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[Dalzedur]

When I read the mountain peak challenge thread in the Adventuring section, I immediately thought how cool an addition a jumping and climbing skill would be if they were implemented.

Basically, jumping skill could be used to try leaping over one or two tiles (cross over z-level drops), then safely landing on the other side. Now, that's all fine and dandy, maybe a bit too overpowered?

It could be made more complicated by making a check for character strength vs carried weight/armouring, which would reduce the safe jumping distance.

But since most of DF creatures are not supposed to boast superdwarven attributes, it would already be a huge difference to be able to jump over a 1-tile wide space than it would be to only be able to reach the tile just next to the original tile, so that gap in skill and ability could be made smoother by allowing the character to hang on to a ledge if the character would have enough free hands to grasp.

Code: [Select]

A good jump        A ledge-grab jump
..#..    ..#..     ..#..     X#X                                      ..#..
.@#.. -> ..#@.     .@#.. ->  X@X  -> alt+east->climb to east+above -> ..#@.
..#..    ..#..     ..#..     X#X                                      ..#..
                   You grab onto the ledge and avoid falling into the depths below!

#=chasm, .=floor, @=jumper, X=wall/cliff, 1 z-level below the original place

More powerful jumps could make checks for the ceiling above to see if it would limit the range, as the optimal jumps launch the jumper at 45-degree angle, and possibly partially to the z-level above at the jump's highest point.

Bad landings would make the jumper fall prone, possible stun and falling damage.

Other uses of jump skill could include a charge attack to melee and those jump dodges in melee.


As for climbing, it would allow scaling cliffs up/down, with low skill only allowing 1 z-lvl transitions, like saving oneself from drowning in a pool. Climbers taking damage/being shot/hacked during climbing would lose their grip and fall to their doom. Climbing skill would also govern their climbing speed and the ability to grab onto a ledge to prevent falling after miscalculated moves, like jump and dodge.

Climbing would of course be very taxing for the climber, and they could not regain any endurance while they're still climbing. Becoming overtaxed would make them fall.


So, uh, mainly adventure-mode stuff, but appropriate critters in fortress mode could also benefit from these.

Open for discussion, please partake.

[DDouble]

It wouldn't surprise me if this kind of stuff is what Toady had planned for the addition of climbing. The player could [t]hrow their equipment/backpack across before jumping, so as to lighten the carried weight.

Reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus, a game all about climbing, in a world very very similar to DF!

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

How is the world of Shadow of the Colossus similar to DF?

Like the ideas though.

[Dalzedur]

Not familiar with that Shadow of the Colossus myself.

As for the possible jumping command for DF, I imagined it would give the same kind of targetting rectangle as there is for [f]iring and [t]hrowing already: It would let the player specify where to jump, but might not give that accurate feedback as to whether or not the jump is possible to be made succesfully.

For additional eyecandy, jumping into a pool of water (or magma) would create a nice splash and move the water masses away from the point of landing.

That'd be sweet

As for fortress mode, Kobold thieves could be some of those who get to use jumping and climbing. Those cunning bastards are clever enough to bypass traps already, so why not jump over 1-tile wide channel moats, or climb over the 1-tile high wooden palisade!

[Idiom]

I'm picturing a Kobold as the assassin in Assassin's Creed now. 

Invading armies need to be slowed, but not completely stopped by 1 tile wide moats. They should try to hop it if they can't find any other entrance. Also, 'goblin' pyramid to climb low walls.

This, of course, should be paired with the makeshift bridges & ladders for invaders suggestion.

[Align]

* Align sets up a macro to jump back and forth endlessly, comes back 3 hours later, jumps over houses

This sounds like a cool idea, especially with grabbing onto ledges. That alone would make moving more interesting.

[Neoskel]

*HUP* <-- (Barbarian jump sound in Diablo 2)

I'd imagine things like GCSs jumping on top of your dwarves, and climbing up and down cave walls.

[Techhead]

Perhaps if it was a "move carefully" option, it would be pretty cool.
If goblins had a chance of jumping 1-tile moats, that would be awesome. Half make it across, half fall in magma.
It would be cooler if large drops or hazardous materials discouraged them further.

