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[towerator]

Volcanoes. A perfect source of lava to cook your elves very well done from the beginning... and, well, that's it. To quote the wiki, "volcanoes do not explode, erupt, nor spew noxious fumes", and in general, the only volcano-y stuff they do is having lava. They are also tiny compared to the real deal! So without any further intro, I present you my ideas for revamped volcanoes.

Shape and Size
Volcanoes are BIG. They are mountains that can reach a height of several kilometers, and even moreso if you consider the underwater part if relevant. As a result, they should be a lot bigger than just one mere embark tile. Furthermore, while the "main attraction" is the central vent, DF volcanoes do not form any cone. I suggest adding two shapes:

-Stratovolcanoes form steep cones soaring up into the sky. They tower over the region's landscape, being around 30 to 50 z-levels tall, and occupy a circle of embark squares with a radius of around 5. They are made of various igneous extrusive layers (although generally weaker volcanoes are more mafic, while powerful ones are felsic), including two new ones, tuff and pumice. These stones are unremarkable economy-wise, but are very light due to being porous: pumice can even float! Any kind of volcano may be of this type.

-Shield Volcanoes are vast and very lightly sloped cones made of many layers of solidified lava. They are around 20 z-levels tall, and typically occupy a large chunk of the embark region. Running from the crater are large river-like formations, through which lava may flow. Only Strombolian volcanoes or weaker may be shields.
Both these types may have more than one funnel, resulting in a cluster of magma tubes at the summit rather than one. These may erupt separately, but always the same way.

Activity Types
Volcanoes are know in real life for being very fun. Let's go through a series of possible behaviors:

-Extinct: This kind isn't shown on the world map. Its core is just a large obsidian or basalt column, with no lava left. Sometimes, it doesn't even have a cone, if it was eroded away.

-Erebus Type/Lava Lake: These volcanos behave closely like the current ones: a constant lava lake sits in their craters, never going out or draining. They are also somewhat uncommon.

-Hawaii Type: These volcanos frequently (once a day to once a year) produce an excess of lava, resulting in a flow around the crater.

-Stromboli Type: These volcanos erupt frequently (up to many times a day in adventure mode, or down to once every few years). During that time (the duration of which depends on the frequency), the volcano may produce lava, as well as large blasts of magma mist above the crater. Various volcanic bombs are also ejected, making them an infinite source of tuff and pumice boulders. Lower frequency volcanos of this kind have their eruption announced a few days before by the message "[Volcano Name]'s activity seems to be increasing"

-Vulcano Type: These volcanos have a viscous lava, making them more violent. They erupt relatively rarely (every decade or so). Compared to the previous, they have a large lava dome blocking the conduit. Once the eruption starts, it is destroyed by a series of bursts sending a column of superheated ashes high into the sky, making any expedition outside dangerous due to the intense rain of rocks. After this, the eruption proceeds as before, but lasts longer. They are announced by the message "Tremors are coming from [Volcano Name]!", a few weeks before.

-Pelée Type: We're entering the fun zone! The lava here is very viscous, and can barely exit the volcano at all, resulting in the formation of a large lava dome. Every few decades, the pressure becomes so high it is disintegrated into a superheated pyroclastic flow. This extremely hot cloud of dust and lava behaves like an evil cloud but is affected by gravity, only stopping once the slopes becomes low for long enough. Anything unfortunate enough to be caught in is almost instantly cooked alive if it's not fully fireproof, and even then, it will get buried alive. The only solution if you're in the path is to bury yourself before, as it cannot go very far underground. The eruption may last for months, so you better prepare when the message "Powerful tremors are felt around [Volcano Name]!" is seen.

-Vesuvius/Plinian Type: If you're very (un)lucky, the lava of the volcano nearby may be so rich in gas and felsic rocks that, every century or so, that happens. A whole chunk of the volcano is blown to smithereens by the power of the blast, causing many very fun effects such as a huge quake that causes any cavity within the first 10 z-levels of the map to be immediately re-filled with rock. You want to live? You better build a bunker far below... Meanwhile on the surface, things are even funnier: a gigantic pyroclastic flows flattens and carbonizes everything in the whole embark region, and a massive pillar of ashes reaches kilometers into the sky. If you see the message "[Volcano Name]'s summit is changing in shape!", you better prepare for the worst... or flee. The massive amount of material in the atmosphere obscures the sky, causing any plant to grow slower, not just in the direct vincinity, but up to several regions away, as indicated by the message "[Volcano Name] is erupting, darkening the sky!". The volcanic winter may last up to a year.

