Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Neonivek]

Here is something Id like to add for Chasms... I have three ideas.

Because Chasms spawn monsters perhaps there should be a way for Chasms to be uncapped thus allowing monsters from the depths of the earth to roam free. Uncapped Chasms should be viewed in history as well as who done it (or what team of people)

If you cover a Chasm up, it should also be shown in legends

Ill skip my last idea, it involved Chasms linking to huge underground worlds that while are not as large as the surface world... Are large enough to be of significance.

Maybe if you chose to build stairs going down on a chasm you start a project that requires a set amount of stone and work to finish (like 100 peices of stone and countless hours of work), Once they are done you can send dwarves to the bottom of the Chasm bringing them off the map and opening up the Underground world for future fortresses and adventurers.

[MercDraco]

Dig up places that are best left buried in the sands of time... and discover anicent abaddoned dwarf fortresses that Pre-date Mountain-homes that might cause conflict with the written history over Real history causing the king/queen whatnot to war with you to keep the past a secert...

Messager: Your Majesty we have News from Grimhollows
King: that haunted mountain with all the Elephants? what about it? did they all die like we planned?
Messager: No your highness worse they uncovered one of the Lost Cities...
King: you don't Mean!!!
Messager: Yes your highness, they found Boatmurdered
King: Rally the Troops, GrimHollows Will BURN!!!!

would make for a interesting moment in History if you Defeated the King and set up your own civilization... also i just finished reading the boatmurdered so i've got a picture of mad burning dwarf demons causing havok....

[Footkerchief]

Hell yes.  Basically everything in this thread is GREAT, except for maybe the fresh/stale/poisonous air stuff -- that seems like it could get really overcomplicated.

[Bryan Derksen]

I dunno, complication can equal fun (and something like stale are seems likely to be disableable in init). What would be neat is if it specifically makes digging deep more complicated. With the current system, unless there's an aquifer you can just plummet a stairway twenty levels down to the bottom layer and then dig out any layer equally easy. But if mine gas accumulates in deeper levels, or perhaps slow water seepage through cracked rock that needs some ongoing pumping to keep drained, mining becomes more of a challenge. You need to dig ventilation shafts, install grates to keep kobolds from sneaking in, possibly build fans and pumps, run power to said pumps and shafts, properly seal up old mineshafts when they're finished with, and deal with the accumulation of hazards within should you ever need to reopen those shafts...

It'd be neat to riddle a boring old area with boring old mine shafts, seal it up, and then years later come back to find it's half-full of oily water with slime monsters slowly corroding their way through the steel hatch you sealed it with. Or accidentally penetrate one of its disused ventilation shafts while digging new quarters and have flammable and poisonous vapors flooding your halls. You can provide your own 'hidden fun stuff' this way.

[Bryan Derksen]

1. You're supposed to be the near-omnipotent controller of your fort. You should be able to see everything that isn't sneaking.

Ooh, an idea that's more general than just underground; more sneaking. When a goblin thief is discovered and runs out into the woods, he should be able to reengage his 'cloaking device' and try again - you could wind up having your military sweeping the forest to flush him out, or setting out treasure 'bait'. Finally a use for animal traps baited with gems. Cave and chasm monsters could start out 'sneaking' so you don't know what sort of menace you're facing until you've sent your exploration team in. Perhaps even have some siegers start out cloaked so that you don't know the exact power or composition of the sieging force right away.

It's not a fog of war, but it could have some of the same effects without making it hard to manage the fort.

[Red Jackard]

Large Underground Cavernworlds, Buried Ruins, Settling in Tunnels

[PenguinSeph]

I dunno, complication can equal fun (and something like stale are seems likely to be disableable in init). What would be neat is if it specifically makes digging deep more complicated. With the current system, unless there's an aquifer you can just plummet a stairway twenty levels down to the bottom layer and then dig out any layer equally easy. But if mine gas accumulates in deeper levels, or perhaps slow water seepage through cracked rock that needs some ongoing pumping to keep drained, mining becomes more of a challenge. You need to dig ventilation shafts, install grates to keep kobolds from sneaking in, possibly build fans and pumps, run power to said pumps and shafts, properly seal up old mineshafts when they're finished with, and deal with the accumulation of hazards within should you ever need to reopen those shafts...

