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[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

The inspiration of this is various garbage-centered characters in sci-fi comics (there's one in the movie Labyrinth as well), plus the desire to make one game tactiv more role-playish.

Problem I:

I usually use caravans as garbage dumps - it's the easiest way to get rid of the rubbish like xsockx that pile up, and because of FPS I want rid of items I don't need.

It feels weird to me that a trader caravan come, and they will always accept a "gift" of a lot of worn down clothes, invader junk you don't want and so on. I feel like, they should be inclined to say no to worthless things. And also that destroyed socks and thongs should have a trade value of 0. So, IT DETRACTS FROM ROLEPLAYING and feeling like you're in a coherent world that you hand over your garbage to traders.

Problem II:

Garbage disposal is, to me, a tedious problem. I like that the game has some of it, but I think that for the offered entertainment of it, it takes too much space in the game to get rid of random animal corpses outside and such.

Problem III:

Atom smashers are used in the game, because it simply is the best solution. It also detracts from roleplaying though.

I think therefore, it would be better to simply introduce a garbage collector function in the game that also worked as an element of a fantasy world.

So I'd say the kobolds have a strange cult centered around the collection and worship or garbage, which they collect from the entire world and then dump in a large pile that they dance around and worship, and the bigger their pile is, the happier their god is. So they send out caravans that don't sell anything, but just offers to the player to donate junk to it. And then you give them the stuff, and everybody's happy!

As they can't talk, the screens should just be like "A kobold caravan arrive. Their diplomat ask "UMUNUMUNUNU! NUGUMUNU!". Do you accept yes/no."

So there'd be a challenge there to figure out what they are asking, plus it would be fun to sometimes get incomprehensible messages.

They should get angry and leave if you offered them valuable items. "Like, are you trying to make us commit blasphemy or what???"

It would be very cool if they helped themselves with collecting the items, to relieve the workload and get it done faster.

I'd like if there was a downside to it - like the more you donated to them, the more likely it would be they'd send thieves or invadors, because they consider you rich. Other civs might also respond negatively in you helping the kobold garbage god cult.

I don't care that much if the garbage collecters are kobolds or another race, I just think kobolds seem to fit the role well.

I think most players would enjoy a lot some help with the garbage situation, and solve it in a more funny way than have to select d on a lot of individual items and them pull the atom smasher lever.

I think also down the road, when trade and economy gets "realistic", it probably can't work to make caravans take a large number of junk items. If you simulated the traders more realistically, they'd not want to devote their time to hauling broken socks around the continent.

It could be expanded to necromancers sending caravans to ask if you would donate the content of all your refuse piles and if they can collect the corpses lying around. Seems like a lot of opportunities for having that backfire, but many players would love somebody else cleaning up the battlefield and just truck the corpses away.

[Maximum Spin]

This whole kobold-focused thing isn't going to pan out because kobolds might not exist in any given world, or might be the most advanced civilisation.

Those xsocksx will actually degrade if placed in a garbage stockpile, so you don't need to sell them off anymore. More things should probably degrade if exposed to the elements, and ideally, saying "we need some way to reduce item counts because of the effect on FPS" becomes irrelevant with hbfs computers and coding.

I don't use the bridge destruction bug and I assume it will be fixed at some point.

I also personally dislike the trope you're referencing, though, so that may be colouring my opinion.

[Azerty]

Shouldn't worn clothes be used for papermaking?

[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

This whole kobold-focused thing isn't going to pan out because kobolds might not exist in any given world, or might be the most advanced civilisation.

Those xsocksx will actually degrade if placed in a garbage stockpile, so you don't need to sell them off anymore. More things should probably degrade if exposed to the elements, and ideally, saying "we need some way to reduce item counts because of the effect on FPS" becomes irrelevant with hbfs computers and coding.

I don't use the bridge destruction bug and I assume it will be fixed at some point.

I also personally dislike the trope you're referencing, though, so that may be colouring my opinion.

