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[Camden1990]

@ NW - It doesn't really strike me that you need to tell people what they find fun in a game. They may or may not find what you've written down fun, but saying that people just don't understand why they are having fun feels arrogant. You enjoy it for your reasons and everyone else can enjoy it for theirs.

Contaminants aren't fun. At least not for me. They add nothing for the game but a noticeable FPS drop as they build up and the requirement of a monthly map clean by dwarf hack. They are tedious. HOWEVER, they are not constantly getting directly in the way. The slowing down becomes noticeable after a long time (only because of the jump UP in FPS when you remove it all).

I'm not against adding difficulty for the sake of difficulty - seeing your points has actually convinced me that it can be a good thing and should sometimes happen, but I still think rubble is not the best example of this. It could so easily just involve a load of tedium with a minimal impact on game-play and mostly simply slowing it down. I wouldn't be furious if it was put in, I'd adapt to it and have some fun doing it, but it strikes me it would only be fun the first time and from then on would be an obstacle I am forced to overcome time and time again.

Mostly I would veer towards not having it in simply to avoid alienating the player base who do not think like you and who may not find it fun. Not including it won't push away people who want it, including it could push away those who don't.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

Not including it won't push away people who want it...

actually... i have stopped playing fortress mode for some versions now, and i don't think i'll be playing it for some further versions either. i'm not really the kind that would make a scene and try and go out with a bang(or a bohoo), but i'm losing hope that i'll ever enjoy fortress mode again, precisely because of the choices toady has been making on this kind of subjects. as i've stated before, i respect the man and his decisions, it's his game, i just expected something diferent...

not that i think you'd care or something, i just wanted to tell you you're wrong

[Arkenstone]

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 doubt you'd be wrong on that...

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.

The thing is, they don't.  Each of the forms of fun you described comes in singular events, dealt with one at a time.  And mining and farming aren't forms, they're areas.  Within these areas, an event-based form of challenge would be much more acceptable if not lauded.

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. 

That is because you can choose to ignore it, if you're fine with dwarves walking around covered in filth. (+Realism!)  As for the nasty FB contaminants... Dealing with FB's and their 'byproducts' is a singular event in and of itself, and building bathhouses can be Fun in and of itself.  Certainly, even then you aren't forced to build them. (magma decon chambers, anyone?)  Lastly, it should never become tedious because few fortresses need more than one bathhouse, so unless you start a new fort or decide to renovate you won't need to repeat the task.

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.

[/quote]
Ah, why didn't you say this earlier?  It makes all the difference!

I know that I at least assumed that I would have to designate tiles for rubble clearance, and not only have a place to dump but to redesignate that dumping site often as it filled up.  If I can solve the problem just by throwing dwarfs at it (and the rubble into a volcano) then things become a lot simpler...  And potentially more Fun if the landfill's former residents choose to object.

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.

[...]

...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.

This, I think, bespeaks of your mindset more than anything else.  You approach DF as a system to control, events as processes to harness or direct.  To you then, rubble would be just a change in the speed of a single process, which would make the number of possible solutions to the system go down, and therefore the accomplishment when one has been reached will go up.
Am I wrong?

[NW_Kohaku]

gah, too much to reply to!

Tell me about it...

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.

Well, part of the solution can be as simple as off-map dumping.  I doubt we could get automated carts all the way off map and back, but we could have the ability to literally just dump it somewhere out of place and out of mind/Memory by sending a dwarf off the map to landfill someplace a little further away.

Magma sea dumping or filling in eerie pits may be another ultimate long-term solution.  (I kind of like the idea of dumping into the magma sea, but having a potential "eruption" take place if you do too much eventually happening, causing some magma to spit back out unless you can properly contain the flow.)  (Eerie pits may just disgorge angry residents... The grues lost their home, and now they lurk the dark.)

Also, while this is probably beyond the tech range of dwarves, hypothetically, just as rubble/gravel is just smaller stones and rocks, sand is just smaller gravel. 

Sand, unlike how it operates in DF, is not automatically glass-making material.  Black sand, in fact, is an iron ore.  White sand is made of limestone, and as such, is actually flux.  Sand is generally used in glass production, however, as the quartz crystals (Aluminum silicate) that are most used in glass are the slowest things to erode down further into silt, and as such, are typically what is most left behind in typical sand.

If you built something specifically to tumble or erode down gravel further, you could hypothetically produce glass-making sand out of typical stones.  In fact, the best stones to try this on are feldspars - I.E. microcline and orthoclase.