It'd be neat to riddle a boring old area with boring old mine shafts, seal it up, and then years later come back to find it's half-full of oily water with slime monsters slowly corroding their way through the steel hatch you sealed it with. Or accidentally penetrate one of its disused ventilation shafts while digging new quarters and have flammable and poisonous vapors flooding your halls. You can provide your own 'hidden fun stuff' this way.

That would be great. But how would it work?

Maybe there could be pockets of natural gas found underground, as well as natural gas "aquifers". The depth could affect how large and common these pockets and aquifers are.

Natural gas works like a flammable miasma that chokes dwarfs and is only destroyed by fire (causing explosions, which may in themselves cause cave-ins and other fun stuff) and by leaving the map (maybe when outside it rises until it leaves)

[Othob Rithol]

I'll add ventilation to the list, but really you have to think of the added coding complexity and the enormous amount of processing resources need, essentially, to add a flow to every exposed tile.

The dragon nest is a good idea (and can also include the hydra). Altering the legends system really isn't necessary, since the loremasters of old didn't keep track of every egg anyway. Maybe if a region was terrorized by an egg-laying megabeast there is a chance one of the tiles in that region has a HEFS (Hidden Egg Fun Stuff). Maybe instead of finding a hatchling(s), instead there would be an egg(s) that will hatch after a certain time.....do you seal it up, or haul the egg into a prepared chamber?

I'll also add a bit to the Buried Ruins entry to include the possibility of pre-history.

edit: Also merged all "creature" and "biome" ideas with the races section...now the list has three categories: New map features, old map features that could be modified, and things that go bump in the dark

[zagibu]

An easy form of ventilation could be done by statically measure the distance of each tile to the next "open sky" tile and saving it for every tile. Technically, this would be pretty resource-unintensive (a simple BFS algorithm would do). This way, the air would get worse and worse the further down and in you go, slowing down your dwarves and making them more sleepy.
The only problem is: When do you recalculate the model? DF would have to detect the digging of new tiles, which are connecting other tiles to an open-sky tile. This is probably difficult.

[Othob Rithol]

If ventilation went in, we;d have a new use of power/machines. Imagine a network of ducts being pressurized by big fans, powered off the Dwarf Mountain Kinetic System.

[Sprout]

Speaking of new uses for machine power...

[Christes]

That just made my day.

[zagibu]

If ventilation went in, we;d have a new use of power/machines. Imagine a network of ducts being pressurized by big fans, powered off the Dwarf Mountain Kinetic System.

They could even be implemented with the static model I described above. Each fan on a tile's path to the fresh air would improve the air quality by a regressive amount (meaning each fan improves less than it's predecessor). I'm sure some formulas for a sweet spot could quickly be found.

[PenguinSeph]

If you want to make dwarfs ventilate underground, but don't want to have to suffer with a massive FPS drop for air flows, you could just have natural gas that the dwarfs have to ventilate away from themselves. Different reason, but same effect (dwarfs must ventilate deep underground tunnels). Maybe if you go down far enough, you could hit natural gas "aquifers" as well.

As long as we get players thinking more about deep mining instead of just mindlessly going wherever, it'll be cool. Of course, you have to allow players to mine safely in the shallow ends. Which means that you need a reason to go deep in the first place.

Right now, does depth affect ore and gem placement? Maybe it should, to give players a reason to grapple with dangerous deep areas.

[Fieari]

To fill in the rest of your list...

The trouble with Troglodytes is that they seem to be so primitive, that they barely count as additional underground diversity.  The only thing I could think of would be to make them Underground River people... complete with little canoes, who would raid you if you have an Underground River.  I suppose they could just swim, until boats are in the game.

As for Ratmen, I think they should be able to burrow into the dirt, and make warrens, much like we suggested for antmen, except dirt only.  They would, however, actively attempt to breech your fortress to steal from it, unlike ants who would be oblivious unless you stumble upon them.

For both of them, however, I think there needs to be more diplomatic options.  I think there needs to be a case for a new civilization type-- tribal-- where they won't spread out to multiple cities, but will exist only as each site allows them to.  When population gets high enough, they'll get extra aggressive, which should keep their population down.  But being a civilization of a sort, you'd still be able to have relations with them.  Possibly even friendly ones.  Possibly trading, and such.