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[sakkari]

I don't know for sure if this has been suggested already, but I haven't seen it anywhere yet. I think a natural disaster could be a rare occurrence and could come from the form of a sandstorm if your in a desert, tornado if your in a plain, avalanche if your in a snowy and rocky biome, tsunami if your near the ocean, flooding near rivers and lakes, and earthquakes (haven't figured out where to incorporate it yet)etc. Does anyone else think it would be a good idea?

[JanusTwoface]

I don't know for sure if this has been suggested already, but I haven't seen it anywhere yet.

Forum search for 'natural disasters' (up in the top right):

• Natural Disasters, Mercenaries, Cages, Monsters, Baby, Skill, Visitor Ideas
• Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, meteor storms... !!FUN!!
• World-wide events
• Meteors? Comets?
• Some new events perhaps?
• global disasters
• Disasters and Pleasant Surprises

Not to say it isn't a good suggestion, I would love to see natural disasters, but it has been suggested a fair few times before. Including I think all of the particular examples you gave in one form or another.

So check out those threads and maybe post in one of them if you have something more to add. There are definitely some interesting write-ups in a few of them.

[sakkari]

Yeah i just realized that before i even looked at your post i feel silly now.

[Bot Hack]

Great topic name OP, thanks wolfie for all the relevant links.

If the world is anything like ours, and it sure has its coincidences, it produces its own heat and is gradually perfecting its form.

Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are tied to the same mechanism, that of the shifting structures in the earth.

[Putnam]

Eh. I guess this topic could work as a "hub" topic, since its name is pretty all-encompassing.

[Hyndis]

Natural disasters could be like weather in evil biomes. I think more weather would be a nice feature.

Evil weather does all kinds of interesting things, but if it did even more that could be a lot of fun. A weather effect that throws objects on the surface a number of tiles in a random direction could be a tornado.

A flood could be rain that causes water to appear everywhere, and not only in pond tiles. Maybe a nearby volcano erupts, causing it to rain magma. Every "raindrop" will turn into 1/7 magma upon touching the ground.

There should be some sort of warning as to these disasters though. Perhaps a boxed warning that the sky looks ominous along with a game pause, and then a short time later the effect takes place. Long enough for the player to do something, but too short of a time for a full evacuation to complete.

[sakkari]

Evil weather does all kinds of interesting things, but if it did even more that could be a lot of fun. A weather effect that throws objects on the surface a number of tiles in a random direction could be a tornado.

A flood could be rain that causes water to appear everywhere, and not only in pond tiles. Maybe a nearby volcano erupts, causing it to rain magma. Every "raindrop" will turn into 1/7 magma upon touching the ground.

There should be some sort of warning as to these disasters though. Perhaps a boxed warning that the sky looks ominous along with a game pause, and then a short time later the effect takes place. Long enough for the player to do something, but too short of a time for a full evacuation to complete.

I like the idea of tornadoes and maybe destroying buildings outside too and the eruptions would be a nice touch too. It would be cool if you took different actions for different disasters like flooding you get to the highest elevation you can or dig down for tornadoes and eruption burns anything wood.

[CaptainArchmage]

There should be some sort of warning as to these disasters though. Perhaps a boxed warning that the sky looks ominous along with a game pause, and then a short time later the effect takes place. Long enough for the player to do something, but too short of a time for a full evacuation to complete.

In the original 2D Dwarf Fortress, when the cave river flooded you got a notification saying "the cave river is overflowing". The actual flood would take place a bit later, however, giving you some time.

I like the idea of tornadoes and maybe destroying buildings outside too and the eruptions would be a nice touch too. It would be cool if you took different actions for different disasters like flooding you get to the highest elevation you can or dig down for tornadoes and eruption burns anything wood.

Digging down seems to be a universal option for dwarves. Even in the case of surface flooding, drawbridges, doors, hatches, and floodgates are pretty watertight. There's the possibility of cave-ins, but a rewrite of that is planned sometime in the future.

[sakkari]

Digging down seems to be a universal option for dwarves. Even in the case of surface flooding, drawbridges, doors, hatches, and floodgates are pretty watertight. There's the possibility of cave-ins, but a rewrite of that is planned sometime in the future.

If you have flooding from rain though, you could have it seep through dirt and stone so instead of it coming from the bottom up it could start from above and build up from the inside.

[JanusTwoface]

If you'd want to, making this into a mega-thread a la the Underground Diversity / Aboveground Diversity / Watery Diversity threads might be useful, just in case Toady One ever goes about natural disasters than he has a pool of ideas to pull from.

[sakkari]

Which topic would it be best put under? Or could i put it under all of those suggested ones?

[StephanReiken]

I think this needs to be a little more dwarfy. Like, simulated weather patterns across the planet.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Maybe a nearby volcano erupts, causing it to rain magma. Every "raindrop" will turn into 1/7 magma upon touching the ground.

That's...that's not how eruptions work. AT ALL.

There should be some sort of warning as to these disasters though. Perhaps a boxed warning that the sky looks ominous along with a game pause, and then a short time later the effect takes place. Long enough for the player to do something, but too short of a time for a full evacuation to complete.

Considering that even today we don't get a lot of warning for many types of disasters...I dunno. Some kinds, yes a warning would make sense.

Digging down seems to be a universal option for dwarves. Even in the case of surface flooding, drawbridges, doors, hatches, and floodgates are pretty watertight. There's the possibility of cave-ins, but a rewrite of that is planned sometime in the future.

If you have flooding from rain though, you could have it seep through dirt and stone so instead of it coming from the bottom up it could start from above and build up from the inside.

Porosity of soils and stones in general is something I'm excited for, in part because it means proper aquifers.

I think this needs to be a little more dwarfy. Like, simulated weather patterns across the planet.

General climatic patterns and major disasters? Sure.

[Hyndis]

I like the idea of tornadoes and maybe destroying buildings outside too and the eruptions would be a nice touch too. It would be cool if you took different actions for different disasters like flooding you get to the highest elevation you can or dig down for tornadoes and eruption burns anything wood.

Destroying terrain is probably a no-no at this point. Same with destroying constructed tiles. The ramifications of a destroyed tile are vast. This also makes earthquakes and tunneling invaders extremely problematic.

If it is handled as a weather event that moves creatures around, but only moves creatures around, then you can have dwarves blown off of a cliff or pushed against a wall for injuries. I'd also imagine loose items could be blown around as well, so you could have socks flying around at high speed and they could potentially cause damage.

As far as flooding, there is already code in the game to generate 1/7 liquid upon impact with a raindrop, but this 1/7 liquid only spawns when a rain drop hits a pond tile. If raindrops could spawn 1/7 liquid anywhere, and a rain storm was kept up for some time, including even months, then you could get some serious flooding. Same deal with lava. A nearby volcano could present in fortress mode as a rain of lava, creating a 1/7 unit of lava wherever it hits on the surface.

[Hyndis]

Maybe a nearby volcano erupts, causing it to rain magma. Every "raindrop" will turn into 1/7 magma upon touching the ground.

That's...that's not how eruptions work. AT ALL.

I know. Its an abstraction. It would be a way to put it into the game using the game's engine. In most cases a volcano just spews out toxic gas. We already have that in game with evil weather. In order to differentiate it from evil weather it could do a rain of lava instead.

If a nearby volcanic eruption (nearby as in close to the fortress, but not part of the embark area) does about the same thing as evil weather then there wouldn't be much point to it, since the effect is already in the game.