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[Random_Dragon]

Apparently, devices are autonomous enough that a surgical suite that works on it's own and requires no high quality materials input can keep running no problem? But gunpowder and municipal power and the whole business is unfeasible?
Has the design doc changed recently? Or is it just being ignored because "autodoctors hehe".

Remember the core rule of CDDA development:

Realism is only worth adding if it's to the player's detriment.

[AzyWng]

Gotta love all the, uh, love and positivity you're oozing with, eh?

[Eschar]

Remember the core rule of CDDA and DF development:

Realism is only worth adding if it's to the player's detriment.

FTFY

[Rolan7]

Okay that's mean, but... Df has definitely gotten a lot harder since ~2012.  And deeper, but very rarely any more convenient.

[Random_Dragon]

Okay that's mean, but... Df has definitely gotten a lot harder since ~2012.  And deeper, but very rarely any more convenient.

To an extent, but a much lower proportion of changes to DF fuck with the player's enjoyment of the game versus CDDA's changes.

[Egan_BW]

I think that DF development barely even cares about the player, and treats them just the same as any NPC. While striving less for realism and more for a fairly convincing fantasy world simulator.

[iceball3]

Heck, some convenience for the player got seriously bumped in since 2012.
Remember trees? You get a crapton of logs per tree cleared.
Remember jumping? Cool new combat mechanics? Etc. Lots of cool things.

In terms of realism, we're now able to have nearby hillocks fall under our jurisdiction, be able to call dwarves from the hillocks in case you spot a skilled worker in the hills, and send away fishers and redundant soap makers if you so please. Because dwarves are now not stupid enough force risking an atom smashing for being useless.


Meanwhile in CDDA, giving autodoc half-arsed dependencies like that without actually doing anything about what the autodoc means to the world is just making a bad feature worse.

[duckman]

One of the few benefits to the Autodoc is that if the procedure damages your body, you can heal back some of the damage before the end of the operation since you're asleep. On the other hand, you're asleep, so the game can just hang up for several minutes during longer surgeries just like what happens when you sleep normally.

[Egan_BW]

One thing I'd really like to see from the game is a proper power grid. The city's powerplant may be non-functional, but all the wiring should still be there. So that if you're an electrician, you might be able to restore electricity to a single house using a generator or such. Maybe you'd find houses that actually still have some power because of damaged solar panels. Things like labs or military bases or even hospitals might have their own power sources that may or may not still be working.

That's the kind of "realism" thing that would actually help the player, while still having the possibility of introducing interesting problems. (Needing to restore power before you can open the blast doors, old generator finally giving up the ghost and putting out the lights while you're fighting terrible things from the stars, shocker zombies chewing into your wiring in order to charge themselves up...)

[scourge728]

Not to mention, powerplants don't just stop working because everyone got turned into a zombie, and since the zombies don't go out of their way to smash things unless they spot a threat/meal, I feel as though powerplants should be working for at least a little while after everyone is a zombie

[Egan_BW]

Well, the game doesn't start just after things go pear-shaped, and my understanding is that powerplants actually kind of do just stop working if people stop maintaining them for too long.

[n9103]

Well, the game doesn't start just after things go pear-shaped, and my understanding is that powerplants actually kind of do just stop working if people stop maintaining them for too long.

This is definitely the case.
Anywhere from several hours to several days is the expected unattended running time. (Mostly based on the type of plant.)
Since, IIRC, the game starts a week after the cataclysm, any running power plant would be a hell of a fluke.

I do agree that building wiring should be a thing, but also agree that post-cataclysm life should take a heavy toll on it. Be it from shockers feeding, general destruction, or maybe something/someone harvesting the accessible and pure copper.

[scourge728]

I kinda just assumed that it started right after everyone was zombies

[Egan_BW]

Well, the zombies are just what happens with dead people now, it's not an airborne virus or anything. Society took a while to fall in Cataclysm.
Which leads us to another feature that I wish existed, but this is probably near-impossible to actually implement right: starting the game during the end of the world, rather than after.

[iceball3]

A "power grid map generator" would actually be pretty great. Especially considering that even mere households will have wiring in them, and you can pull out the wiring, meters, outlets, fuses, and such from the walls for later use, or dig up some transformers.
Perhaps make it so that electrician-style household installations are difficult, require a bit of construction material that's basically lost whenever you remove it (wood, etc?) so that you can effectively rip the wiring out of a household with some noise and sledge-hammering to open up the walls, but if the house happens to be a place you want to set up appliances in, it might as well be easier just to leave most the wiring in and retrofit when needed.

The biggest benefit of this system, even before proper industrial appliances are explored, is probably going to be running some exposed wire through a field and jolting zombies with a nuclear reactor powered loop.