-Tambora/Ultra-Plinian Type: When the message "[Volcano Name] is awakening! Flee while you can!" appears, I suggest you obey. In a year, a good chunk of the region is going to become history as a cataclysmic eruption erases it. Maybe if you shielded yourself in the deepest of hollows, you may live. If you're not in the blast zone, you're not safe either: a long volcanic winter ensnares the continent, dragging temperatures down and and causing pityful harvest. Ashes are everywhere, irritating lungs and poisoning livestock. May Armok be with you for the few coming years, as you will need him...

Embark Screen Announcements

The type of the volcano may be determined by a message while embarking. The message depends on the activity type:
-"This volcano has a permanent lava lake"
-"This volcano frequently vomits streams of lava"
-"This volcano often erupts lava and rocks"
-"This volcano has been seen ejecting large quantities of rocks and dust"
-"Many years ago, this mountain has been seen destroying entire cities"
-"It is said that, in long past ages, this mountain has detonated with an extreme force"
-"Legends say that once upon a time, this mountain was destroyed by a god"

[FantasticDorf]

Some of the effects to the wider world might be out of scope but i still think dwarves would greatly contribute from a [VOLCANO_DISASTER] type entity tag that lets them settle mountainhomes & forts atop of them with the consequences besides from just the player.

Most of these seem thought out and it looks like you've done some research. Maybe this suggestion can recieve more attention when Toady moves onto the eventual map re-write.

[towerator]

Some of the effects to the wider world might be out of scope but i still think dwarves would greatly contribute from a [VOLCANO_DISASTER] type entity tag that lets them settle mountainhomes & forts atop of them with the consequences besides from just the player.

Most of these seem thought out and it looks like you've done some research. Maybe this suggestion can recieve more attention when Toady moves onto the eventual map re-write.

I tried to find a compromise between the coolness factor of making a volcano lair and the realism factor of the fact it's a good way to die horribly. I also did some simplifications for gameplay's and anti-frustration's sake, such as the fact that some volcanos can actually have several kinds of eruptions, but I wanted to prevent a scenario a la "Building your fort near a volcano you think you know well, and suddenly big ol' cloud of pyroclastic fun". Also, a plinian eruption while in the mountain would definitely not be survivable in real life, as everything collapses into the caldeira (example: during the Krakatoa's eruption, 70% of the island it was on was destroyed; as of the Vesuvius, the entirety of the pre-79 cone was lost, the one we see today was made by more recent, lesser eruptions). I just wanted to prevent a "Your fortress is doomed from something you cannot do anything about".

[Azerty]

First, when podology will be improved, eruptions could provide very fertile soils. Secondly, we could also see hot springs, and I'm sure dwarves would use geothermy.

[towerator]

First, when podology will be improved, eruptions could provide very fertile soils. Secondly, we could also see hot springs, and I'm sure dwarves would use geothermy.

I'm honestly not too sure how dorfs could use geothermy, you'd need some pretty advanced pumps. However, bathing in a hot spring does feel awesome indeed and could be a source of happy thoughts.

[Azerty]

First, when podology will be improved, eruptions could provide very fertile soils. Secondly, we could also see hot springs, and I'm sure dwarves would use geothermy.

I'm honestly not too sure how dorfs could use geothermy, you'd need some pretty advanced pumps.

Dwarves already use magma as a power source. And the world's oldest geothermal district heating system in Chaudes-Aigues, France, has been operating since the 15th century, as per Wikipedia.

[NW_Kohaku]

I did a volcanic structure thread about a decade back.  The idea there was more to have different volcanoes from just a single vertical cylinder of doing nothing until the dwarves mess with it and generally being pretty static.  There are still static volcanic structures, like plinths, but hey, variety is nice.

Anyway, the main determinant of what kind of volcano you're dealing with is its felsic/mafic property.  "Mafic" means it has lots of magnesium and ferric (iron) alloys in it.  Magnesium and iron freeze/solidify at higher temperatures than other melted stone, so as lava cools, it turns felsic (derived from "feldspar"). 

