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[LilyInTheWater]

There's a vast network of caverns underground that feel underutilized in the current build. I know toady one has ships planned in the far future and that tunnels exist, but I want more cave stuff to be used in the future. Specifically I want the vast array of cave regions to matter beyond "what forgotten beast is in what underground region and is there a chance it might threaten my fortress in this specific underground region."

I think enabling underground sea trading when boats happen would be really cool or sending dwarves off to go explore the caves on their underground boats would be cool. I know that wind isn't a thing underground and Tarn cuts off dwarf fortress tech to 1400s meaning steam engines can't be a thing (But clockwork stuff can! Apparently the greeks had a lot of cool clockwork stuff so a ship powered by clockwork could be a thing), but that's what oars and currents (There can be currents in underground locations because magma can heat up the water) are for. Plus canoes exist!

It would be cool if you could maybe trade with the subterreanean tribes you find underground in your explorations and they would be able to canoe to your fort at established times (maybe during the winter?) and trade at a harbor you could set up if you established peaceful relations with them.

They also would be an interesting alternative to tunnels as well for dwarves! I've seen merchants I tried to trap escaping through the caves too, which inspired this though process. They could just go through the caves if your fortress is an active warzone and they fear getting attacked by a siege.

[A_Curious_Cat]

There's a vast network of caverns underground that feel underutilized in the current build. I know toady one has ships planned in the far future and that tunnels exist, but I want more cave stuff to be used in the future. Specifically I want the vast array of cave regions to matter beyond "what forgotten beast is in what underground region and is there a chance it might threaten my fortress in this specific underground region."

I think enabling underground sea trading when boats happen would be really cool or sending dwarves off to go explore the caves on their underground boats would be cool. I know that wind isn't a thing underground and Tarn cuts off dwarf fortress tech to 1400s meaning steam engines can't be a thing (But clockwork stuff can! Apparently the greeks had a lot of cool clockwork stuff so a ship powered by clockwork could be a thing), but that's what oars and currents (There can be currents in underground locations because magma can heat up the water) are for. Plus canoes exist!

It would be cool if you could maybe trade with the subterreanean tribes you find underground in your explorations and they would be able to canoe to your fort at established times (maybe during the winter?) and trade at a harbor you could set up if you established peaceful relations with them.

They also would be an interesting alternative to tunnels as well for dwarves! I've seen merchants I tried to trap escaping through the caves too, which inspired this though process. They could just go through the caves if your fortress is an active warzone and they fear getting attacked by a siege.

And what winds those clockwork mechanisms?  I also don’t think Toady One has added in mainsprings yet.


Wait...

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Are you familiar with something called a “Dwarven Water Reactor”?

What happens if you built a floating platform with a DWR, such that the platform isn’t attached to anything, and you start the DWR?

[LilyInTheWater]

And what winds those clockwork mechanisms?  I also don’t think Toady One has added in mainsprings yet.


Wait...

.
.
.

Are you familiar with something called a “Dwarven Water Reactor”?

What happens if you built a floating platform with a DWR, such that the platform isn’t attached to anything, and you start the DWR?

I don't think we need mainsprings. Mechanisms seems like it would be an easy catch-all for everything, including mainsprings. If you think a clockwork engine would need multiple resources to make, though, that would make sense.

Also I am familiar with that, and I feel like I'm not quite sure what you're asking. Walls and floors can't be moved by outside forces in vanilla iirc.

[NW_Kohaku]

One thing to note is that the underground lakes are all contained.  Every local map tile has its own self-contained cavern system, and they don't connect to ones from other map tiles unless there's an underground road/tunnel because of the way that caverns are formed relative to height above the lowest point in a local map tile.  Unless something changed in an update since the last time I checked (which, granted, was a few years ago), if you embark on the edge of a local map tile, you'll find no lakes or passages that head past the edge of the local map tile.

Boats and multitile ships - aboveground and belowground - are planned already, I believe.  I remember reading talk in Future of the Fortress years ago about how it was trouble working out how a ship turning would shift all the creatures and objects onboard to fit new orientations, for example.

Once we have ships, I'm sure we'll have seafaring trade, as that's one of the three most obvious things to do with ships in a game about adventure alongside discover new lands and piracy.  It'd be cool to have the ability to send dwarves out to sea on missions including trade missions, both aboveground and below, although below would run into the technical problem of lakes not actually connecting underground, and you'd wind up with something like dwarves having to carry their boats with them over the land parts, which would seriously crimp their cargo capacity.

(Also, gears aren't necessarily "clockwork".  Clocks in those days had to be made with water clocks, which isn't really different from what we have in DF now...)