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[hermes]

Interesting.  A good opportunity for some !!Science!!, if ever there was one.

[therahedwig]

It appears that I was wrong, and regular "ignited" fires are in fact sufficient to burn down trees.  The problem is it takes a very long time for fires to spread, such that they do not appear to spread at all on the adventurer time scale.  I spawned a dwarf in the arena and had him set a fire near the trees.  He literally died of thirst by the time the fire had spread to the trees.  But the one ignited fire was enough to burn down all the grass, and most of the trees (sometimes the trees don't fully catch on fire even when all the grass below them is burning).

I'm not sure if the time scale for fire being so slow in adventure mode would be considered a bug?  Even if so, I doubt it would be very high on Toady's list, as the only use for setting fires in adventure mode would be to burn down his beautiful trees, even if there might be...ahem...significant demand for said feature...

What do you mean, "the only point to fire in adventure mode is burning down his beautiful trees"? Don't forget that the vast majority of the shit that goes down in the Hobbit is right up Dwarf Fortress' alley:
*Dwarves building incredible mountainhomes.
*Elves being dicks
*Humans fighting amonst each other.
*Elves being dicks
*Dwarves going crazy over something they dug up from deep in the mines.
*Elves being dicks.
*Smaug burning down a whole town.

Can't have a proper dragon attack without a town burning down in there somewhere.

[Pirate Bob]

To be clear, I said "setting fires", by which I meant using the option to "ignite" bushes and such.  Dragonfire is great fun to play with already.  I also meant, but did not specify, that there is little point to this "ignite" function right now.  In the future, I totally agree that we could see this used to set fire to a village under siege, and all sorts of wonderful dwarfy things.  It is just that in the current version the only interesting thing that is flammable is elf trees (and I'm not even sure how well those burn, but at least some parts can be set on fire).  Sadly, the human's homes cannot be burned yet.

In other words, you don't have to convince me that burning stuff in dwarf fortress would be the very best of !!fun!! - the very first thing I tried to do in the new version was burn down an elven retreat...

I expect that when (I don't say if, because we all know it's when) Toady gets around to making villages and other fun things flammable, he will also make sure they burn on a reasonable time scale in adventure mode.  But maybe I should file a bug report about this just to make sure? 

[cephalo]

  But maybe I should file a bug report about this just to make sure?

Suggestions are frowned upon in the bug tracker. Save it for stuff that breaks the game.

[Pirate Bob]

  But maybe I should file a bug report about this just to make sure?

Suggestions are frowned upon in the bug tracker. Save it for stuff that breaks the game.

To be clear, I wasn't talking about suggesting that other stuff should burn.  I was thinking of reporting that fires set in adventure mode appear to burn on slow (presumably fortress mode) time scales, such that a fire you set by igniting vegetation does not spread even if you sit and watch it all day.  Do you still feel that this is a "suggestion" and not a bug report? 

I am not try to be sarcastic - I am really not sure.  This is such a minor issue that I don't know if posting it is helpful.  I definitely don't want to post bug reports that will be annoying to Toady and the others maintaining the tracker.

[Footkerchief]

To be clear, I wasn't talking about suggesting that other stuff should burn.  I was thinking of reporting that fires set in adventure mode appear to burn on slow (presumably fortress mode) time scales, such that a fire you set by igniting vegetation does not spread even if you sit and watch it all day.  Do you still feel that this is a "suggestion" and not a bug report? 

I am not try to be sarcastic - I am really not sure.  This is such a minor issue that I don't know if posting it is helpful.  I definitely don't want to post bug reports that will be annoying to Toady and the others maintaining the tracker.

I think it warrants a report, and I couldn't find an existing one.

[Shizmoo]

Good in concept, bad in actuality. Its pretty annoying climbing trees to reach the people

[GavJ]

Am I the only one not feeling impressed here? It's a big tree.  With random slices cut out of it full of elves ...? Seems pretty slapdash, honestly.  This seems much more hastily and mediocrely done than the much cooler looking human farm fields and procedural streets and whatnot.

I was expecting awesome wooden sky bridge walkways and spiral staircases and such.

[Alev]

Am I the only one not feeling impressed here? It's a big tree.  With random slices cut out of it full of elves ...? Seems pretty slapdash, honestly.  This seems much more hastily and mediocrely done than the much cooler looking human farm fields and procedural streets and whatnot.

I was expecting awesome wooden sky bridge walkways and spiral staircases and such.

Yes, human sites are more interesting than elf/dwarf/gobbo sites, but at least we have them.

[Pirate Bob]

To be clear, I wasn't talking about suggesting that other stuff should burn.  I was thinking of reporting that fires set in adventure mode appear to burn on slow (presumably fortress mode) time scales, such that a fire you set by igniting vegetation does not spread even if you sit and watch it all day.  Do you still feel that this is a "suggestion" and not a bug report? 

I am not try to be sarcastic - I am really not sure.  This is such a minor issue that I don't know if posting it is helpful.  I definitely don't want to post bug reports that will be annoying to Toady and the others maintaining the tracker.

I think it warrants a report, and I couldn't find an existing one.

Thanks very much for the advice.  However, it seems I was mistaken and it actually only takes hours for a fire to spread in adventure mode, which doesn't seem unreasonable enough to be considered a bug.

