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[Zarathustra30]

Walls need a way to be improved in some fashion. Whether you want to hang a torch on a wall for light or reinforce it with a steel plate, walls need some way to mount items. Wall decs would function like engravings, having them a part of the wall itself. Doing that prevents the items from extruding into an adjacent tile and does have the coding issues of thin walls.

Requirements:
* Directionality - so you can light one side of a wall without lighting another. I think engravings are currently directional, so some of that code is already in place. An exception may be made for wall reinforcements, because of the problems they present.
* Multiple Decs - So you can have a torch on both sides of the wall. There should be some sane limit, but it should be more than 1 per direction. You don't want to lose your fortification so you can have a torch.
* Construction - Dwarves should only build decs from the proper direction. This would cause the most coding problems with pathfinding and all.

Problems:
* Deconstructing the wall - Logically, the dec would be deconstructed as well, which is fine, except for reinforcements. I don't want goblins to dig in behind my steel plates and just have them collapse. Maybe have reinforcements strengthen the entire wall, instead of just one side.
* Constructing a wall in front of a dec - Again, logically, the dec should be deconstructed (except, again, reinforcement). The big problem would be checking for this. I foresee bugs.

Potential dec items:
* Torches, candles, glowing moss - Light source, heat source, fixed air source. Should have to be changed regularly.
* Totems - Decorate your fort with the skulls of your enemies! Make elves weep!
* Water Buckets - For putting out fire, quenching thirst, cleaning self, cleaning the fort, etc. Must be refilled.
* Furs and tapestries - Hung for insulation and admiration. May contain stories/necromancer fodder.
* Blood - No need to find cinnibar, you can just splash some blood on your walls for that red hue. Finally, a use for that trade good.
* Reinforcement - When invaders start to dig, you can either rebuild your entire fort out of steel, or you can slap on a few metal plates and call it a day.

[GavJ]

A few comments:

1) Like 75% of this post implies features that don't exist yet:
-Reinforcement implies digging
-"Air source" implies ... something. carbon dioxide poisoning?
-Torches imply lighting
-fire buckets implies firefighting and significantly different fire mechanics to allow firefighting to every be feasible
-"insulation" implies a much more advanced temperature model, also would only be relevant on the surface even in real life, since rock is about as insulating as you can get already.

This is almost impossible to comment on or to make suggestions of criticisms, because if the main feature doesn't exist yet, we don't even know if these suggestions would be relevant to it, let alone the most efficient. As just an example, if digging could only happen horizontally (unlikely), then plates might make sense, but if it happens in 3D, then you'd either have to completely plate every wall and every floor everywhere or it is pointless, cause they'll just reroute through unreinforced walls. If so, the feature seems not very useful, since 99% of people can't afford that much plating. It's very hard to say without knowing how digging works, which is why I suggest waiting until it is implemented, or at least in a changelog, "coming up" state first.

2) Blood would be brown as a wall pigment (nitpick)

3) I like the decorations idea, though, the one that is currently implementable. Just for raising value and flavor.

4) Engraving is not directional currently. Yes, Toady could code something to make it directional, which would matter for torches, probably. But for decorations alone, I don't see it as necessary. For example, you've been playing the game for however long, and you didn't seem to notice that engravings are not directional, right? So you probably wouldn't have noticed decorations not being directional, either. Also, for most things like "studding a wall with iron" or whatever, it would make sense to divide the decorations around all sides, just like engravings make sense, you know? Not for totems, but whatever.

[Zarathustra30]

What I was hoping for was for Toady to implement a framework for future work. We may not have lighting NOW, but we could have torches, and going from torches to lighting is a smaller step.

Oh, and Science says engravings are directional (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=118751.0), at least a release or two back.  Just a PSA when you are making your Grand Throne Rooms.

[GavJ]

?
If that's true, I would actually suggest actively going in and changing that to make engraving not directional, as that is needlessly confusing (being invisible), and also super annoying for making efficient rooms since you then would actually be unable to engrave both rooms. Which is ridiculous sounding.

Anyway, re: the more on topic point: I don't see the advantage in implementing half an idea that has no use without the full system (like torches with no lighting). It doesn't help anybody, and yet at the same time, it constrains Toady by making it harder for him to change torches later without confusing people if/when he realizes later that he should have done them differently. And either way it takes at minimum the same amount of total time, and you get your total features at minimum all on the same date.  So what's the point, versus doing it all in one release coherently?

[Zarathustra30]

Doing things in smaller steps would stop 2+ year releases from happening, and it doesn't force a single track. I am not expecting lighting to come into play until at least 0.60, but other things, like smothering people with fixed air, could come a lot sooner.  Having mounted totems would have an effect with this coming release. The total time needed to do something like lighting may even decrease if there is a generic framework already present

On the hidden directionality of engravings - I don't think it should be removed, but it should be made apparent and allow for multiple engravings in different orientations.

[GavJ]

The total time needed to do something like lighting may even decrease if there is a generic framework already present

How does (time to code A) + (time to code B) somehow add up to less than (time to code A and B)?

Yes, you get to have A and play with it for a year if you do it the first way, which is great.  ...unless A is a feature that doesn't do anything without B, like torches with no lighting. In which case it makes no difference to players, and serves only to handicap Toady if he wishes to change his mind about A while writing B.

In cases where part A is fun or useful by itself, though, I agree there is utility in doing it in pieces. but only then. Which is some things here, but not others.
*Decorations are useful by themselves
*So is paint
*Reinforcing walls isn't useful without digging yet.
*Insulation isn't useful at all without temperature modeling being better
etc.