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[Mephansteras]

I'd like to see some geological activity during world gen that can change how layers show up in the game. Right now, we always have sedimentary on top and then other layers below that. In reality, layers of rock can get moved all over the place as plates shift around and get subsumed.

For example, when you fly over Nevada you can see all these ridges which are layers of rock that have been tilted upwards by plate movement. So instead of ==== you get /////. Really cool, and I'd love to see that sort of thing in DF. It could have major impacts on how the underground area looks, and where you'd find different types of rocks.

Maybe one of the more geology savvy members of the board could give us more detail on it?

[Othob Rithol]

@Quatch
I'll start adding it in immediately, specifically the better measures of hardness. I'm putting the thesis abstract as an "^" entry. I am going to keep Moh's in, since it is commonly known/recognized. I will also list Size Strength classification which seems to have been developed a few years after that abstract.

Before I add in the Bowen Reaction series, can we confirm that DF does indeed violate this?

@Mephansteras
I'll also ad in folding.

[Duke 2.0]

 Perhaps if plants could grow on walls? You would need somebody to clear away the plants to reveal the stone underneath. Imagine discovering an underground garden of plants, and hidden by the plants are veins of gems. Of course, this being in a stone type that doesn't support too many gems you would never find out. 'till the great magma flood of 1056.

 Not particularly underground-specific, but could be useful for underground plants. Imagine growing plump helmets on the walls instead of having a farming room.

[Quatch]

@Quatch
Before I add in the Bowen Reaction series, can we confirm that DF does indeed violate this?

On close inspection (of my current fort), it doesn't directly.. that is, never directly touching. However, it does grade very quickly, sometimes through only 2 squares or so (horizontally). I've got all kinds of volcanic rock, from rhyolite (granite) down to diorite(basalt).

I'll poke around in my other forts, but it may be just that they were so close that I imagined the contacts

Too much variability may irritate geologists, too little and underground is just one giant mass of basalt (boring for gamers).

[Othob Rithol]

Added clinging plants, sans farming. Added a nasty monster in it too.

@Quatch: I know Toady has spent a great deal of time trying to balance realism vs playability, particularly with the rock formations.

[Quatch]

@Quatch: I know Toady has spent a great deal of time trying to balance realism vs playability, particularly with the rock formations.

It definatly shows Although, I find myself stretching to find a site with all/most of the good stuff (magma, underground water, HFS, metal ore, flux, aquifer). I don't play adventurer mode, so the whole world existing isn't much good if I can't find a good spot to build a fortress. Perhaps when there is so much neat underground stuff this will be less important.

Perhaps we can look at making different stones different?

[Granite26]

Here's a nice small dirt one for you.

Red Ferns and other markers. 

'This plant is rumored to grow only on top of...  Various forms of HFS, tombs and other things.  Some of it can be dug up with a spade (AKA accessed in Adventure mode) but some of it needs to have the resources of a full dwarven city to fully access.

Think wandering around in adventure mode, seeing a splotch of some bright purple plant.  You go to the nearby village and are told it only grows on top of ancient ruins.  You later embark on the site to find... whatever.

This is a far better idea for the small stuff (a simple tomb is classic), but ya'll can run with it.

[Othob Rithol]

Back in that ancient era that was my childhood, we had a really long running Rolemaster campaign with plants like that. In the Rolemaster system the herbs are extensive (a few thousand) and a skilled herbalist could, even in rough climates, gather up enough varied herbs to at least help the healing process. A handful of those herbs only grew in specific areas: old battlefields, in the presence of ancient evil, near old elf ruins etc. Part of the meta-campaign was collecting the fruit of a very rare bush that incidentally was transported from a far off land and planted in very specific locations by the same wizard whose artifacts we were gathering. After about three or four expeditions we were sure of the connection, and quit paying sages for access to their libraries, but instead consulted every herbalist we encountered.

An existing marker like this is the patch of obsidian found in freezing climates above a magma pipe. Pre-site finder, I was always thrilled to see one.

[isitanos]

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.

The problem is, the more predictable things are, the more boring the game gets. Which is why "underground diversity" is the most popular suggestion at the moment. In the 2d version whenever you breached the river there was a chance that you'd get flooded, and that added some risk and excitement. I hope to see some of that come back.

