Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[GoblinCookie]

I would actually abstract both 'types' of waste into one type of waste that counts as a solid object with it's own category called filth.  When mixed with water it becomes liquid sewage that renders the water undrinkable. 

Over time filth rots away into soil on rock or into soil nutrients if placed on soil.  I do not think we have to simulate water corruption except by direct contact of water with filth as I do not think that waste is actually capable of corrupting anything through the equivilant of one Z-Level of soil. 

The idea is that dwarves poop into toilets, chamber pots or simply outside and in the former two cases dwarves use buckets to haul it into designated zones.  It then decomposes into soil or soil nutrients which are used by farms to increase or restore fertility; actually the amount of soil represents the nutrients of the place. 

[Andeerz]

I would actually abstract both 'types' of waste into one type of waste that counts as a solid object with it's own category called filth.  When mixed with water it becomes liquid sewage that renders the water undrinkable. 

Over time filth rots away into soil on rock or into soil nutrients if placed on soil.  I do not think we have to simulate water corruption except by direct contact of water with filth as I do not think that waste is actually capable of corrupting anything through the equivilant of one Z-Level of soil. 

I think I could possibly get behind that abstraction of both types of waste to one, but not the water corruption thing. 
 
Fecal waste IRL is indeed capable of corrupting drinking water through what I would imagine is at least one tile of soil.  Disease causing agents from fecal waste can contaminate drinking water through at least on the order of 1 - 5 meters of soil (differing depending on type of soil with its given permeability) within a few days (source).  Contamination can even spread into the 10's of meters in some instances.  I think this could, at minimum, be represented by having the walls of and possibly one tile out from a cesspit being "contaminated" as in my suggestion, which would look a lot like how damp or warm stone is indicated in the game.  And this wouldn't be at all taxing to performance, nor difficult for the player to see.  I believe this is important, since it was a very real problem throughout history that was actively thought about and addressed when engineering sewage systems.  People knew even before knowing about microbes that having poopy water too near to clean water, even separated by earth, could cause clean water to go bad.  The tough part would be handling how far the contamination would diffuse into whatever body of water might be touching such contaminated tiles (if we are talking about an aquifer or large body of water).     

ALSO, contaminated water should be drinkable.  It should simply give a chance of infection.  Having filth mixed with water making a liquid filth that is undrinkable makes this not possible.  Perhaps is liquid filth could be consumed in your suggestion, but then that abstracts out the potential for quite a bit of fun things with regard to contaminating water sources, intentionally and unintentionally.

The idea is that dwarves poop into toilets, chamber pots or simply outside and in the former two cases dwarves use buckets to haul it into designated zones.  It then decomposes into soil or soil nutrients which are used by farms to increase or restore fertility; actually the amount of soil represents the nutrients of the place. 

That for sure is what I wanted my suggestion to plug into.  Toilets/squatting pans could be connected via piping or just be placed over holes in the ground that could lead to proper sewers, cesspits, or a combination of those, or a moat, or what-have-you.  Cesspits and sewers would serve the functions they did in real life: to make sure waste is collected in an area 1) away from people and their activities (to reduce health issues) and 2) for poop haulers to deal with later, or just leave to decompose.  And what that stuff decomposes into are soil nutrients.  Oooo... this gets me thinking of NW_Kohaku's agriculture suggestion from way back. 

Chamber pots would be an individual solution for when going outside is not an attractive option, though it would fill up after a few uses.

Going outside (or a designated area) would be the default behavior, but would of course be less sanitary, less pleasant and, just as important, less safe (did you know raptors like giant eagles can see in the UV which poop reflects, and they track prey that way? ).  Also, there would be less control over where the poop ends up.

[Urist Tilaturist]

I agree with crap water being drinkable. It should just not be drunk out of preference, and cause nasty diseases (syndromes), which may have symptoms of more vomit and crap everywhere (cholera).

[GoblinCookie]

I think I could possibly get behind that abstraction of both types of waste to one, but not the water corruption thing. 
 
Fecal waste IRL is indeed capable of corrupting drinking water through what I would imagine is at least one tile of soil.  Disease causing agents from fecal waste can contaminate drinking water through at least on the order of 1 - 5 meters of soil (differing depending on type of soil with its given permeability) within a few days (source).  Contamination can even spread into the 10's of meters in some instances.  I think this could, at minimum, be represented by having the walls of and possibly one tile out from a cesspit being "contaminated" as in my suggestion, which would look a lot like how damp or warm stone is indicated in the game.  And this wouldn't be at all taxing to performance, nor difficult for the player to see.  I believe this is important, since it was a very real problem throughout history that was actively thought about and addressed when engineering sewage systems.  People knew even before knowing about microbes that having poopy water too near to clean water, even separated by earth, could cause clean water to go bad.  The tough part would be handling how far the contamination would diffuse into whatever body of water might be touching such contaminated tiles (if we are talking about an aquifer or large body of water).     