[Paul]

It would be nice, but I don't think we'll be seeing it until the pathfinding is rewritten in a major way. It currently doesn't even allow FLYING creatures to go places that they couldn't access without walking, so allowing for creatures to jump obstacles would be even more complicated.

[i2amroy]

It would be nice, but I don't think we'll be seeing it until the pathfinding is rewritten in a major way. It currently doesn't even allow FLYING creatures to go places that they couldn't access without walking, so allowing for creatures to jump obstacles would be even more complicated.

I've had humanoid creatures that I modded to fly without wings or anything that would just take off and land on top of the mead hall. It made it really annoying when you went to talk to them, up, down, up down.

[Osmosis Jones]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This would make frog demons a bit more interesting methinks.

[Iden]

I think it's a fantastic idea, and a necessary one. I'm sure it was somewhat planned by Toady, anyhow.

Setting up scripting/pathing for AI would take a little more work, but honestly, jumping would be really easy to get going. Just need to make calculations, strength/agility v. weight/bulk (or something of that sort).

Technically speaking, we already do have a basic system for jumping. You know when you (or your dwarves) knock someone "into the air", their tile is surrounded by blue/cyan and they can "soar" over stuff (like water, or into stuff like trees). Viola - jumping, just need to make a command for it. Jumping Z-levels would be different, and probably difficult or impossible (unless jumping down).

Climbing would be interesting, and fun, though may need a little work. ALT-move would probably be the best way for this to work. I'd much rather see jumping before climbing, though climbing should eventually be possible.

[Neoskel]

Maybe jumping could be handled by the jumper using itself as a missile of sorts. It's similar enough, fired or thrown missiles are aimed at a certain point and can have variation in accuracy based on skill. It would account for jumping too far or too short and the hilarious consequences of doing so.

[Demonic Gophers]

Maybe jumping could be handled by the jumper using itself as a missile of sorts. It's similar enough, fired or thrown missiles are aimed at a certain point and can have variation in accuracy based on skill. It would account for jumping too far or too short and the hilarious consequences of doing so.

The spinning Axedwarf strikes the Goblin in the upper body.
It is battered!
The right lung is bruised!
The left lung is bruised!
The Goblin is having trouble breathing.
The Axedwarf and the Goblin tangle together and fall over.

[praguepride]

With all the tunneling debates, my mind shifted over to the other "cheap, overpowered, invincible defense" option: channels.

A common strategy is to dig channels around the entire fort, possibly filling with moats. With jumping, you'd at least have to spend a lot more time channeling out a 3+ wide moat instead of a 1-wide moat.

I think jumping should be handled as a skill. It could be trained by jumping (duh) but also by falling, with the assumption that the dwarf tries to jump to safety to avoid the cave-in.

Success means the creature jumps 1,2, or 3 tiles horizontally, or 1 tile veritcally (this would be equivalent to the 'level 3 jump' so they would be able to leap over walls if there was not a roof above the jumper.

I think mechanically this could be implemented by giving the creature temporary flight. Maybe flight for X ticks where X = amount of time to move one, two, or three squares. So a one tick flight would allow them to "fly" on square and then "walk" onto the next solid square.  Treat vertical movement as x3, so a 3 square flight horizontally equates to a one square move diagonally.

      _
_  /    <--- costs "3 flight moves" to move 1 diagonal.  This would allow good jumpers to avoid cave-ins by "flying to safety" while allowing animals with [JUMPER] tags to leap clear over obstacles. Maybe having the [JUMPER] tag adds a multiplier to the jump skill, so a magical beast might be able to leap 6-9 squares, clearing the largest moat spannable by a bridge.


As mentioned above, jumping could be implemented into combat (similar to a charge but maybe focusing strikes to the upper body, in a "death from above" style attack focused on upper arms and head. With a spear this would be deadly, and rightly so!).

Another way to look at it is jump skill multiplied by RNG = "flight" movement. So there is no "pass/fail" so to speak, just a low skill + low RNG equals < 1 square of flight AFTER the creature already tries to move. So instead of flying across the 1 tile gap, they fall like normal. That would count as a "fail" from the players perspective but it wouldn't just be an arbitrary number.