If mafic volcanoes erupt, they tend to do so with low pressure, and gradually bubble up slow-moving sludgy lava, like in Hawaii.  Constant, but generally only dangerous for the pockets of gas or the fires they can cause.  Creates basalt, and are extremely common underwater, especially in the Ring of Fire, and anywhere the continental plates are drifting away from one another.

Felsic volcanoes are caused by areas where magma is trapped in pockets of the Earth for very long periods of time, where it cools down enough for the magnesium and iron to freeze.  These are the Vesuvius volcanoes that do nothing but gradually cause a bulging cone to grow over thousands of years (too slow for anyone but geologists with tools to notice), only to suddenly explode and kill everyone for miles around when the pressure is enough to literally throw a whole mountain off the lava pocket.  These are often caused where you have subduction faults in places like the Northern Mediterranean.  The pushing of whole continents against one another creates that kind of pressure that will blow mountains away.  Felsic magma produces stones like pumice during pyroclastic explosions, but also produces granite when allowed to cool intrusively, which makes up most of the continental bedrock of the planet.  (Generally, the ocean has basalt bedrock, and land has granite.)

In terms of gameplay, I'm not sure we'd need more than three, as we have three types of igneous stone.  It'd be nice to match the mafic igneous stones to the mafic magmas.  We could have mafic and felsic magma regions as part of worldgen, and tie stones to those.  (I'd likewise love to see soil actually treated properly... but this is getting outside the realm of volcanoes.) Toady tends not to do subtle variants, but discrete versions that have big differences or else throw it all to the procgen.

Mafic volcanoes in-game, then, would be ones that "erupt" by just having excess magma generation that spills up over the top of a current magma tube.  There would then need to be times when magma thus produced would cool naturally, so that it doesn't take teams of dwarves engineering the cooling.  (Natural cooling would produce basalt, but still produce obsidian with water cooling, including possibly with rain.)  There would need to be code where it checks where the current "top" of the volcano is, and shift the magma production point up or down as need be.  This is relatively not a big lift, programming-wise. 

Felsic volcanoes are ones capable of pyroclastic explosions that remove whole chunks of mountain in the way of the magma's escape.  This creates a serious problem, as towerator points out, as with these volcanoes, you can have anything from nothing happening for another 500 years to a ticking time bomb that will completely obliterate your fortress one week after you strike the earth.

What makes it more problematic is that you might think that you might try to solve the problem directly by just mining into the magma chamber to relieve some of the pressure that is building up and threatening to cause a volcano to explode.  Well, don't do that, you'll cause the volcano to explode early.  (Also, whichever unlucky dwarf dug the last bit of stone that broke the camel's back is definitely going to be reduced to some widely-dispersed molecules in the air by that explosion.  It's basically the natural version of Digging Too Deep.)  On the other hand, felsic volcanic regions give you neat things like hot springs with mineral salts and Old Faithful.

[Starver]

I could quite believe in this version of Digging Too Deep being attempted.

That was on TV, at Christmas, and I watched it to see if it was as I remembered. Indeed, despite the contemporary reviews mentioned, I found it hilariously 'of an age', science-wise. That funny zone between a kind of scientific hyperoptimism[1] and "the boffins will kill us all!"... 


On the other hand, I could see it fit in a DF sweet-spot of 'reality' with the (not yet inplemented) worldgen-slider set to establish a slade-like fantasy Bottom Layer and yet have a form of 'actual' geology rather than Spoiler below it (and, maybe on a different slider, some advanced technological usage from pitchblende deposits).


I think we should start thinking about volcano placement, anyway. Currently they dot around anywhere, for various reasons more related to embark-tile occurance likelihood. Implementing a greater techtonic element to get subduction zones (Ring Of Fire, mostly offset into the dived-under area), separation zones (rift valley cracks, some now mid-oceanic ridges, potentially long linear features that fill-in'n'freeze) and mid-plate hotspots (due to plate movement, and/or hotspot movement, creating isolated island-chains from the deep ocean floor; or anomolous mid-continentally equivalent stratovolcanic features).



[1] If you want to send a nuclear bomb down your drilling shaft, in an Operation Ploughshare sort of way, then of course you suspend an actual ICBM, inverted, from a 'launch gantry' above your hole, then fire it downwards. But I digress..