Trouble is that a good layer of soil quite quickly absorbs the nastiness, as you wrote it is at most 5 meters.  I would say however that one Z-Level is about 20 meters at least.  The game goes down all the way to the magma, that is the whole crust is accessable. 

ALSO, contaminated water should be drinkable.  It should simply give a chance of infection.  Having filth mixed with water making a liquid filth that is undrinkable makes this not possible.  Perhaps is liquid filth could be consumed in your suggestion, but then that abstracts out the potential for quite a bit of fun things with regard to contaminating water sources, intentionally and unintentionally.

Dwarves should only willingly drink contaminated water if they are dying of thirst. 

That for sure is what I wanted my suggestion to plug into.  Toilets/squatting pans could be connected via piping or just be placed over holes in the ground that could lead to proper sewers, cesspits, or a combination of those, or a moat, or what-have-you.  Cesspits and sewers would serve the functions they did in real life: to make sure waste is collected in an area 1) away from people and their activities (to reduce health issues) and 2) for poop haulers to deal with later, or just leave to decompose.  And what that stuff decomposes into are soil nutrients.  Oooo... this gets me thinking of NW_Kohaku's agriculture suggestion from way back. 

Chamber pots would be an individual solution for when going outside is not an attractive option, though it would fill up after a few uses.

Going outside (or a designated area) would be the default behavior, but would of course be less sanitary, less pleasant and, just as important, less safe (did you know raptors like giant eagles can see in the UV which poop reflects, and they track prey that way? ).  Also, there would be less control over where the poop ends up.

Firstly dwarves should desire privacy, they will not poop willingly within sight of other dwarves.  If dwarves cannot find any toilet options they poop outside and since they seek privacy it keeps it away generally from places where other dwarves tend to congregate. 

You can control where dwarves will poop by designating some areas to be latrines.  Dwarves however prefer chamber pots and toilets if available.  Chamber pots are just objects which are then hauled by dwarves to the designated latrine area or to a toilet. 

Toilets work like wells in that they are built in holes in the ground and cover them up.  When used the filth ends up on the z-level beneath, if it is a latrine then it will be let be, otherwise it will be hauled to a latrine.  Over time poop rots away into soil which can be used for farming purposes.

Alternatively you can designate bodies of water to be sewers.  This means that filth will be thrown into those bodies of water becoming sewage.  Sewage is bad for dwarves (and other creatures) health, more so even than solid poop. 

[Bumber]

Trouble is that a good layer of soil quite quickly absorbs the nastiness, as you wrote it is at most 5 meters.  I would say however that one Z-Level is about 20 meters at least.  The game goes down all the way to the magma, that is the whole crust is accessable.

It's more like 3 meters. 20 meters is a completely nonsensical room height, especially for dwarves. DF worlds have a very thin crust (if you could even call it that.)

[Urist Tilaturist]

Dwarves would not necessarily know that water had been contaminated, and drink it by accident. If a dragon has crapped in a river upstream, they may not know it, and suffer the consequences.

[Andeerz]

Trouble is that a good layer of soil quite quickly absorbs the nastiness, as you wrote it is at most 5 meters.  I would say however that one Z-Level is about 20 meters at least.  The game goes down all the way to the magma, that is the whole crust is accessable. 

I said "at least" 1 - 5 meters.  It can go further.  There are documentable instances where it is in excess of 15 meters.  Take a look at the source I linked to.  In any case, I think contamination radiating out 1-2 tiles would be a very reasonable approximation for my suggestion at least.  I can't see a tile being much bigger than 2 x 2 x 2 meters.  But if it is much bigger than that, 1 tile would be good.

Dwarves should only willingly drink contaminated water if they are dying of thirst. 

Agreed, sort of.  If they know it is contaminated, then, I guess yeah.  But my brother and sister could definitely not taste any contamination in the water that they drank that gave them some pretty severe giardiasis.  In the case of my sister, the contaminated water in question came directly from a crystal-clear, pristine (at least in appearance and taste) river deep in the Pyrenees mountains.  Stupid mistake, but just mentioning that the contamination doesn't need to come from skank-nasty water.

