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[Othob Rithol]

I tinkered a bit with the ventilation entry to reflect recent posts. I also added a Reason to Dig Deeper, as well as fixed a number of spelling errors.


I think ventilation might be a bit out of the original topic (I wanted to avoid game mechanics) but it really does fit.

I dunno about trogs being boat people. 1: We don't have boats. 2: They are traditionally a chasm creature.

 

[Puzzlemaker]

Thinking about it, Kobolds might fit into the Olmen/Magmamen/whatevermen catagory... should they be treated the same as them, but simply be able to survive in more environments, or what?

[isitanos]

Great thread: thanks for maintaining it. The list in the OP is really becoming an excellent collection of ideas.

[Othob Rithol]

Thinking about it, Kobolds might fit into the Olmen/Magmamen/whatevermen catagory... should they be treated the same as them, but simply be able to survive in more environments, or what?

I don't follow you. Kobolds are currently far more advanced than any ____man race.

On the subject of housekeeping: In a week or so I am going to convert this into a poll (so we can get an idea of which features are more popular.) Most of my blurbs are intentionally vague for brevity. If anyone thinks they can write up a short (4-5 forum line paragraph) description of any of these that is better, feel free to post it. Barring objections it will replace what I wrote. Only one real rule here: suggest, don't demand. It could, not should. It might, not must.

I'm going to flesh out ratmen based on the suggestions made. I'm also adding a desire I had earlier tonight to have dirt inside a cavern. The two have a bit of synergy (since if ratmen are subterranean and burrow in dirt, having dirt in caverns makes a natural habitat)

[Osmosis Jones]

How about Oil?
(I'm by no means claiming this as my idea, but I was just looking through the list, and noticed it was missing).
 
It ties in well with the natural gas suggestion, and you can have it either as an open, filled cavern (a la underground pool) or a more realistic aquifer style thing (eg rock tile that is also 7/7). This of course then leads on to a variety of oil based exploits, such as slippery or flaming hallways etc, as well as an additional use for the alchemist's lab (extracting paraffin and other useful compounds from the crude for example).

[Quift]

Nice thread, many of these suggestions are great.

I specially like the 3D terrain (bubbled of water and air, underground rivers with banks, stone formations in 3D etc), the antmen suggestion and burrowing.

about airflow. wouldn't the easiest way to do it be to dig a shaft straight down to make a low placed tile "outside", and either count 8 squares from there, or place a fan (must be inside, bordering on "outside" and be mechanised), which increases the number to 16.

so 1 shaft in the middle of the fort ventilates a circle around it with a diameter of 32. A mining shaft would then go rather straight down as this is the easiest to set up (just add fans on every level and increase power) instead of being across the entire map, mining out every single tile in the mountain. This would surely also help in making engineers more important in any mining operations.

It might be buggy if this doesn't take built walls and enclosures into account but I could live with that. One would also have to assign all features as automatically "vented" so avoid creatures in them suffocating to death.

and my own suggestion:
I would like soil tiles to randomly "caving/filling up". Occasionally a tile dug out of soil would "cave in" and the tile become soil again. this does not affect tiles above as in a normal cave in. If creatures burrow in soil, golbins dig through it it would "clean" the tunnels after a while, and rooms in soil would have to be redug every one and then or walled and floored properly.

[zagibu]

I would like soil tiles to randomly "caving/filling up". Occasionally a tile dug out of soil would "cave in" and the tile become soil again. this does not affect tiles above as in a normal cave in. If creatures burrow in soil, golbins dig through it it would "clean" the tunnels after a while, and rooms in soil would have to be redug every one and then or walled and floored properly.

Yes, some sort of "collapse tunnel" option should definetely go in, if burrowing is implemented for other creatures.
The auto-collapsing soil is a good idea, as well.

[Puzzlemaker]

Thinking about it, Kobolds might fit into the Olmen/Magmamen/whatevermen catagory... should they be treated the same as them, but simply be able to survive in more environments, or what?

I don't follow you. Kobolds are currently far more advanced than any ____man race.

If some of these changes happen, that may not continue to be the case... especially if ___man races get more organized, like ant men.

[Othob Rithol]

and my own suggestion:
I would like soil tiles to randomly "caving/filling up". Occasionally a tile dug out of soil would "cave in" and the tile become soil again. this does not affect tiles above as in a normal cave in. If creatures burrow in soil, golbins dig through it it would "clean" the tunnels after a while, and rooms in soil would have to be redug every one and then or walled and floored properly.