Before reporting, I did a more controlled test, where I lit a fire and noted the time, and then used macros to make a lot of time pass (by crawling back and forth).  The fire spread to neighboring vegetation over the time when the sun was low in the east to high in the east (several hours).  This seems about right, so no bug to report.  Sorry for the false alarm.

I had previously set fires and killed all the elves in a retreat, and noted no spread.  I thought it took me a long time to kill all the elves, but I guess it wasn't as long as I thought.  Again, sorry for the confusion.

[Footkerchief]

Hmm.  That still sounds iffy but yeah, borderline reasonable.

[cephalo]

If you think about it, simulating a spreading fire has some potentially unwanted consequences that would be tricky to handle. For example, if the game let you start a fire and burn down a whole forest region, it would have to realize and store exponentially more territory than it would if it was just a player walking around.

I suppose you could mark a forest tile as 'burned down' and procedurally generate it that way instead of the normal way, but then you have to decide whether to kill off all the populations in there and whether their burned bodies would be lying around. It would be a very complex system just for completeness sake of correct fire simulation.

[therahedwig]

To be clear, I wasn't talking about suggesting that other stuff should burn.  I was thinking of reporting that fires set in adventure mode appear to burn on slow (presumably fortress mode) time scales, such that a fire you set by igniting vegetation does not spread even if you sit and watch it all day.  Do you still feel that this is a "suggestion" and not a bug report? 

I am not try to be sarcastic - I am really not sure.  This is such a minor issue that I don't know if posting it is helpful.  I definitely don't want to post bug reports that will be annoying to Toady and the others maintaining the tracker.

I think it warrants a report, and I couldn't find an existing one.

Thanks very much for the advice.  However, it seems I was mistaken and it actually only takes hours for a fire to spread in adventure mode, which doesn't seem unreasonable enough to be considered a bug.

Before reporting, I did a more controlled test, where I lit a fire and noted the time, and then used macros to make a lot of time pass (by crawling back and forth).  The fire spread to neighboring vegetation over the time when the sun was low in the east to high in the east (several hours).  This seems about right, so no bug to report.  Sorry for the false alarm.

I had previously set fires and killed all the elves in a retreat, and noted no spread.  I thought it took me a long time to kill all the elves, but I guess it wasn't as long as I thought.  Again, sorry for the confusion.

Actually, if you want to test further, try on dry grass? This shows up in hot biomes.

If you're using adventure mode to test this, it's actually better to travel to a tropical biome than to retire and create a new adventurer, as dry grass is more likely to show up in late spring-early autumn, and adventurers start in early spring. In the meantime you can enjoy the new flowers as well(though I suspect you're going to do !!SCIENCE!! on those as well...)

[94dima94]

If you think about it, simulating a spreading fire has some potentially unwanted consequences that would be tricky to handle. For example, if the game let you start a fire and burn down a whole forest region, it would have to realize and store exponentially more territory than it would if it was just a player walking around.

I suppose you could mark a forest tile as 'burned down' and procedurally generate it that way instead of the normal way, but then you have to decide whether to kill off all the populations in there and whether their burned bodies would be lying around. It would be a very complex system just for completeness sake of correct fire simulation.

Fire could be simulated only next to players or other "important" creatures. That way the fire still spreads, but only stuff that would normally be calculated is, while the rest is ignored. It's not in the spirit of total realism, but gives the opportunity to simulate forest fire without massive problems.

In other words: if a tree burns in a forest, but nobody is around to see/hear it, there isn't noise.

[Pirate Bob]

If you think about it, simulating a spreading fire has some potentially unwanted consequences that would be tricky to handle. For example, if the game let you start a fire and burn down a whole forest region, it would have to realize and store exponentially more territory than it would if it was just a player walking around.

I suppose you could mark a forest tile as 'burned down' and procedurally generate it that way instead of the normal way, but then you have to decide whether to kill off all the populations in there and whether their burned bodies would be lying around. It would be a very complex system just for completeness sake of correct fire simulation.

Fire could be simulated only next to players or other "important" creatures. That way the fire still spreads, but only stuff that would normally be calculated is, while the rest is ignored. It's not in the spirit of total realism, but gives the opportunity to simulate forest fire without massive problems.

In other words: if a tree burns in a forest, but nobody is around to see/hear it, there isn't noise.

I believe the game currently only simulates fires that are in the same local region as the adventurer.  If you fast travel or wait/sleep all fires go out.  I don't remember if things that are burned remain burned after fast travel, but I suspect not.  I will try to check.  I haven't yet managed to wait for long enough for the fire to burn down a tree or burn out leaving ashes, so that may or may not be practical in adventure mode. 

Actually, if you want to test further, try on dry grass? This shows up in hot biomes.

If you're using adventure mode to test this, it's actually better to travel to a tropical biome than to retire and create a new adventurer, as dry grass is more likely to show up in late spring-early autumn, and adventurers start in early spring. In the meantime you can enjoy the new flowers as well(though I suspect you're going to do !!SCIENCE!! on those as well...)

I assume the suggestion is that fire will spread faster in dry grass?  I doubt the simulation is that detailed, but this is dwarf fortress, so you never know...

By waiting a long time I was able to get the fire to just start to spread to a tree.  I would like to see how long it takes to burn down a tree, and then how long to burn down a large magical tree, assuming that is possible.