Firstly dwarves should desire privacy, they will not poop willingly within sight of other dwarves.  If dwarves cannot find any toilet options they poop outside and since they seek privacy it keeps it away generally from places where other dwarves tend to congregate. 

You can control where dwarves will poop by designating some areas to be latrines.  Dwarves however prefer chamber pots and toilets if available.  Chamber pots are just objects which are then hauled by dwarves to the designated latrine area or to a toilet. 

Toilets work like wells in that they are built in holes in the ground and cover them up.  When used the filth ends up on the z-level beneath, if it is a latrine then it will be let be, otherwise it will be hauled to a latrine.  Over time poop rots away into soil which can be used for farming purposes.

Alternatively you can designate bodies of water to be sewers.  This means that filth will be thrown into those bodies of water becoming sewage.  Sewage is bad for dwarves (and other creatures) health, more so even than solid poop. 

I like these ideas, a lot!

[Deboche]

I'd say each z-level can't go beyond 5 meters because when you pit something 1 level below, they don't break anything.

[The Bard]

If this ever became I think I hope it can be turned off in the init.

I honestly don't need excrement in my media. Don't need shots of actors on toilets in movies and TV, don't need long grunt sessions after bad Mexican in my books and I really, really, REALLY don't need to design things to deal with it directly in my videogames--especially the game where my dwarfs can and will track every possible contaminate all over the fortress. I mod out cave adaptation because I don't want to deal with vomit either.

Why doesn't 'realism' ever seek to make things *nicer*? Every time I hear someone demanding more realism, it's to make stuff dingier, dirtier and swap out colors for brown.

[Urist Tilaturist]

I have argued for realism stopping heads exploding into gore when punched and making fist fights less lethal. That is making something nicer.

Brown is also a colour, and excessively washed out colour is not realistic.

You modded the game to your squeamish tastes by taking out vomit. Do the same for crap if you want. It is a basic fact of life and far less horrible than much of what goes on in the game already, and the ecosystem makes little sense without it.

[Deboche]

Also, not all poop is brown.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Also, not all poop is brown.

If a wider colour palette is what players want, I would be happy to see luminous poop of any colour, though I would go for standard green/brown/black for most creatures.

[GoblinCookie]

It's more like 3 meters. 20 meters is a completely nonsensical room height, especially for dwarves. DF worlds have a very thin crust (if you could even call it that.)

Dragons can fit quite happily in dwarf fortresses, much to the distress of the dwarves living there.  But then again we can fit an infinite amount of items into one square but even so we still cannot place chairs and tables on the same square.

Dwarves are actually not as small as you think.  They are actually size 60000, which is merely 10000 less than humans which are size 70000, meaning that dwarves are about 5 feet tall (hate this system, wish humans were 60000 because that way it would translate into feet). 

Agreed, sort of.  If they know it is contaminated, then, I guess yeah.  But my brother and sister could definitely not taste any contamination in the water that they drank that gave them some pretty severe giardiasis.  In the case of my sister, the contaminated water in question came directly from a crystal-clear, pristine (at least in appearance and taste) river deep in the Pyrenees mountains.  Stupid mistake, but just mentioning that the contamination doesn't need to come from skank-nasty water.

In this case we are dealing with something else, namely very bad luck.  Making all water sources have a very small chance of carrying water borne diseases is something that would be seperate from the main pooping mechanic. 

Also, not all poop is brown.

All healthy poop is.  If it some other colour go see a doctor. 

[4maskwolf]

To the first point: Toady himself said in a DFTalk (the number escapes me) that he sees the tiles as 2 meters by 2 meters by 3 meters.  So about 10 feet tall.

To the last thing you said, that's not necessarily true, some things can color your fecal material without being harmful if they can't be broken down by your system.  I know at one point eating some green chips turned my excrement green for a few days (and I know it was the chips because it happened again right after I ate said chips).

Also, dwarves aren't humans.  They don't have to follow the same rules as humans (and probably won't, if and when Toady implements drunkeness as a mechanic, because they have to drink alcohol all of the time or they start to get grumpy and slow down).

[Deboche]

To the last thing you said, that's not necessarily true, some things can color your fecal material without being harmful if they can't be broken down by your system.  I know at one point eating some green chips turned my excrement green for a few days (and I know it was the chips because it happened again right after I ate said chips).

I was gonna say this. There was a painter who ate different colored food so he'd use his feces to paint different colors.