Well, I'm fine with kobold free worlds not having them. That's just that way that world is.

It could be other races doing it - I just think kobolds would fit well.

I don't understand why you think FPS isn't a problem, as people are using forts due to FPS and doing a lot of stuff to save on that. Loosing a fort to FPS is just very unsatisfactory, so off course you don't want to risk that and get nothing in return for taken that risk than a bunch of socks degrading in a garbage dump.

The caravan is used as garbage dump anyway - because it's needed.

I think it would be better just to build that feature into the game in a way so it fits better with roleplay.

It removes the illusion of trading with another civ when you dump all the fort's junk on them lol. It makes the caravan feel more like just a game mechanic.

[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

Shouldn't worn clothes be used for papermaking?

Would be cool also, but other items are also dumped. Dead goblins and body parts. Broken armor and weapons. Some plants produce useless seeds when eaten, I've got for instance 125 avocado pits in my stock right now, plus pits of other kind. I think cherries produces them as well.

[Maximum Spin]

I don't understand why you think FPS isn't a problem, as people are using forts due to FPS and doing a lot of stuff to save on that. Loosing a fort to FPS is just very unsatisfactory, so off course you don't want to risk that and get nothing in return for taken that risk than a bunch of socks degrading in a garbage dump.

Well, for example, I never have FPS problems (and don't bother with the silly tricks to try to avoid them). It has never been a problem on my computer. So as computers continue to improve, along with probably some code optimisations that could still be wrung out, this will stop being a problem.

Some plants produce useless seeds when eaten, I've got for instance 125 avocado pits in my stock right now, plus pits of other kind. I think cherries produces them as well.

Tree seeds are expected to become useful at some point. (And also, seeds will probably eventually rot too.)

[Leonidas]

+1

Kobolds as rag-pickers seems like a fun idea. They could pay in information, since kobolds sneaking around everywhere should pick up plenty of rumors. You could learn about criminal conspiracies against your fort, or gain accurate military information on enemy sites.

The kobolds could start as hostile. Then you could leave some garbage outside your fort for them to "steal". Once you've given them enough stuff, then they switch to peace with you and send caravans. If you don't send them enough stuff every year, then they'll revert to hostility and try to sneak in and steal the stuff they feel they deserve.

[Salmeuk]

I don't use the bridge destruction bug

leave, fool! it's called ATOM-SMASHING and nothing else is acceptable

I like this idea quite a bit, and truthfully you could likely implement it in the current version with a few quick raw modifications. Making a new civ, calling the whatever you want for flavor (Trash-bolds, Collectors, Tinkers, etc). Though I'm not sure how you would adjust the trader pricing so that it would feel different from any other caravan.

Along these same lines, think about all that extra stone you have. If you don't atom smash or dump it in magam-chutes, then it is likely wasting space. It would be wonderful if some kind of lithovoric species would visit once in a blue moon, and assuming you gave them permission, swept through your fortress eating all excess stone, or hauling it off for later consumption.

I think the general idea of visitor-led trash reduction is great. Nice suggestion!

[Maximum Spin]

Along these same lines, think about all that extra stone you have. If you don't atom smash or dump it in magam-chutes, then it is likely wasting space. It would be wonderful if some kind of lithovoric species would visit once in a blue moon, and assuming you gave them permission, swept through your fortress eating all excess stone, or hauling it off for later consumption.

Lithovores would be pretty cool but man, how do you have extra stone? Don't you build with it?

[Starver]

Then you could leave some garbage outside your fort for them to "steal".

I'm getting visions of 'Animal Trainer' types laying out things to attract wild kobolds, gradually habituating them until they can hold up an old sock and they fly down crom the tree run up from behind a rock to perch swing from theirarm as they grab the sock in their beak jaws and make appreciative squawks squawks at their benefactor.

