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[Mohreb el Yasim]

they do if something is not atached to something in the one of the 6 directions around it (N W S E up down)

[hexrei]

Ah, ok. But rooms can be as big as you want now, no supports every X squares required?

[Christes]

exactly.  Support are really only useful now for holding off cave-ins until other dwarves are away.

[hexrei]

Thanks!

[Haven]

Hm... Despite never learning about that rule, I find my forts are entirely 7x7 rule compliant. Strange.

[autophage]

It's also funny that buildings can have impossibly large overhangs and not risk falling over.  I really like my mushroom-shaped buildings, but a 3x3 tower fifteen z-levels high couldn't by any stretch of the imagination support a 50x50 level, certainly not using medieval architecture and being built out of chalk.

[1138]

I am not at all opposed to the 7x7 rule (or something similar that takes 3d into account) being reimplemented. I only ask that the key commands are changed so that Shift+arrow key jumps seven spaces instead of eleven.

[Grand_Marquis]

...or it could just be changed to an 11x11 rule

[kaypy]

My tunnels are pretty 7x7 compliant. Above ground.... you may need a hardhat.  I do like the idea of some sort of a risk of collapse, although building insane monuments should still be possible somehow (some sort of reinforcing procedure maybe?)

[Granite26]

It'd be night impossible to make anything truly grand with such limitations

IMHO, what makes the stuff truly grand is the engineering required to design it... otherwise, it's just clicking tiles and waiting...

As for the cave-ins, there's quite a few threads over in suggestions about cave-ins, bringing them back, and making them more interesting (different sizes for different stones, z level behaviour, etc.

[Gnomechomsky]

As for the cave-ins, there's quite a few threads over in suggestions about cave-ins, bringing them back, and making them more interesting (different sizes for different stones, z level behaviour, etc.

I think something that complex would be too much trouble to keep track of.  "Don't build bigger than 7x7" is just about perfect: it's easy to avoid cave-ins while paying attention, but if you're not careful while digging out mineral veins, you're in trouble.  I'd hate to have to inspect the ceiling of every room I plan to build, not to mention the fact that you don't know what stone is where before you start digging.

Of course, the 7x7 thing doesn't encompass all the 3D possibilities, which I'd guess is why it's not in the current version.  I don't know what could replace it.

[Grand_Marquis]

Well I like the idea of oversize rooms having foundations that weaken over time.  That way, when you get into the danger zone where dwarfs really start to notice the sagging, you'll get a warning.  That way you can either be industrious with supports from the get-go, adhere to some sort of size rule, or deal with it on a case-by-case basis as the problem arises.  You get rewarded for keeping rooms small by never having to worry about them, but the option to make gargantuan rooms is still there, as long as you're prepared to keep an eye on them.

Though what would be really cool is if Toady implemented a way to create vaulted ceilings somehow.  Then you could semi-realistically make all sorts of sizes without worrying about cave-ins.

[Osmosis Jones]

At first, I was going to say we should replace the 7*7 system completely, but I got to thinking and realised the 7*7 system could quite easily incorporate vaulting and arching in a 3D system. In fact, for better realism, I feel it should be shrunk down to a 5*5 system.

If you make it so that each tile will collapse if there isn't one connected supporting tile below within the required distance, you can use reversed pyramids and similar shapes to concentrate the weight onto a central pillar. e.g

Code: [Select]

############                                ###########XX
#######                                     #####
###                                         ##
##                                          ##
##                                          ##
## works because no tiles are more          ##   X's will collapse because they are more than five (just
## than 4 from a lower supporting           ##   an example number) from a connected lower tile
## tile.                                    ##

Further, the tiles would have to be connected horizontally, so something like this would result in a collapse

Code: [Select]

#############
#### XXX ####
##         ##
##         ##
##         ##
Where the X's will collapse because there are no connected supporting blocks within say 5 squares, despite there being unconnected tiles below and within a couple of tiles.

Best of all, you could probably do this with a modification of the pathfinding code already used for the dwarves; it currently works by labelling all areas a dwarf can get to as one zone, than running a shortest path algorithm. For the cavein, replace pathable tiles with wall tiles on the same level, and trigger a collapse if the shortest path algorithm returns a path that is beyond the cavein distance.

