Without meaning to jump ahead at something that yet doesn't exactly quite exist this is a suggestive discussion about the much requested topic of boats or vehicles within the fantasy/realism scope of the game for the 'time period'.
This thread staying true to the title discussion will touch upon other areas within the development arc.
Less is more
A big beautiful *Superior* quality trireme with all the trimmings. I've heard much discussion about boats being large structures from my research such as...
Small war boat:
Has 15 beds, (5 for crew rest for military) has fortifications on the side for archers, a retracting bridge for boarding and below the deck a raising bridge for landing troops on land, able to board ships higher than itself somehow (climbing?)
But strictly speaking from a gameplay perspective, "indepth moving fortress parts" would be HELL on CPU, especially given that water pathing is already slightly unrefined and prone to chewing up CPU specifically from just simulating it all at once. If toady manages to work out the functionality for multi-tile entities in a format for the base game.
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This simple diagram is a forseeable image of what the very same *Superior* quality trireme or average 'large boat' might look like practically if you can apply your imagination. Unless some trickery (as such for wagons actually being 1 tile big) was applied those three zero's or O's would be the main components to where dwarves, cargo and equipment are stored stacked on-top of each other.
In the essence of weight distribution (which for the engines sake should probably please not displace water) each of these tiles which are broadly walkable, would try to even out a certain amount of weight with cargo being stashed in-between the dwarves on the deck.
Say if i was to cast my k observe key over a boat, the order would be...
- Room for one loose sailor
- Weight distribution appropriate cargo
- A rower
Potentially on a much larger boat where those active boat tiles dont have contact with the water could accomodate more just plain open space for cargo and people to navigate and stand.
Docking/Embarking and disembarkingSometimes nothing is ever easy, for example how do you manage to get a large potentially multi tile boat into the water? or being lower in stature as dwarves often are, embark onto the back of a giant creature?
Sometimes its as easy as just hopping on with the dwarf simulating 'climbing' in a stirrup saddle or the tame animal lowering itself so that its rider can take the saddle, but othertimes some preparation is going to be required. Take for instance, if you've made a boat on the land, how are you going to deliver it into the water? Or alternatively take the boat out of the sea for heavy repairs/comprehensive scrapping if its not done on deck?
One suggestion to get around this problem is using tracks
> From the workshop to which the larger non-item accessory boats are made, tracks need to be laid down under the path in order to comply with a sub-type of hauling, in which it needs to be guided to a water by being taken to a ramp with enough room for it to sit there and ideally move around or turn. This works additionally in reverse, to which a navigator will guide the ship to the edges and then pull it up onto the tracks with the help of fortress dwarves and the crew.
- Boats made out of heavier materials, require both more manpower to steer and to guide into the water though having them sufficiently be tough or made out of dense materials may have its own advantages (see combat)
> Additionally, if the water level is even and the tiles are adjacent docking up impromptu would probably be with relative ease if a navigator can manage to parallel park itself in a designated or pathing chosen spot to move effortlessly between land and a boat when its already in the water unless you want to count a chance of 'missing the boat' and falling directly into the water or applying plank access.
Guiding Vs RidingIn the current game at the moment there are two modes applied when handling a minecart - guiding, as to say pulling and pushing the cart and its contents across the track, and riding, when the dwarf pushing upon reaching a trigger level of speed will jump inside and ride the minecart. By applying these two principles we can achieve a lot with the tools we already have.
> If there are two dwarves on the back of a animal/wagon/chariot/boat, with a specific role that isnt shared between them, then one without the other they could probably not function as a whole.
To use a example of a aforementioned chariot, if the dwarf leading the beast/beasts attached to the front sitting inside its 'mount' tile on-top suddenly stops 'guiding' and therefore holding control over movement (lets say to a lucky killing shot), the animal could simply flee or aggro onto a target nearby or simply just stop in its tracks independently.