(Interesting ideas I've seen being unrolled here. I'm more used to gnolls as the garbage-collectors[1], but that's a different mythos. I could see a bonus interaction like this, but it must have downsides. More 'tame' kobolds means potentially more 'sanctioned gremlins', in effect. Always a little unpredictable if they leave non-garbage socks and other stocks alone (without the innate prohibition of a Potterverse house-elf), perhaps an appetite like Nibbler from Futurama, and every now and then they take any curiosity about what a lever does to its ligical conclusion. Rarely, of course, and mostly just get under the feet of people, or suddenly loads of them appear and wander off to gather somewhere like an Adipose from the Whovian reality. But they do like to gather up XSocksX and... deal with them, somehow?)

PPE: Extra stone? Rock crafts. Any specific and extremely non-generic rock-type not intended for blocking and building, carving into relevent furniture items, being an Ecomonic stone, etc, tends to be crafted into trinkets, mostly for passing off to the next caravan in many small batches. Bye bye diorite! (Except that I rarely get rid of more than I can accumulate anew while I'm creating earrings from the existing stocks. It keeps haulers busy and trains crafters/brokers up, at least.)

[1] Extensively seen on the DW MUD. Many's the time I've been hunting NPCs round Short Street, picking off all and sundry, but for some reason I'd balk at killing gnolls most of all - cats, dogs, children, beggars, trolls, dwarves and (especially) thieves and assassins were duly dispatched (and/or planted-upon/stolen from, if I was a licenced Thief with quota to spare), but gnolls, despite being killable (and not actually the least rewarding 'prey') I'd perhaps think twice about.

[Maximum Spin]

(Interesting ideas I've seen being unrolled here. I'm more used to gnolls as the garbage-collectors[1], but that's a different mythos. I could see a bonus interaction like this, but it must have downsides. More 'tame' kobolds means potentially more 'sanctioned gremlins', in effect. Always a little unpredictable if they leave non-garbage socks and other stocks alone (without the innate prohibition of a Potterverse house-elf), perhaps an appetite like Nibbler from Futurama, and every now and then they take any curiosity about what a lever does to its ligical conclusion. Rarely, of course, and mostly just get under the feet of people, or suddenly loads of them appear and wander off to gather somewhere like an Adipose from the Whovian reality. But they do like to gather up XSocksX and... deal with them, somehow?)

That's a lot of references in one paragraph.

[Starver]

That's a lot of references in one paragraph.

You can't accuse me of being a monomaniac!

[Bumber]

Kobolds as rag-pickers seems like a fun idea. They could pay in information, since kobolds sneaking around everywhere should pick up plenty of rumors. You could learn about criminal conspiracies against your fort, or gain accurate military information on enemy sites.

They'd have to use interpretive dance, since kobolds speak in utterances.

[Pillbo]

I like the idea a lot, broadly speaking. If I remember correctly there are Three Toe stories about kobolds picking through the remains of battlefields for junk or food so it would fit pretty well. 

Specifics aside- Some junk collecting caravans and battlefield/surface scavengers would be awesome- kobolds (or gnolls, or random animal people) should be snatching up shinies and eating the bones left after a siege. It would make the world more interesting and improve performance. Same thing could apply in the caverns with other creatures.

The idea of some civ diplomatically coming to your fort to collect excess stone or trash instead of directly trading for it would be even more interesting.

They'd have to use interpretive dance, since kobolds speak in utterances.

I'm 100% into kobolds dancing for my socks.

[SixOfSpades]

Kobolds loving trash seems fun & a welcome personality trait for them . . . but it conflicts with their existing behavior of stealing valuable items. You've either going to have to
a) justify the change,
b) fudge it by saying that kobolds don't really care what they take as long as they take something, or
c) create a separate race or different class within the kobold race. For instance, perhaps only a few kobolds learn the arts of lockpicking & trap evasion, and become the Kobold Thieves infamous for sneaking into your fort & beelining straight for your artifacts. These are taken back to the camp, and used as "trade goods" with which the regular citizenry can barter for dwarven trash.