Excellent addition...I'll add that one in immediately. The collapse should come from the walls, not from the ceiling. That way if you buttress up the walls in say, a dirt farm room, the area will remain intact.

Your thoughts on ventilation are also a good turn. Perhaps you and zagibu could discuss it a bit and get us a really elegant improvement.

How about Oil?

I'll also add in an oil entry, but don't expect much... we need to flesh it out a bit. Take a look at what I write and see if you can improve on it.

Thinking about it, Kobolds might fit into the Olmen/Magmamen/whatevermen catagory... should they be treated the same as them, but simply be able to survive in more environments, or what?

I don't follow you. Kobolds are currently far more advanced than any ____man race.

If some of these changes happen, that may not continue to be the case... especially if ___man races get more organized, like ant men.

I don't play adventure mode much, and have never found a kobold lair. I have always envisioned them as dirty little scavengers, living in ruins, caves, and any other abandoned shelter. i also get the impression (due to there lack of presence in chasms) that they are mostly a surface race. I would not put it past them to use a cavern system to sneak in, however. Do you have any specific ideas?

EDIT: additions done. It is starting to get a little unwieldy, and connected ideas are now scattered. I'm thinking I will need to organize it a bit. I'm thinking of removing the links section (all of them are already connected to their entries via the * links. Maybe separate out the water and dirt suggestions into their own categories like I did with creatures.

[DwarfMan69]

and my own suggestion:
I would like soil tiles to randomly "caving/filling up". Occasionally a tile dug out of soil would "cave in" and the tile become soil again. this does not affect tiles above as in a normal cave in. If creatures burrow in soil, golbins dig through it it would "clean" the tunnels after a while, and rooms in soil would have to be redug every one and then or walled and floored properly.

Just to let you know, soil below 1 z-level is harder than you might think. While the topsoil and about 10 feet below might do this, soil deeper than that is not that weak enough to cave-in after a year.

[Othob Rithol]

It would really depend  on the soil. Sandy soil can cave in from very deep depths (IE the sinkhole that ate our garage when I lived in Florida). Thicker soil, particularly clay, has incredible resilience, and is only likely to collapse with heavy rain.

But....that is the real world. In a game like this we need to juggle the realism vs playability.

If we add burrowing creatures in without some mechanism to refill their tunnels, we end up with a swiss cheese play area.

[Granite26]

I dunno, I'm going to stick with "if it's big enough to make a tunnel in the first place (antmen) make it as permenant as dwarfs.  If it's not (badgers), don't display it or track it in the first place"

Think a 'burrows' tag that moves through dirt for free.

[Quift]

Excellent addition...I'll add that one in immediately. The collapse should come from the walls, not from the ceiling. That way if you buttress up the walls in say, a dirt farm room, the area will remain intact.

Your thoughts on ventilation are also a good turn. Perhaps you and zagibu could discuss it a bit and get us a really elegant improvement.

Thank you,

about the collapsing dirt, I would say that it not only represent a standard cave in, as much as the area becoming useless and unpassable. if you dig out a tunnel in soil, no matter what kind, without setting upp supports etc it would probably fill up quite slowly due to rain, moisture filling it up etc. since a gradual decline would be hard to code the random tiles option coild simulate it more easily.

On the air vents. I'm quite happy with the idea as I presented it. I know that air-flows would be more fun for the more challenge seeking players, but this would be complicated enough. It would also probably indirecly lead players to build their entire forts diffently. More vertically with mining operations more restricted to directly under the fort. Additional mining outside the vented perimeter of the fort would force chasms to be opened, and quite significant engingeering done as this is. All in all it would balance fort expansion quite a bit.

Real flows on the other hand would be nightmarish not only to encode, but the amount of calculation needed to be done would break the sanity of any players with the arrival of the first immigrants.

[Sprout]

No picture this time, but what if you breached an underground GCS webnestthing. There could be little baby spiders running around everywhere, and a massive Broodmother watching over them on a massive web.

Or even more fun, have INTELLEGENT giant cave spiders that capture and breed dwarves for food.

I'm quite insane.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I really love some of these ideas. Particularly underground nests, fossil zombies, and endolithic monsters.  They would balance out how easy it is to get Miners to legendary status and insure that you can't get away with a wall and some Marksdorfs for military.

It also opens up avenues for new pets.  Imagine encountering a nest of Rock Hounds.  Slay the adults and you can adopt/train the puppies. These could have special properties like eating rocks you don't want. Or maybe Iron Hounds, immune to magma.

You could also have hidden nests for menacing water critters located under rivers. Be careful where you dig, you'll awaken the !Omega Carp! or perhaps the !Mutant Lungfish!