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[Granite26]

didn't work so well

[cephalo]

Personally, I really like being able to plan ahead and design a fortress. If there's too much stuff down below, that can quickly become impossible. General variety from game to game is good, but variety on a single map is bad. Forgive me if somebody already pointed this out I didn't read the whole thread.

Also, as grueling as it is to build an epic fortress, I absolutely would not enjoy seeing some random event come and destroy even parts of it. Seeing my legendary armorsmith crushed under a pile of debris in my intricately carved massive dining hall that I spent a week decorating is not even close to my idea of fun.

[Othob Rithol]

Nobody is saying every regional block has to have something in it, and nobody is saying every z level does either. I am sure we can trust Toady to find a nice balance between interesting and spacious. Perhaps you'd like to add a suggestion that helps make sure there is enough space. Maybe a guaranteed 5 z-level band that is feature free, or some sort of minimum spacing between features?

And to your second point, only a handful of the items on the list could potentially cause a cave-in. Rock Bursts would probably be best implemented as anti-miner mine-mines and earthquakes would certainly be rare events. Most of the list are just flavor items, some of which could be exploited in fun ways by a crafty player.

Also keep in mind that this is not meant to be an all-or-nothing list. We're just hoping that Toady sees a handful of things that inspire him.

[cephalo]

I would think that it might be plausable for a dwarf to put his ear to the rock, tap his pick on it and detect the open spaces throughout the mountain. Not to see exact shapes and give away whats there, but where these features are centered. That way you can at least plan around it. 

[Othob Rithol]

Room to Build: More of a guideline, rather than a suggestion, there should always be enough room to actually build a fortress (despite how subjective that is). When possible, a feature should telegraph its presence out to a realistic distance so the fort can be well planned. IE Miners might here the sound of rushing water, or here a hollow thump in time to build around the feature.

good? what you suggested was a game mechanic (effectively SONAR) which is outside the topic. What I added is just a reminder, but one that I doubt was actually necessary. Toady does a pretty good job of making the game playable despite the constant changes.

Also try to keep in mind that some of the best forts aren't the ones that are laid out in universal roman style. Using a feature and building around it can have its own rewards. My last fort was built into the sides of chasm, with numerous bridges criss-crossing it. In some places I outright build over it. One fort turned an aborted housing wing into an arena when I found an unknown Magma pool.

In my current fort I was going to dig down from the top of a mountain to underneath the valley below to set up some secure farms. 7 levels down and I open into the 10+ level vertical drain chasm of a cave river. I realigned the fort so that chasm was centered and built around it. Now I have a garbage dump balcony with waterfall on every level. Further, after killing the slimies, I dammed the river, built complete flow controls, hollowed out a 100x100 cavern and flooded it. I feed 200 dwarves off cave shrubs. No farming. even though the valley floor is covered in trees, I get 90% of what I need in Tower Caps.

[Granite26]

I wanted to mention something I'd picked up from another thread.  It's preeminently gamey, though.

The desire for 'permanent stone' as a complicator for designs could be merged with the overworld desire to have sites producing material well over the abudance found in a normal square.  (2300 stones per z-level is gone pretty quick).  That is, a permanent stone extrusion could be used as a source of various materials in the overworld, indefinitely.

I don't say it because I like it, but because I'd like to start the conversation of how to reconcile the relatively limited amount of materials at a site with an npc sites ability to ship out unlimited quantities of the valuables in has access to.

Plus I think it would be cool to set up a flux quarry to supply your steel operations in the next fort you make.

[Mephansteras]

I think I'd prefer it that the game set up quarries and whatnot, as was suggested elsewhere. That way the merchants would be bringing in stone form where-ever that stone still is within the kingdom, as opposed to assuming that it comes from the mountainhome itself.

Would work for roads and such, too, since you could just have temporary work camps that mine/harvest whatever they need to make that section of the road and then move on.

On the topic of underground stuff, finding caverns that are filled with the stone produced by a dwarven tunnel that goes through your area would be pretty neat.

[Granite26]

I like the quarries idea, but lets be honest, each one would reasonably burnt out it a few years,  a 30 goblin siege is carrying somewhere over 600 units of iron.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah, but that's just iron. I mean, I can get thousands upon thousands of magnetite out of a single site easily. And one has to assume that once the Army arc is done we won't have random 30 goblin sieges without anything to back them up. In the long run, I think having actual resource constraints will be beneficial, since that'll give races more incentive to actually go to war.

You have tons of iron? We're going to come take it from you because our iron mines are starting to dry up!