Given the spirit of "losing is fun" and the conditions of mining during the technology era DF is set in, it makes a lot of sense to make digging risky and unpredictable. Even in modern times, digging rarely goes as planned.

Think as well that the art of the Dwarves is precisely to make a wonderful fortress by taking what nature gives them (caves crystals, all the features that have been suggested in this thread) and improving on it. (See what Gimli does with his dwarves companions at the end of LOTR.)

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.

However I agree that completely random events that severy harm your fortress without giving you a chance of defending against them should be avoided. That's just not fun. People asking for earthquakes and random collapses would probably be the first to complain afterwards that the game is too tough/unbalanced/unplayable/whatever.

[Othob Rithol]

A think a little bit of collapsing/caving in can be squeezed in without ruining the experience, on the contrary, if in moderation it can increase the enjoyment of the game.

Two types pf cave-ins are completely under the control of the player:

First off, the current rules for support are a stand-in measure. I don't subscribe to some of the ridiculously complex suggestions where laterals stresses and rock densities have to be calculated. But a 5x10x3 block of rock can not be suspended in the air with a slim pillar, or even worse, one section of flooring sticking into its side.

Secondly, if unstable rock is added, then you risk a cave-in by not paying attention. Since the unstable rock won't provide support, leaving only it to keep the ceiling up will make a big boom. Nothing says you have to scrap everything when you find some. Just carefully excavate it out and replace it with constructions. Or, you could build around irt in such a way that it is not the only support.

Some collapses are random, but these need to be tightly contolled.

First the Rock Burst would most likely occur during excavation. It would probably be small, and only the miner would really be at risk. The idea can actually be implemented without any collapse at all.

Earthquakes could cause a section to cave in, but nothing prevents you from rebuilding the collapsed area. So the floor of the dining hall is now three levels lower...just rebuild the old floor and haul the furniture back up.

I'm gonna be amending some of the entries that have rather dramatic effects to include a requested init option.

[Granite26]

I'd like to think that all of the cave-in options could be mitigated by good fortress design...

Earthquakes can overcompensate with extra supports, and destructive rockbursts wouldn't hurt if you designed your digging projects right.

[korora]

I really dislike the trend of defending ideas by suggesting an init option.  Init options should be reserved for features that are either not fully functional (like the economy) or hurt the FPS and aren't critical (like weather and temperature).  The only current init option that doesn't fit into these categories is artifacts.  Proliferation of init options just makes coding slower, since Toady has to take either state into account.

Init options should NOT be used to customize the game to your liking or to thwart criticism of your ideas.  Instead, modding should be used, since it is less supported; for example, increasing the compressive strength of all the rocks to some absurd number would effectively negate rock bursts.

[Granite26]

Good point, and it preserves the 'as intended' difficulty.   Athough for the sake of argument I'm willing to call the two functionally equivilent for the purposes of this discussion, and say that init option is shorthand for 'any cheat to make the game easier'

[Wahnsinniger]

I'm still of the opinion that once a lot more underground features are in, there should be an indicator on the embark screen which gives you a rough indication as to how many of these special underground features it has (without ruining precisely what they are). That way if you want a no-surprises location to design your perfect fortress, so be it. If you want a super-active map with surprises at every turn, all the better.

And this would be separate from the Site Finder. The Site Finder should be for the real major features which affect what your fortress can do (like magma, HFS, Aquifer). My idea gives you an indication of the variety of features your site has but doesn't spoil them.

[Inquisitor Saturn]

I feel that it's unrealistic for chasms and underground rivers to only exist on mountain tiles.

Thematically, a chasm is probably a fault line in the crust. Although bottomless pits don't exist in real life, such rifts would occur at faults in plates that pull away from each other.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rift)
This is the opposite of what causes most mountain ranges to be created- plates collide with each other, pushing up rock. Ergo, chasms should mostly occur at low spots: In oceans and deep valleys. For those of you who would be troubled by not having chasms on mountains, you could still realistically have bottomless pits near magma tubes, assuming those pits could be formed by extinct volcanoes.

This brings up another consideration: Lava tubes. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_tube)
In game, lava tubes could be filled with magma or empty(possibly home to cave creatures). It would be interesting to have a flow of magma similar to the underground river, and could be cause for wanting things like fireproof waterwheels.

I would like to see underground pools be common in aquiferous regions. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_lake).