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[Silverionmox]

In a community of under 150, all relations are personal. Look up Dunbar's number.

[SirHoneyBadger]

That's a good point.

It'd be more like "Do Not Enter--

-Your pal Urist"

[Granite26]

In a community of under 150, all relations are personal. Look up Dunbar's number.

Link

1: Dwarves aren't people and might have different group sizes or social rules
2: It specifically mentions military units in the wiki:  Common social stratification in a state (we have a king)environment would likely lead to claims based on position versus identity.  (I.E. By order of the king rather than by order of bob from accounting on behalf of the king)

Just sayin'...

If not already suggest i like to offer quicksiverlakes an veins underground maybe even with one or another Quicksilver monster.

I could totally see piercing the wall to get a flood of non-water liquid...

Am I alone in thinking that it could be a skill check to get the 'wet' stone message or 'warm' stone message?  OOOPS, the novice miner pierced the aquifer, quick, seal off the tunnels!!!  (Or a halfway step where the wall leaks heavily!!!)

[SirHoneyBadger]

I could totally see piercing the wall to get a flood of non-water liquid...

"By th' very gods, lads!--do 'e ken wot we've dun? We've struck a vein of Scotch! Now I'll be th' firs ta drown, but if'n ye all draw lots, shud be anuff ta kill tree, mebbe fur of us, and th' rest can drink 't our wake."

[Silverionmox]

In a community of under 150, all relations are personal. Look up Dunbar's number.

Link

1: Dwarves aren't people and might have different group sizes or social rules
2: It specifically mentions military units in the wiki:  Common social stratification in a state (we have a king)environment would likely lead to claims based on position versus identity.  (I.E. By order of the king rather than by order of bob from accounting on behalf of the king)

Just sayin'...

Sure, but it remains a small community, and they're likely to check with Bob from accounting. Even in larger organizations, a "keep out" order to the personnel is given in person, and they'll go check with their superior if it's just a plaque - they are living there after all. Messing with the signposts for merchants, who have to trust on the signpost anyway, would be more likely than forging a plaque, a seal and thinking of plausible deniability why the sarge didn't tell Urist that the door to the armoury was locked. How sophisticated are gremlins anyway? Are they viruses or hackers?

[Granite26]

In a community of under 150, all relations are personal. Look up Dunbar's number.

Link

1: Dwarves aren't people and might have different group sizes or social rules
2: It specifically mentions military units in the wiki:  Common social stratification in a state (we have a king)environment would likely lead to claims based on position versus identity.  (I.E. By order of the king rather than by order of bob from accounting on behalf of the king)

Just sayin'...

Sure, but it remains a small community, and they're likely to check with Bob from accounting. Even in larger organizations, a "keep out" order to the personnel is given in person, and they'll go check with their superior if it's just a plaque - they are living there after all. Messing with the signposts for merchants, who have to trust on the signpost anyway, would be more likely than forging a plaque, a seal and thinking of plausible deniability why the sarge didn't tell Urist that the door to the armoury was locked. How sophisticated are gremlins anyway? Are they viruses or hackers?

I guess it's a social question about Dwarves.  Is a community of 100 dwarves going to question an authentic looking sign or not?

Are the clones from Paranoia or rugged individualists?

[Othob Rithol]

I do believe this little "Gremlins" discussion has gotten rather off track.

I'll be linking Pixlefish's excellent Gremlin nuisance list into their entry. the locking doors etc relys too much on new game mechanics for my taste, so if mentioned, will only be briefly.

Silverionmox's lava cave entry will be added.

Sand Worms have come up about 5 to 6 times. They are not in mostly because sand worms ala Dune are dramatically a surface beast. However, to end the repeats, rock worms will be changed to sand worms.

The deep gnomes mentioned sound like subterranean kobolds.

Radioactivity, mercury poisoning et al are all game mechanics.

Lastly, I'll add an entry for a HP Lovecraft themed "terror below".

Despite these new additions, the thread is starting to get off topic more than on topic, mostly due tot depletion of ideas. I might update it perhaps once or twice more if something really sticks out, but I think it probably needs to be tabled for the time being, to be reborn after the next major release (under new management).

We've already clearly passed the initial intention of the list : to add some flavor to the otherwise bland subterranean world. Now we've gone straight into high fantasy and it is starting, imho, to dilute the quality of the list.

Edit: I will not...repeat...NOT under any circumstances be adding in more fantasy elements clearly and blatantly lifted from other sources: book, film, or game. If it does not have precedent in the game, in Zach's stories, or the Dev notes (sans Power Goals) it won't make it.

2nd Edit: I linked Call of Cthulhu for the "Terror Below" entry even though I seem to recall (but can not name) a more direct piece about an underground,  writhing mass of dark flesh, with spawn.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I think you're right about the dark flesh with spawn idea. I seem to recall the same thing, although in my defense, my "terror below" isn't really meant to do anything at all, or atleast nothing blatant, or that is easy to put one's finger on. Not unless you take a pick to it, or something, anyway. 

Kind of a "vaguely horrific/possibly fantastic" House of Usher (Inspired somewhat by the portrait of the underground cavern, if you're familiar with the story.) sensibility going on.

I don't think we have too many...fear/wonder of the unknown? items in the game thus far, if you know what I mean, and I think it might be nice to encounter something undefined(-able) once in a while.