The dwarf sitting perhaps on the same 'mount tile' or a tile behind them in the joint mount position where they are artificially 'seated' could be shooting crossbow bolts at enemies with both hands, only to be interrupted when this happens and if its relevant to not just disembark, they'd have to take over and therefore substitute, using one or both hands at once depending on a number of different factors (like independent skills if relevant and the kind & quantities of animals they are holding)
> Same for boats, if they are not relying on wind power (or fantasy setting being dragged by aquatic animals), they'll have to rely on other dwarves to guide them (as per a dedicated navigator/captain) and a host of dwarves rowing, putting exhaustable pressure on the crew for running at the required speeds and carrying some supplies and whatever cargo is on hand.
If we were to suddenly assign a entire military squad (with some degree of control on who does what if its not automated) to a boat docked up by a reasonable adjacent tile (
see embarkation and debarkation) the dwarves who are rowing would dedicate their hands to the oars as required putting away their weapons while the navigator and passengers stand around. Likewise if they stop rowing (as to give the rowers a break to get some sleep/eat supplies/or begin to be boarded by opposing ship/creature they can re-arm themselves with the weapons they had.
CombatI have mentioned before snippets about combat, shooting crossbow bolts off the back of a chariot for instance, and really besides from shooting them masterfully on the back of your prized war pony with one eye shut and another hand behind your back, you're probably going to rely on wanting to hit the enemy with some kind of sweeping strike, making advantage of your manuverability
This is a Masterful bronze chariot made by Urszgush Ironstrikes
This chariot item signifies a number of different things, for one its quite dense as to say heavy, which will have a effect on its manuverability and the strength required by the animal pulling it (important for keeping very strong animals or animals prone to rage under control of the guider -
See guiding vs riding) and if it was to be deliberately or accidentally driven into (as to say clipping someone or directly crashing into someone) it would deal significant harm.
Because its metallic, it will probably have more resistance to damage and a different method of breaking as seen below to the potentially dangerous splintering of wood which would fall apart easily if to say it was directly hit by a well aimed ballistae shot
> Part of the suggestion being put foward is that vehicles run off seperate 'anatomy' to which the mechanisms that are put into them a reflected in the combat log. So no more timid and scared living wagons, rather a machine being driven by a mounted driver escorted by guards that can be either deconstructed officially or smashed into scraps via the application of a relevant weapon.
- When a unit attempts to strike a person seated upon a mounted position of any description, there is a chance to either outrightly miss or to strike the relevant area of the vehicle itself such as smashing down a hammmer missing your target but dealing damage to the hull of the ship.
- Additionally striking a vehicle strategically such as to disable its 'legs' or wheels to prevent movement is especially important, for example if you were to rob a wagon, you could destroy its wheels to stop them from running away while you or your companions deal with the driver, animals and guards if relevant
- Weight of a vessel or animal being relevant to collisions, engaging to RAMMING SPEED!!
Other> Domestic small boats used for fortress mode application such as travelling over water in routes by transferring cargo and retrieving items using ropes at water depth as to say they are hooking the items in (see 'Less is more' for discussion on weight distribution across active boat tiles)
> using boats to sail out and fish domestically as well as haul in more fish at once, potential for aqua-culture applications like plants that are placed in muddy water or artificially made ponds/pastures in that respect.
> Having dwarves climb onto boats and be loaded in temporarily as 'cargo' as a alternative to shoring to land for both rescues and self preservation
- Additionally having other creatures climb on board and challenge/attack your dwarves such as frogmen and reanimated entities if they aren't interested in damaging the ship and having sailors climb down or attack over the edges of the boat if relevant
> NPC's arriving in boats from their point of origin to your fortress themselves or by 'ferrymen' if there is no friendly and accessible port/tunnel on your landmass similarly to walking or army movements, and having it implied that you were dropped off not by a wagon but arriving by sea to a continent that isn't your home, deconstructing your boat marooned on the shore for the initial mandatory 3 wood.
> Wagons being constructable in this way with a mounted driver and draft animals of differing sizes for fortress and adventure mode utilities
- Going up from your starting wagon (assuming that it isn't bust up from the long jouney to your new embark) to a simple little cart
I understand this thread might be a tad long winded but thank you for reading, i've put a list of references down below on my research along with notes, criticism and feedback would be much appreciated thanks.
