base its claims on how difficult it would be to effect under the current situation or stipulate their proposal as a long-term goal.


With all this being said, my personal value judgement would be that even without any flat-out 'downsides', increased realism in this area would actually make for lessened immersion and enjoyment, at least for me.  I don't think I'm alone in playing games to do things I can't/wouldn't do in real life though, and to me being able to mine out an entire mountaintop in an afternoon is so cool specifically because I appreciate how long it would take in real life.

Well said, totally agree here.  I like challenges in a game.  But I want them to be fun and interesting challenges, and making mining a hassle isn't something I see being particularly fun or interesting.  I don't want any new additions/challenges for the sake of realism (ie sewers) unless it meets the fun&interesting threshold.

Overall, I look forward to the reduced stone counts and reduced miner job micromanagement (skilled dwarves on veins, newbies on area-clearing).