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Author Topic: Meteors Out of Minerals  (Read 897 times)

rico6822

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Meteors Out of Minerals
« on: January 04, 2021, 12:45:32 am »

I know how it sounds but in Dwarf Fortress if the player dug enough minerals he would eventually no longer be able to get adamantine or maybe even stone without risking collapsing he's site.

* I believe those meteors should strike randomly into any area where there are enough creatures with [INTELLIGENT] token.
* After striking there would be a period of time, when they won't strike at all in certain range from the crash site. Should be so large to cover player's entire fort.
* Meteors can be composed of iron, steel or other non-restorative resources, even adamantine.
* They are small enough not to cause serious damage but can still hurt roofs or surface.
* In advanced world settings the player could decide the chance for them of what they are made from. Larger meteors by default are made of worse grade material.
* Worlds with lower mineral scarcity will have in non-advanced game less meteors. In advanced game the player can decide whenever they should be affected.
* If fortress discovered a way of producing divine material the player's fort can suffer from divine meteors. They are simply made of divine metal, that will come from the random god within the world that is not disappointed with your fort.
* In advanced world settings the player can decide whenever characters with any HIGHLY notable kills such as demon leaders, archangels or megabeasts should sometimes have meteors strike near them as gift from the gods. Yes, even archangels. Justified if you study the lore really carefully. One highly notable kill is one meteor.
* In advanced world settings the player can set meteors to strike whenever they want for whatever is the reason.
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Pillbo

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Re: Meteors Out of Minerals
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2021, 02:19:22 pm »

If a player dug enough that the site they are on is in jeopardy of collapse that sounds like a pretty good end fort scenario to me, sounds cooler to let it collapse.  I'd be curious to hear about anyone doing that, but it would really take some effort.

Not that I object to the idea of meteors landing on the planet and being mine-able.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2021, 04:03:03 pm by Pillbo »
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Thisfox

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Re: Meteors Out of Minerals
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2021, 05:40:42 pm »

I have been surprised by how boring and frequent meteorite falls and finds are. Consider that most are not going to give you more than a pebble, and although that is usually iron, often it isn't.... Although if you want a "dinosaur-wiping-out" event, or even a year without a summer, that would be pretty horrifying I guess, but also pretty gosh-darned rare. And unlikely to be relevant to map replenishment. Meteorites like Hoba and Bendegó are very rare.

I do love the idea of some magical "bog-iron" sword made from a meteorite find, like Excalibur, but I don't predict a meteorite is really going to replenish your map, and provide you with enough iron to equip your army. Probably better to continue goblinite farming.

There was a bloke here in the forums who tried to completely dig out his map, with a full-on strip mine. I don't remember if he ever posted success?
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A_Curious_Cat

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Re: Meteors Out of Minerals
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2021, 05:47:15 pm »

The problem I see is that this would allow surface dwellers (including those damn dirty elves) to get ahold of what was once the exclusive ore of the dwarves... Adamantium.

Can you imagine a force of elves, all decked out in adamantium armor and wielding adamantium weapons, besieging your fortress?

For the love of Armok!  Please think about what you are doing!
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Azerty

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Re: Meteors Out of Minerals
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2021, 07:41:56 pm »

Sure, meteoric iron is an interesting concept but meteors are better off being used as relics.
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rico6822

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Re: Meteors Out of Minerals
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2021, 03:15:55 am »

The problem I see is that this would allow surface dwellers (including those damn dirty elves) to get ahold of what was once the exclusive ore of the dwarves... Adamantium.

Can you imagine a force of elves, all decked out in adamantium armor and wielding adamantium weapons, besieging your fortress?

For the love of Armok!  Please think about what you are doing!

Isn't Dwarf Fortress supposted to be difficult? Also as far as I know elfs are programmed not to forge adamantium stuff.
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Meteors Out of Minerals
« Reply #6 on: January 06, 2021, 05:48:34 am »

Keep in mind that obsidianizing magma is also a method of infinite stone.  Sadly, goblins can no longer bring you infinite goblinite unless you use DFHack to spawn infinite waves or something, but in general, metal is reusable if not recyclable.  Steel armor can be passed down through generations of dwarves if need be, so only bolts are in need of replenishment.  Fortunately, I think bolt splitters and melting still works as an exploit to gain infinite metal while also training your marksdwarves in the process.  Hence, a player shouldn't ever have a situation where they've literally exploited everything in their entire embark unless they're going completely out of their way to do so, or you started in a metal-void embark to start with.

The only reason, therefore, you'd really want to do this is for realism's sake... but meteors being drawn to strip-mining operations is not realistic, now is it?

What would make more sense is that if you excavated a truly massive amount of land, the surrounding land would either collapse in on the massive sinkhole you dug or the reduced load would cause a slow-scale eruption of magma that would replace the crust you took off the land with fresh basaltic stone.  (And when I say 'truly massive amount of land', I mean cut holes many tiles across from the surface down to the semi-molten rock.)
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FantasticDorf

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Re: Meteors Out of Minerals
« Reply #7 on: January 06, 2021, 12:44:08 pm »

Keep in mind that obsidianizing magma is also a method of infinite stone.  Sadly, goblins can no longer bring you infinite goblinite unless you use DFHack to spawn infinite waves or something, but in general, metal is reusable if not recyclable.

Kind of arbitary correction, but the logic behind the armies that goblins amass is actually related closely to non-historical populations and site-animals can be pulled out of thin air, unless you actively break their ability to send soldiers by obstructing the generated captain position, then your analysis is more than correct as they'll only be able to send out historical populations and be limited of goblinite per head.

Goblinite can flow freely forever as long as things stay the way they are in vanilla and any villians or monsters/player forts don't topple their entire civilization.

Hence, a player shouldn't ever have a situation where they've literally exploited everything in their entire embark unless they're going completely out of their way to do so, or you started in a metal-void embark to start with.

The only reason, therefore, you'd really want to do this is for realism's sake... but meteors being drawn to strip-mining operations is not realistic, now is it?

Metal void embarks aren't too uncommon, but to lends itself that the particular culture has no concept of what iron ore even may be, with similiar examples of a lack of iron occuring in Egypt, with copper being its main export mined from mount Sinai and the desert and meteoric iron notably ending up as being in the possession of Tutankhamun's own personal knife, as a member of the absolute dynastic nobility.

So to regard the way that goods of the finest quality often end up going to leaders, it seems that leaders themselves would hoard the highest quality materials they could possess irregardless of the source generously from the sky or through merchant companies to resolve their supply problem (which do engage in trade with surrounding neighbors).

Im more interested to see what a meteor strike would even be like, is it going to blow a hole through your fortress roof or wall and let maurading enemies through?
« Last Edit: January 06, 2021, 12:45:49 pm by FantasticDorf »
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Pillbo

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Re: Meteors Out of Minerals
« Reply #8 on: January 06, 2021, 01:27:40 pm »

I think meteor strikes sound more interesting as a world gen event.  Societies could grow up around them or inspire myth or whatever. I'd be surprised if Toady doesn't plan to have them in the long run.

As far as in gameplay, it sounds much more like a natural disaster than any type of opportunity for a civ. Though I suppose you could go the mythical route with the idea- a god sends it as a gift to the dwarves so it lands gently near a fort, or a god punishing the fort with a devastating impact.
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