[NW_Kohaku]

I could quite believe in this version of Digging Too Deep being attempted.

"Rampion warns a committee of world leaders that the crack is capable of extending beyond the fault, and that should it encircle the Earth, causing the land masses to split, the oceans would be sucked in, generating steam at high enough of a pressure to rip the Earth apart."

What.

"Another atomic device, lowered into the magma chamber of an island volcano in the path of the crack, is used in the hope of stopping the crack, but it only reverses the crack's direction."

What?!  (That's the same goddamn logic as "cure amnesia caused by a blow to the head by hitting them on the head!")

"Variety wrote that it was more believable than the usual science fiction premise", "Time Out London called it "awesomely credible""

WHAT?!

I think we should start thinking about volcano placement, anyway. Currently they dot around anywhere, for various reasons more related to embark-tile occurance likelihood. Implementing a greater techtonic element to get subduction zones (Ring Of Fire, mostly offset into the dived-under area), separation zones (rift valley cracks, some now mid-oceanic ridges, potentially long linear features that fill-in'n'freeze) and mid-plate hotspots (due to plate movement, and/or hotspot movement, creating isolated island-chains from the deep ocean floor; or anomolous mid-continentally equivalent stratovolcanic features).

Currently, vulcanism is just another noisemap, where volcanoes are generated from the peaks in the noisemap graph.  (Low vulcanism is also used to generate areas with sedimentary layers, while high-vulcanism areas are nearly all igneous stones with some metamorphic.)

In order to make a system whereby tectonic activity makes sense, you need to fundamentally change how vulcanism is generated in DF.  One way to do so would be to just assign random points on the map, then set regions based upon the closest of those points to any given tile on the map.  (I know there's a name for this, but it's escaping me right now.)  After that, assign a vector to each of those points/regions, and you have your tectonic plates.  The angle at which they collide with one another is what gives you your seismic activity and volcanoes.  (Again, you see lots of basaltic/mafic volcanoes in areas where the plates are drifting apart, such as the mid-Atlantic and Iceland.)  You can also use this to potentially skew the heightmap in worldgen, as mountain ranges form around subduction plates.

[Maximum Spin]

"Variety wrote that it was more believable than the usual science fiction premise", "Time Out London called it "awesomely credible""

WHAT?!

Heh, I thought the same thing, but I'm assuming they just mean "the technobabble was sufficiently over their heads". I mean, these are film critics.

(I know there's a name for this, but it's escaping me right now.)

Voronoi cells. I use these all the time for this kind of thing.

[towerator]

I could quite believe in this version of Digging Too Deep being attempted.

"Rampion warns a committee of world leaders that the crack is capable of extending beyond the fault, and that should it encircle the Earth, causing the land masses to split, the oceans would be sucked in, generating steam at high enough of a pressure to rip the Earth apart."

What.

"Another atomic device, lowered into the magma chamber of an island volcano in the path of the crack, is used in the hope of stopping the crack, but it only reverses the crack's direction."

What?!  (That's the same goddamn logic as "cure amnesia caused by a blow to the head by hitting them on the head!")

"Variety wrote that it was more believable than the usual science fiction premise", "Time Out London called it "awesomely credible""

WHAT?!

As an aspiring geologist, I can tell, as you might guess, that what science says about this is "LOL NO".

I think we should start thinking about volcano placement, anyway. Currently they dot around anywhere, for various reasons more related to embark-tile occurance likelihood. Implementing a greater techtonic element to get subduction zones (Ring Of Fire, mostly offset into the dived-under area), separation zones (rift valley cracks, some now mid-oceanic ridges, potentially long linear features that fill-in'n'freeze) and mid-plate hotspots (due to plate movement, and/or hotspot movement, creating isolated island-chains from the deep ocean floor; or anomolous mid-continentally equivalent stratovolcanic features).

Currently, vulcanism is just another noisemap, where volcanoes are generated from the peaks in the noisemap graph.  (Low vulcanism is also used to generate areas with sedimentary layers, while high-vulcanism areas are nearly all igneous stones with some metamorphic.)