It's just... probably not technologically possible to do in any reasonable amount of time, unless you just stuck rocks directly under a waterfall and waited for erosion to take its course.

Sand, incidentally, erodes further into silt, then clay, then finally into kaoline, which is literally at the point where molecules are broken apart to make nothing but individual atoms.  Loam is just a combination of sand, silt, and clay in roughly equal measure.

This is important to understand in farming, as the colloid grain size of the soil impacts the Cation Exchange Capacity, which in turn determines how much density of nutrients a type of soil can provide its crops. 

[NW_Kohaku]

Ah, why didn't you say this earlier?  It makes all the difference!

I know that I at least assumed that I would have to designate tiles for rubble clearance, and not only have a place to dump but to redesignate that dumping site often as it filled up.  If I can solve the problem just by throwing dwarfs at it (and the rubble into a volcano) then things become a lot simpler...  And potentially more Fun if the landfill's former residents choose to object.

I did - every time someone said it would involve micromanagement, and I've said it about a dozen times overall.  The time before, I said nobody had ever argued for having to designate things to be removed, and that it was only ever a matter of having dwarves to haul things. 

Presumably, the setup would be to have 1 or 2 dwarves actually mining (maybe more if you have a more direct slowdown of even legendary dwarves) and then a variable number of haulers depending on how badly you need your mining done now. 

This, I think, bespeaks of your mindset more than anything else.  You approach DF as a system to control, events as processes to harness or direct.  To you then, rubble would be just a change in the speed of a single process, which would make the number of possible solutions to the system go down, and therefore the accomplishment when one has been reached will go up.
Am I wrong?

I would say yes to the notion that slowing mining down with rubble is just a way to slow the returns of a single system.  I'm not sure what you mean by "number of possible solutions to the system", exactly. 

Rather, I would believe that players would adopt different strategies to deal with the slower mining. 

One strategy may be to say that mining and logistics are boring, and as such, they'd make a more vulnerable surface or partial-surface fortress with less mining and quarrying overall.  They'd have to deal with more material scarcity in this solution, but could focus on the aspects of the game they'd find more fun - military, I presume - or be drowned in the sieges.  Alternately, they might focus economics, and trade for more resources.

The alternate strategy would be to try to overcome speed limitations through uses of logistics and minecarts.  Players who enjoy being able to design railways for maximum efficiency in disposing of excess rubble would be able to mine larger areas with less labor, and as such enjoy greater access to inorganic resources and the ability to build completely underground and more secure fortresses with plenty of metals to make up for a probably lesser focus on military play. 

This is what I keep coming back to in the adding depth to different playstyles through the complexity of one system meaning that players can focus upon specific systems that give them benefits to other systems, as well.  The player can then choose if they want to be farming-focused or mining-focused or military-focused in the same game mode. 

[NW_Kohaku]

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.

The point of the amalgam code was that it wouldn't track what items were in a tile - they'd just all turn into an amalgam wall, and all items would be deleted (except for a pointer to an amalgam material) and turned into an impassible wall tile.

That way, you're deleting items out of memory in order to turn the material in a wall back into a wall when you dump enough of it. 

You're basically stating the assumption (that Toady will never delete data), and holding that up as proof of the assumption you are making to argue against what I have said (that the data will be deleted in order to make this system work).

And in my defense, the amalgam idea was something Toady stated as a means of getting rid of quantum stockpiles.  It just starts deleting anything that stockpiles too much.

[Camden1990]

not that i think you'd care or something, i just wanted to tell you you're wrong

I care a bit - you make a valid point!
Apologies for such a sweeping statement. I don't really believe it would drive no one away, it just seemed like it would be safer (in terms of overall fan happiness) to not include it, to me at least, since a lot of people for it seem to not really mind if it doesn't happen. Though I guess the most important thing would actually be to not include it if it wasn't done properly. I quite like the zone and auto dump idea.
This rubble would definitely not be a make or break decision for me at least.

[NW_Kohaku]

Not including it won't push away people who want it...

actually... i have stopped playing fortress mode for some versions now, and i don't think i'll be playing it for some further versions either. i'm not really the kind that would make a scene and try and go out with a bang(or a bohoo), but i'm losing hope that i'll ever enjoy fortress mode again, precisely because of the choices toady has been making on this kind of subjects. as i've stated before, i respect the man and his decisions, it's his game, i just expected something diferent...

not that i think you'd care or something, i just wanted to tell you you're wrong

Just out of curiosity, could you be more specific in some of the changes that you haven't enjoyed, and what you would have rather had?

[Sadrice]

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.