[mainiac]

What good would a space elevator do anyway? Our civilization wouldn't use one yet to the capacity that would justify 3 trillion dollars. At least the war gets back the gain. The money goes to build weapons, which improves the economy of the areas where the weapons manufactures are at. Then there is the gain of the plundered resources...

A single space elevator offers you enough cheap, clean solar power to fulfill every energy need of the human race many times over.  Solar panels would be so much more efficient in space that it would easily outperform fossil fuels and if they were in space they would last.  Power could be transmitted anywhere on the earth's surface via microwaves, greatly reducing the need for infastructure and redundency.

Plus, once you're in space you can start cheaply harvesting asteroids to build space satilite habitats along the thoughts of the great O'Niel.  Cruising around the solar system is easy once you're out of the atmosphere and gravity well of earth.  Built in zero-g, your space stantions, would be much cheaper places to perform any industrial process, including satilite building, then earth.  Centripital force easily allows for earthlike gravity and their engineered and controled design could be made to have a perfect climate and ecosystem.

All this could be done with existing technology.  No sci-fi warp engines or fancy new materials (save the space elevator itself), just rockets and steel.  There's enough materials in the asteroid belt alone to make 3,000 earth's worth of space station habitat and enough sunlight to power more stations then that.  Exponetial growth tells us that if stations are devoting a substantial fraction of their efforts to building new stations, we could have enough stations to house the entire human race within a hundred years of a 10k person station being built.

So, trading from one Earth to 3,000 Edens.  Enough resources to end every social ill.  An end to wars over resource scarcity.  That's what a space elevator will give you.

War might offer economic stimulus but spending such money on social projects or space elevators would offer the same economic stimulus, and have actually directly improved your populations welfare.  Plus the economic consequences of deficit spending can outwiegh any stimulus.  The motivations for war are more psycological and political then economic.



But... pillars and cave ins, I'd say put them back in eventually but don't make it a priority.  There's plenty of cooler stuff to do first.

[JujuBubu]

What good would a space elevator do anyway? Our civilization wouldn't use one yet to the capacity that would justify 3 trillion dollars. At least the war gets back the gain. The money goes to build weapons, which improves the economy of the areas where the weapons manufactures are at. Then there is the gain of the plundered resources...

A single space elevator offers you enough cheap, clean solar power to fulfill every energy need of the human race many times over.  Solar panels would be so much more efficient in space that it would easily outperform fossil fuels and if they were in space they would last.  Power could be transmitted anywhere on the earth's surface via microwaves, greatly reducing the need for infastructure and redundency.

Plus, once you're in space you can start cheaply harvesting asteroids to build space satilite habitats along the thoughts of the great O'Niel.  Cruising around the solar system is easy once you're out of the atmosphere and gravity well of earth.  Built in zero-g, your space stantions, would be much cheaper places to perform any industrial process, including satilite building, then earth.  Centripital force easily allows for earthlike gravity and their engineered and controled design could be made to have a perfect climate and ecosystem.

All this could be done with existing technology.  No sci-fi warp engines or fancy new materials (save the space elevator itself), just rockets and steel.  There's enough materials in the asteroid belt alone to make 3,000 earth's worth of space station habitat and enough sunlight to power more stations then that.  Exponetial growth tells us that if stations are devoting a substantial fraction of their efforts to building new stations, we could have enough stations to house the entire human race within a hundred years of a 10k person station being built.

So, trading from one Earth to 3,000 Edens.  Enough resources to end every social ill.  An end to wars over resource scarcity.  That's what a space elevator will give you.

War might offer economic stimulus but spending such money on social projects or space elevators would offer the same economic stimulus, and have actually directly improved your populations welfare.  Plus the economic consequences of deficit spending can outwiegh any stimulus.  The motivations for war are more psycological and political then economic.



But... pillars and cave ins, I'd say put them back in eventually but don't make it a priority.  There's plenty of cooler stuff to do first.

You are working under the pretense, that politicians would think of a longtime gain, and not until the next voting period and who paid their campaing. And that the human race does not consist of murderous a-holes whose only goal in life is to be richer and richer to buy out their insecurities, while keeping the gap between rich and poor as big as possible.
Why managers world-wide corporates whose ressources are beyound some smaller countries and who are in for the long run ( at least longer as the average politician ) think the same way is beyond me

for everything else .. you are absolutely right, and I think the same way.

Except for cave-ins .. those are fun and would slow down the process from outback-dwellers to royal residence in less then five years