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[Rogue Yun]

Having dug a hole in the ground... where does the soil/rubble go? It kind of magically disappears or turns into a boulder. I gave it some thought and read this forum as well as parts of the more Realisitic Mining Suggestion. And I decided that this suggestion/discussion might merit its own forum post. But if you disagree you are welcome to say it doesn't. I just want to discuss the issue and hopefully keep any solutions as simple as possible.

The options, as I see it is to:

a.) Suspend disbelief and bear it. (Do nothing) Or...
b.) Come up with a simple, viable solution to create working mechanics for "dirt".

I admit, that thinking logically isn't one of my strong points, or at least I feel those around me think more logically than I do (hence the discussion), but I would like to look for a simple solution to this. Therefore, option "a" might be the best option. But I'm here to discuss whether there is a viable chance for a simple more realistic solution to the disappearing soil.

The closest solution I could come up with (certainly open to discussion and criticism) is to have miners take a wheel barrow with them while they mine. They dig a wall/pit. The rubble/soil is placed into the wheelbarrow. The wheel barrow taken to a designated mound/pit. The contents dumped, creating a mound or filling a pit.

The only way to generate soil should be by digging a wall or channel.

In my minds eye it would look something like this.

Legend:

Code: [Select]

"^" = Up Ramp
"v" = Down Ramp
"#" = Natural unsmoothed wall or Dumped Soil/Rubble. Is a reminable tile [No boulders, only more rubble/soil]
"=" = Designated Mound area.
"." = Open Space
Designated Mound Area:

Code: [Select]


  =====
  =====
  =====
  =====


One Load Dumped:

Code: [Select]


  ^^^==
  ^#^==
  ^^^==
  =====


Two Loads Dumped:

Code: [Select]


  ^^^^=
  ^##^=
  ^^^^=
  =====


Mound Designated Area Full

Code: [Select]

  ^^^^^
  ^###^
  ^###^
  ^###^
  ^^^^^

Pit Designated Area

Code: [Select]


  vvv
  v.v
  vvv


Pit designated area 1 tile and you should get the picture:

Code: [Select]


   vv
  vvv
  vvv


cons:
~ More work that might very well be unnecessary for our good Toady.
~ If you wanted to dig deep or clear out entire levels there would be a huge pyramid of dirt somewhere on the surface or possibly inside caverns. Finding places to put dirt might be a problem.
~ Slows down digging even more. Ugh!

pros:
~ Unsmoothed Rock walls can now be built. (I realize this can create some debate as in whether it can be smoothed/engraved or not).
~ It would be easier to build cheap walls around your fort.
~ Unused Rooms and bad pathing can easily be blocked or filled.
~ Mistakes made that now require constructions to fix might be solved now by filling in the mistake and trying again.
~ Rock can be replaced with soil. Allowing for farming on rock layers without having to risk flooding your fortress.
~ Bodies/Coffins (and rotting garbage) can now be burried (Though I'm not sure about burring constructed buildings being an option).

The more I think about it the more overwhelmed I feel as to the complexities of the task. What do you think? What are some of your ideas on the matter?

[GavJ]

I don't feel like there's any way to do this that would be fun, having thought about it a lot, without abstraction. Nobody wan'ts giant piles of rubble mucking up their surface, and anything that doesn't cause that is simplified which begs the question "Why would that be different than now, then?"

[Dirst]

I don't feel like there's any way to do this that would be fun, having thought about it a lot, without abstraction. Nobody wan'ts giant piles of rubble mucking up their surface, and anything that doesn't cause that is simplified which begs the question "Why would that be different than now, then?"

Although I agree that vanilla mining should abstract a lot of the details, I would like a game option or modding capability to affect boulder drop rates and such.  A SOLID_POWDER state to represent dirt would be nice to have, though we'd need some mechanism of actually gathering it (similar to clay or web collection) and doing something with it (like building earthen walls).  Combine the two, and you could set your soil to drop piles of dirt once in a while.

[Niddhoger]

If we do this for soil, it will also need to be for all stones and ores.  Therefore, we'd gain far more metal per ore vein (and kaolonite as well).  People already have issues with dealing with excess stone- what would we do with excess dirt? Sand and Clay could be reformed and no longer infinite.... but what would we do with dirt? As has been said, we'd just be making giant ugly piles/leveling terrain to fill in holes.  This is further complicated that most people dig holes as part of fortress defense.