Just for the hell of it, I used some sped up dwarves to dig a mid size fortress and build all the rock into a pyramid outside my fort.
Here's the main fort:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here's the base of the pyramid:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here's the pyramid in overseer:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I did a bit more math, too (using the formula for volume of a square pyramid with 45 degree sides, V = 1/6 L^3, L is the length of a base)  A pyramid covering a 48x48 embark tile holds about 18000 stone (a 3x3 z level contains about 20000 stone).

3 mined out 3x3 z levels can be stored in a 72x72 pile.

A pyramid totally covering a 3x3 embark contains about 498000 stone,  which is about 25 mined out 3x3 z levels.

I doubt you would fill your embark without trying very very hard.

[Leafsnail]

Hmm... under the proposed system it feels like you would really need to micromanage to mine optimally, actually.  What I'd think would be the best solution for digging a line of stone would be:

Code: [Select]

+++D++
______
++++++Where + are unmined tiles, _ are the mined tiles and D is the special dug out redesignated tile.

Let's say that each tile produces 1/7 of rubble, and you can have a maximum of 7/7 in one square.  Basically you'd dig a passageway 6 long and put a little chamber next to the passage.  You can then dump the 6 pieces of rubble from the passageway into that spot, and continue by building much the same structure.  This would be faster than having all the rubble dragged outside (much faster once the mines get deep), but also tedious as hell.

I'm not sure if I've understood it correctly, but as far as I can tell the optimal strategy would generally be to create new dump spots off the side of your mineshafts constantly.

I guess this wouldn't work under 1:1 rubble, but that would require you to constantly redesignate your zone unless you want your dwarves trapping themselves behind rubble all the time.  And if you want to be vaguely efficient (ie not have your haulers walking all over the map) you'd probably want to build your rubble in a stack, which would again require a lot of micromanagement.

[Sadrice]

That's why I favor a 1 mined tile = 1 rubble ramp, 2 rubble ramps = 1 rubble wall system.  Sure, you could theoretically do like you showed and pack it in the sides, but that would be extremely micromanagement intensive, and people would only ever do that if they were in a situation where dwarf labor is more important than player labor.  You could channel hallways, leaving all the rubble in the z below, but that would be exceedingly ugly, and probably wouldn't be used much.

[NW_Kohaku]

That's sort of the reason I'd prefer a 1:1 rubble system. 

So long as you are using powered track minecarts with stockpiles, hypothetically, all you need to do is have a small bucket hauler team running wheelbarrows from your current mine site to the nearest cart station, and since Toady has be talking about automated dumping positions on tracks, the minecarts would be capable of taking care of everything else until you filled up the dumping point and needed to send the carts to dump elsewhere.  You would have to occasionally stretch the minecart stations further towards the mining sites if you were really digging deeper over time, however.

Provided you do it fairly high up with those sand-filling rules that make pyramids like Sadrice was demonstrating, you could hypothetically just have carts that go up high above the rest of the embark or go along a cliff edge, or just dump into the caverns, and dump quite a large amount of rubble (enough for a reasonably-sized fort) with a single set up.

[greenskye]

What might be nice is if the dwarves were smart enough to be able to build multi z high dump zones. They would automatically build ramps up to the next z level as needed. Most of my forts seem to be in relatively flat areas, so I'd appreciate them being smart enough to scramble up the hill and dump it on top.


I'm thinking Wall-E type tower's maybe?

[NW_Kohaku]

What might be nice is if the dwarves were smart enough to be able to build multi z high dump zones. They would automatically build ramps up to the next z level as needed. Most of my forts seem to be in relatively flat areas, so I'd appreciate them being smart enough to scramble up the hill and dump it on top.


I'm thinking Wall-E type tower's maybe?

Dump zones next to a drop-off automatically just chuck things over the edge.  That's how my atom-smashers always work - a hole in the ground with dump site designations around it leading to the smashing site.

If you just build a high enough ledge to start with, they'll dump down automatically.

[Sadrice]

What do you think about minecart and wheelbarrow?  I think it would be nice for wheelbarrows to hold 2-3 tiles worth of rubble, while minecarts hold a bit more, maybe 5-7.  This is a pretty blatant violation of physics, but would make it easier to keep your mines clear.

Ideally (in my opinion at least) mining shouldn't be slowed much if you stay on top of it, which shouldn't be that hard.  It's only when you add more miners without a proportional increase in hauling capacity, or otherwise have a dysfunctional hauling system that problems start emerging.  Strip mining and such should still be possible, even fairly easy, it would just require more of an effort than just designating more stone to be mined.