[Granite26]

I've always disliked resource limits (in the world).  I get what you're saying about cassus belli, and agree 100%.  I'm just saying that even if you had a magnetite deposit in each square of a 3x3 settlement, going 15 levels deep, that's still only going to outfit about 300-400 units, and that's without any other uses.  So a really, really good site could outfit 500 goblins or dwarves (or 1000 humans).  That's what, 5 years worth of history 'paid' for?  by the time you got to play the game (say, year 100) you'd have burnt through a lot of the good mines.  Drag history out, and you're getting fewer and fewer resources, and embarking at more and more 'burnt out' sites.

OTOH, it would provide a good mechanism for placing old mines on the map.  (as UD, or even better as places to put new 'caves')

Edit:  It also provides a good cost/benefit mechanic for letting history run longer.  Namely, you can import more goods, but you won't be able to find as good of a site.

[Mephansteras]

Well, as long as civs also have a recycling habit built in it wouldn't be as bad. After all, if you get a nice Iron Shield from your enemies, there isn't any reason to make a new one yourself. There will still be a need for more iron, of course, since the races can't really wear each other's armor. So, yeah, you'll still end up with fewer and fewer surface level mines, but it should take a while. All of which means you have to eventually...dig deeper!

Hmmm...we might need to have some way to get more z-levels down to do that, or at least some way for sites to have iron deposits lower down. Right now they only show up in sedimentary layers, and those are all near the top. Which I don't think is 100% accurate in any case.

Also means that eventually dwarves will be the primary exporters of metal, which will tie everything in nicely with civs going to war or making trade deals.

[Othob Rithol]

::evil librarian look::

[Quatch]

Really liking this thread.

I'd like to backup the ideas:

1) For each stone type, set a min/max proficency.
2) Auto-dig encountered stone type (ie: follow veins, crystal nodes)

Maybe then we can stop the auto pause, trap experienced miner, designate every time a valuable mineral is located.

I'd also love to see some touching stone interactions. I think we see a bit of this on the embark screen, but I'd love for rocks to be near their appropriate neighbours more often. Magma should produce contact metamorphism in the rocks its near.

Also, I'm a big real-world rock fan willing to put some work together on this. What kind of information do you think we need about the different rocks?

[Othob Rithol]

I appreciate you enthusiasm.

The one constraint I hold this thread to is "no game mechanics". I gave in on the Realistic Rock Hardness only because it kind of fir, and so many people kept suggesting it.

While i do want a "follow the vein" mining system, it really doesn't fit here. It is mentioned in the other thread (about Guild Masters) in my sig.

I'll update the Realistic Rock Hardness entry to include skill level (I thought it did, but maybe I lost an edit somewhere)

edit: I forgot to mention, that if you can come up with some sort of detailed list of what rocks normally occur with each other, but don't in DF, we can add it in.

[Quatch]

Well, rock hardness is quite do-able, although I must disagree with the suggestion of moh's scale. Thats more for scratch resistance of minerals. Ie: diamonds are very 'hard', but shatter on impact.

What we want is really just called rock strength (ie. unconfined compressive strength). Its an engeneering measure describing how strong the rock is, for supporting or for digging out. You can actually estimate it with a hammer. Weak rocks are usually sedimentary, such as salt and gypsum. Hard rocks are usually fine grained volcanic such as basalt. The scale ranges from 0-200 (ish). Some info: http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.itc.nl%2Flibrary%2FPapers%2Farti_conf_pr%2Fhack_huisman.pdf&ei=wljBSIyxApqSgQLlia3VBg&usg=AFQjCNEk4silMs40TbPpSG-CV6rKHZB7Aw&sig2=64e3en4wvq5MpMgxyhH16g


I think I've got a set of example numbers in a textbook..


As to rock groupings, look to bowens reaction series (for igneous rocks). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowen%27s_reaction_series . Minerals that are more than one spot away (vertically) are unlikely to co-exist, because at the time of formation, they would be chemically unstable and transform into the material in-between. So, no quartz near olivine.
You can then look at rocks (multi-mineral combinations). I think Toady has done this part, as we see the difference between extrusive and intrusive volcanics. It might be worth grouping the acidic and basic volcanics seperatly. Obsidian is very acidic (it is quartz-y) so will not occur in basic volcanic rocks.

If you look at igeous rock at wikipedia, down at the minerological classification of volcanics, you see a table showing what volcanic rocks should go together. (felsic == acidic == granite, mafic == basic == basalt).

Another thing. In magma chambers (where you get lots of intrusive igneous rock), you get vertical separation (layering) based on the temperature of crystalization. As a magma body cools, the high temp minerals crystalize first and sink to the bottom.

If this info is handy, I have more