Additional readingBoats (Author - Lord Dalek - August 28, 2014) Notes: Used in my examples , has the ESPECIALLY relevant post of Hmmm, how about just allowing minecarts to float on the water (if light enough) and for dorfs to stand on them (if they don't make them too heavy) and for the carts to move if the water is flowing.
That's actually brilliant. Just take the exact coding of a minecart, stops and all, and apply it to a "boat" which is like a minecart that can path over water like tracks and only has the guide option. Sure, this wouldn't be a perfect solution, but it would certainly allow you to use overcomplicated and rather pointless canals instead of minecart tracks, and hey, who doesn't want to do that?
Dwarf Fortress Wiki - DF2014:Minecart
Idea for implementing ships (Adventure Mode) (Author - ribab - March 30, 2016) Notes - A very influencial thread perhaps quite close to my own. It served as a inspiration to making this own thread
Fishing (Author -uttaku -June 10, 2009) Notes: A good read. generally about fishing
Do what you want, 'cause a Pirate is free! (Author - AlbeyAmakiir - January 12, 2008) Notes: Interesting, a makes for a robust envisionment of coastal raider events, perhaps triggered from bands of pirates via local banditry tags when a threshhold of wealth is reached?
Ships & Boats(Author - Labs - May 06, 2009) Notes: a very engaging thread with multiple instances of very insightful discussion and statements from toady himself.
I had an email discussion about this recently and I didn't see any posts of mine in the threads Footkerchief linked (though I've said it elsewhere), so I figured I'd say it again. We'd like to have larger ships, something 16x5 with a 3 tile wide deck and multiple z levels would be fine. And yeah, there are a few problems.
With the improved sieges (sometime soon after this release, likely) will come a different and more properly supported notion of a moving vehicle (say, a siege tower), likely as a set of tiles handled something like constructions, but with the ability to move as a unit (along with any creatures or items in their tiles).
Now, boats can move along any heading in a near perfect approximation (over over up over over up etc., maybe using the guts of the standard line drawing algorithm, etc.) but the main issue is displayed facing. There are issues with any rotation idea I've heard of that does more than 4 directions. The shearing row by row idea in alfie's post for example has issues with flows coming in along the diagonals (especially in a multi-story ship), and that there's still going to be a fundamental flip once you hit 45 degrees anyway. The flows might be plugged up with temporary tiles along the new diagonals or something, but that might lead to temporary floors for items that then disappear or something. There are a lot of issues.
There's also the idea of just using 4 directions for the boat (it can move in many more directions, but it can actually only sit in 4 directions). This leads to teleportation and displacement problems, but these aren't necessarily deal breakers, especially if you add a requirement that the ship must have a free space underneath any tile (so water critters and swimmers can just be pushed down a tile instead of teleported across the ship, which isn't so different from what would happen if you get run over). You can also deal with the ship flipping back and forth between two directions by instituting some buffer versus the actual facing, so that crossing from 30 degrees to 45 doesn't change you from east to north, but you have to actually get to 60 or so first. Then once your ship shoots up to north, you have to go all the way back to 30 to get it back to east, which gives you a 30 degree difference so you can't just flip back and forth. Flips need to be minimized not only because they are ugly, but especially with issues like wrestling and stuck-ins, they can be fundamentally messy and game-breaking (say a guy on deck is holding a crew member who is dangling overboard while a sea serpent is chomping on the dangling guy's leg and then the boat turns, and the sea serpent is hooked to a post underwater, etc. -- you'd probably want to break the chain of creatures and buildings at the weakest link, but it might be a net not a chain, etc etc etc).
Anyway, things are possible in dwarf mode, but the idea here was more for adventure mode and the necessity of boats there. If boats never make it into dwarf mode it wouldn't particularly bother me, since we are talking about dwarves, but I wouldn't rule anything out. I'm starting from an adv mode perspective here though, since it would obviously be a lot of fun to do things like epic voyages and piracy.
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Topic: Boat Mechanics/Or just 'mounted' mechanics in general (Read 2157 times)