In order to make a system whereby tectonic activity makes sense, you need to fundamentally change how vulcanism is generated in DF.  One way to do so would be to just assign random points on the map, then set regions based upon the closest of those points to any given tile on the map.  (I know there's a name for this, but it's escaping me right now.)  After that, assign a vector to each of those points/regions, and you have your tectonic plates.  The angle at which they collide with one another is what gives you your seismic activity and volcanoes.  (Again, you see lots of basaltic/mafic volcanoes in areas where the plates are drifting apart, such as the mid-Atlantic and Iceland.)  You can also use this to potentially skew the heightmap in worldgen, as mountain ranges form around subduction plates.

There are two main ways volcanos generate IRL. One would be easy to implement, the other... wouldn't as much.

-First, the volcano can be caused by a hotspot. These are sprayed semi-randomly accross the surface, and cause various volcanic events, so a simple noise map would be enough. Under oceans, you'd mostly see a collection of volcanic isles, the most recent of which would be active. Several archipelagos formed that way, such as Hawaii, the Canarias isles, or the Azores. Some are very long lived, creating many archipelagos in a row. As such, the Réunion hotspot not only created the eponymous isle, but also Mauritius, Rodrigues, the Chagos, the Maldives and the Laccadives. Before that, well... see below.

Under a continent, things are... funnier. The magma cannot efficiently go to the surface, so the pressure builds on... and on... and on. Until one day, where the unstoppable force overcomes the unmovable object, and a big bada boom ensues. This would be a 10th type for the original post. Yellowstone type, aka "supervolcano". If these get in the game as well, I don't think these should erupt at all (I mean, even if you were planning on building an Archcrystal, it would still only be like 1/1000 chance of seeing such a colossus erupt). It should just exist as a very large region where magma is shallow and volcanic activity on the surface is obvious. Nothing to fear... or is there?

If you, and by extension your entire world is very very very unlucky, you get to see the rarest and deadliest eruption of them all. Flood basalt. Remember the Maldives hotspot? It got itself known to the world 65 MA ago when it barfed the Deccan Traps. Yes, 65 MA ago, same as the big ol' rock from space of doom. Is it a coincidence that it erupted during one of the biggest mass extinctions ever? Maybe, but it certainly didn't help either. And even that eruption is outright wimpy compared to the one that created the Siberian Traps, a region flooded in basalt the size of Europe. It erupted 250 MA ago, causing the biggest extinction known of the Pharenozoic eon, and killing 83% of all genera on Earth, an event sometimes referred as "The Great Dying". In game, I guess those would be a country-sized chunk of basalt, a faint reminder of just how powerful nature can be.

- Volcanic arcs as mentioned earlier, created by the subduction of a plate under another (typically oceanic under continental, but variants exist). These would be trickier, as currently DF does not have much in the way of ridges, plates and stuff. Presumably, the game would need to draw a couple of plates on the world map, decide of their movement, and from this create a series of interactions. Arcs would appear on the edge of a continent, possibly ensnaring an entire ocean, just like the famous "Ring of Fire" of the Pacific Ocean.

[Starver]

As an aspiring geologist, I can tell, as you might guess, that what science says about this is "LOL NO".

Never went Full Geologist (loved it as a sub-subject of Geography, but I went elsewhere in the sciences) but even the first time I saw it, as a child, I knew it was more "ummm yeah" than scientific.

I think probably the best way to get into techtonics (not recalling, or searching for, any particular devlog-related notes on the subject) would be to rewrite to insert an initial worldmap stage with very much the same code as was seen in introducing settlment roads/field-boundaries (which was full vector-to-raster, if I'm any judge) only at worldmap scale. Group a few small sets of adjacent convex plates together each into a larger functional plate with the possibility of concavities (to make things interesting) then apply randomised vectors to each which are used to calculate forces across the (large) plate boundaries, establishing squeezing, tugging, sliding and/or torsioned 'forces' to establish the nature of the zone. This can seed the inititial heightmap (and volcanic chains, except for randomised barocentre+offset hotspots which are assumed to be away from plate edges, and 'easy paths for release') to lay the existing undulations upon (pre-erosion) and thus develop plateaus and rifts and collision-upthrusted zones and side-slipping[1] features.

(I once did a very basic version of this for a spherical 'planet', to see how close I could get to Earthlike continental layout, but I rather spent too much time on the interesting bits of trigonometry for spherical coordinates and too little on tuning and making any use of the resulting crazy-paving effect. )

How much this translates to the 'history' proportion of worldgen (settlements are abandoned/depopulated, or perhaps better built, after techtonic events, and then there's increased fertility and/or Pompeian influences from the volcanic spots) or as a play-time disaster (avertable/primable or not) is another question, but you might get some intetesting geology as all this leaches into embark-tile procgenning even if you don't.