[Sinergistic]

Underground rivers draining into bottomless pits/chasms instead of there own little 4x4 'circle' chasm, where applicable.

edit: made it 'smaller'

[Sowelu]

That was very loud.

But yes, underground rivers that are way longer, and that actually terminate in a chasm that goes all the way DOWN, would be nice.  Either flowing into a chasm, or descending a level every once in a while (with waterfall!) until they finally terminate at Z-15.

Or simply exit the mountain entirely...

[Silverionmox]

Underground rivers draining into bottomless pits/chasms instead of there own little 4x4 'circle' chasm, where applicable.

Hush, the HFS might hear you.

Anyway, they might have sensible origins too: a soil layer, or at most, a chalky layer. With ground water. Or alternatively, in the mountains where we don't see their source being black boxed out of nowhere.

[Sinergistic]

Sorry for making it so 'loud', it wasn't a very big post and I wanted to stand out in a 20 page thread.

I kinda wish that the current underground river start took after the current end of chasm/above ground river start.

What would be neat is having a rather large 'start' section of little tiny fingers of water feeding into the actual river, with pockets of standing water spread over multiple z-levels near the start (think ponds underground, but very small, 1x2 tiles or 2x2 or 1x4, etc).

[Osmosis Jones]

I was inspecting the chasm at my latest site, when I noticed how horribly unnatural they appear. Sure, the bottomless pit has some (minor) variation in it's size and shape, but the regular chasms look like someone has had a bit too much fun with a giant laser cannon; straight, boring sides, and a uniform (infinite) depth.
Thus, I got to thinking; what if chasms and similar features instead had varying depths and shapes, so not all such features drop into the bottomless depths, but may instead ramp off or curve over.

e.g. a chasm from the side would look like this

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]


     __|                                                           |____
   _|                                                                   |___
  |                                                                        |
  \                                                                _______/
   \_                      ____                              _____/
     \__              ____/    \                        ____/
         \           /          |                      /
          ###########           #######################


instead of the current

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

|                                   |
|                                   |
|                                   |
|                                   |
|                                   |
|                                   |
|                                   |
#####################################

Where # of course represents the actual chasm floor tiles.

Basically, what I'm thinking with this is that it will eventually merge chasms, pits, and random caves as a single feature, controlled by the same procedural generation rules. Where sections of this underground cavern reach the map bottom, the tiles are marked as chasm.
If these generation rules then used a series of player definable settings (say toggleable in the world gen menu) to control the shape of the feature, such as say,

[DEPTHMIN] and [DEPTHMAX] to control the height range the object appears in, where 0 is the map bottom, 15 is the middle, 30 is the ceiling (this needs some work, but I don't think Toady's code allows for negative values, so I'm not sure how to do it).

[SIZEX][SIZEY][SIZEZ] to determine cavern size (all with min-max values). It should be noted by the way that I don't mean X and Y as the fixed directions (like I do with the Z), but rather just referring to any two arbitrary, perpendicular, directions in the horizontal plane.

[SLOPEMIN][SLOPEMAX] to determine the angle of the feature walls (where say 0-127 is an overhang, 128 is vertical, and 129-255 is a standard positive slope).

Also, maybe [BRANCHING] (splits into multiple directions) and [TWISTING] (feature changes direction occasionally) tags would be necessary to get lots of those little nooks and crannies.

Thus, the current features could be replicated by values like

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[DEPTHMIN:10]
[DEPTHMAX:20]
[SIZEXMIN:50]
[SIZEXMAX:150]
[SIZEYMIN:3]
[SIZEYMAX:8]
[SIZEZMIN:15]
[SIZEZMAX:15]
[SLOPEMIN:128]
[SLOPEMAX:128]
[TWISTING]

for a chasm, and

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[DEPTHMIN:10]
[DEPTHMAX:20]
[SIZEXMIN:15]
[SIZEXMAX:50]
[SIZEYMIN:15]
[SIZEYMAX:50]
[SIZEZMIN:15]
[SIZEZMAX:15]
[SLOPEMIN:100]
[SLOPEMAX:156]

for a pit, while a regular cave would be

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[DEPTHMIN:0]
[DEPTHMAX:15]
[SIZEXMIN:50]
[SIZEXMAX:250]
[SIZEYMIN:1]
[SIZEYMAX:3]
[SIZEZMIN:1]
[SIZEZMAX:4]
[SLOPEMIN:128]
[SLOPEMAX:128]
[TWISTING]
[BRANCHING]

Allowing the player to save a few varieties of these settings would be nice, but it isn't exactly gamebreaking to go without.


Anyway, comments?

[Pixelfish]

(I imagine them as virii)

I rather like your chasm idea. Actually a sort of simmilar algorythem could be applied to 'regular' caves as well, being a chasm is really just a cave that goes 'down'.

The procedural generation would be fun. You could potentially even mess with them in world gen to create a planet that resembles swiss cheese(or generate alot of rejected worlds).

I was always mildly curious what Chasm's real life relation, if any, was. I'm guessing sink holes?

I suppose by the same affect linking Chasm's to real life stone which would cause such huge drops in topography, limestone, rock salt, etc, would make sense too, or would that be going to far?

[CobaltKobold]

1: Dwarves aren't people

No, dwarfs are people. What dwarfs are not is human.

Human is not synonymous with person.