But I think there's perhaps other, better/simpler abstractions.


[1] Worldgen itself is technically too short for a Z-pathed river valley to form, without also modelling the movement, but if the theoretical relative plate vectors are referenced during the erosion phase you can probably "force" the start of a river-formation sideways along a fault, as an easy path, then onwards away on the opposite side from its entry.

[towerator]

I think probably the best way to get into techtonics (not recalling, or searching for, any particular devlog-related notes on the subject) would be to rewrite to insert an initial worldmap stage with very much the same code as was seen in introducing settlment roads/field-boundaries (which was full vector-to-raster, if I'm any judge) only at worldmap scale. Group a few small sets of adjacent convex plates together each into a larger functional plate with the possibility of concavities (to make things interesting) then apply randomised vectors to each which are used to calculate forces across the (large) plate boundaries, establishing squeezing, tugging, sliding and/or torsioned 'forces' to establish the nature of the zone. This can seed the inititial heightmap (and volcanic chains, except for randomised barocentre+offset hotspots which are assumed to be away from plate edges, and 'easy paths for release') to lay the existing undulations upon (pre-erosion) and thus develop plateaus and rifts and collision-upthrusted zones and side-slipping[1] features.

Tying in to the Myth Arc, I could imagine variants depending on the realism setting of generation. In "Non-creationist" (the gods didn't create the world) and "Old-Earth Creationist" (the gods created the world, but in its infancy) settings, you might expect to see fairly realistic plate distribution. In contrast, "Young-Earth Creationist" (the gods created the world as is, at most a million years ago) settings may show more fantastical plate distributions, showing distinct shapes, and possibly fairly unbalanced ones (say, a Mordor-like continent with a mismatch of tiny plates causing very intense volcanic activity). Maybe these worlds may not even have any plate at all, with all volcanoes being of the hotspot kind as whims of the gods, and continents being directly raised by them rather than plate tectonics.

[Azerty]

I think probably the best way to get into techtonics (not recalling, or searching for, any particular devlog-related notes on the subject) would be to rewrite to insert an initial worldmap stage with very much the same code as was seen in introducing settlment roads/field-boundaries (which was full vector-to-raster, if I'm any judge) only at worldmap scale. Group a few small sets of adjacent convex plates together each into a larger functional plate with the possibility of concavities (to make things interesting) then apply randomised vectors to each which are used to calculate forces across the (large) plate boundaries, establishing squeezing, tugging, sliding and/or torsioned 'forces' to establish the nature of the zone. This can seed the inititial heightmap (and volcanic chains, except for randomised barocentre+offset hotspots which are assumed to be away from plate edges, and 'easy paths for release') to lay the existing undulations upon (pre-erosion) and thus develop plateaus and rifts and collision-upthrusted zones and side-slipping[1] features.

Tying in to the Myth Arc, I could imagine variants depending on the realism setting of generation. In "Non-creationist" (the gods didn't create the world) and "Old-Earth Creationist" (the gods created the world, but in its infancy) settings, you might expect to see fairly realistic plate distribution. In contrast, "Young-Earth Creationist" (the gods created the world as is, at most a million years ago) settings may show more fantastical plate distributions, showing distinct shapes, and possibly fairly unbalanced ones (say, a Mordor-like continent with a mismatch of tiny plates causing very intense volcanic activity). Maybe these worlds may not even have any plate at all, with all volcanoes being of the hotspot kind as whims of the gods, and continents being directly raised by them rather than plate tectonics.

It might even be useful for low-scale computers wanting to save on computing time and power.

[NW_Kohaku]

It might even be useful for low-scale computers wanting to save on computing time and power.

Adding in plate tectonics should not at all be a noticible factor in processing time.  Creating plates with Voronoi cells (thanks Maximum Spin) or just plain having a noisemap of vectors that the computer then draws into plates based upon regional directionality is a one-time computation.  Even if you have volcanoes that are set to blow at specific dates, that's more something to add as a scheduler event for worldgen time, not something that gets checked every tick.