Topic: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist (Read 126003 times)

NW_Kohaku · « **Reply #270 on:** February 17, 2010, 03:14:34 am »

Ah, here was one that I wanted to mention, but forgot about due to spending a couple hours getting distracted...

The dwarfputer gearbox.

To start, I want to relate a possibly slightly rambling story from my childhood: When I was fairly young, and using the Apple IIe's that I played with during some summer school project or another, there was a game (I think called Odyssey) that involved trying to get your little person past various person-eating monsters. The monsters were basically unkillable, so you had to hide inside of robots to survive. The robots were basically the size of a cave inside, but had no internal circuitry, you had to scavenge AND gates or things to connect pressure sensors to locomotion so that the robot would be able to navigate the rooms where the monsters were skulking without you getting out. Also neat about this was that you could get your hands on a microchip with programmable inputs and outputs, for more advanced controls. You could carry this microchip inside the robot, which was the size of a full room inside, and the inside of the microchip was also the size of a full room. You could also carry the robot inside the microchip, for some truly escherian physics.

Regardless, this memory, and the various dwarfputer megaprojects have given me an idea for a very special kind of creation: a dwarfputer gearbox. Attempting to make a dwarfputer gearbox would open up it's own little "minigame" of sorts, where you would open up a new, empty zone that is a scaled-down view of the inside of this box. Inside this box, you can designate components to be built, like axles or gears or new things, like coils (that can act as capacitors for mechanical power) or marbles (a counting device). These components have to be specially made "micro" components. You might be able to make several pieces with a single stone, but they take MUCH longer to make, thanks to their increased level of precision.

Once designed, the gearbox then has its set of required components to be built. As a potential way of having this work, the more complex the dwarfputer gearbox's workings, the higher the resulting quality level must be (or else just plain it has to use components of no less than *quality* or the like), or else the whole thing just plain fails once constructed, and is worthless.

Just by the way that these interact with the rest of the Dwarf Fortress world, they can have no more than 6 (well, maybe 10) inputs or outputs maximum. (That is, it can interact with the tiles one up, down, north, east, south, and west from itself.) (Although hooking up tele-pressure-plate mechanics might make for infinite inputs...)

Inputs could come from a surface pressure plate (Is water pressing against it from one of the surface directions? Is someone stepping on top of it?), or from the power levels of incoming axles.

Outputs can be any of your standard floodgate opening or arena spiking or automated obsidian farming operations, but can also be an axle that could, hypothetically, power another dwarfputer gearbox. (And if you include the conveyor belt system ideas, plus make conveyor belts both have on/off switches controlled by whether they get rotational power, but also make them reversable when a level or plate or other input is given, you could start really getting complex...)

The actual insides would be something like an initially completely empty 1x1 embark point, except with walls and a ceiling, where you have to designate where all the parts and gears go.

Basically, the current dwarfputers are constrained largely by not only the massive amount of work it takes to make them, and their general uselessness, but also their incredible size, and the difficulty of computing using nothing but unpredictable flows of liquids that take up tremendous amounts of space (and framerate). By making this all take place within a single piece of furniture, where you are counting marbles that have dropped into a gearbox's counting tin, instead of a pressure plate on a pumped water system, you could start having truly sophisticated mechanics in a fraction of the space.

Also, you would obviously start needing the ability to name these things, or it would get hopelessly complex without pen-and-paper notations.

It would also be lovely thematically - it's computing, but using nothing but waterwheel power, stone gears, marbles, and strings. There has been some argument in this thread about how, while some ancients may have built complex machines with simple parts, things like steam engines are not thematically appropriate to dwarves. Thing is, however, the ancients did mechanize their temples or build incredibly complex clocks and calendars with impressive machines powered solely by the steady flow of water, even if they were only found in the hometowns of the very best inventors of the ancient world, and not in widespread use. This is exactly what these dwarfputer gearboxes would be, however, rare novelties, not the basis of an entire technological tree, so the flavor should still be that of the ancient, pre-industrial world, but could still showcase the technical sophistication of the dwarves.

The Architect · « **Reply #271 on:** February 17, 2010, 04:02:22 am »

While I only read a little of your post, I think I can say that what we really need is the ability to create our own devices either within the game or within the RAWs. I very much don't like the idea of a minigame as you posted it, but rather than troll with objections I'll just give my vision of it.

I think a device should consist of a series of input, delay, output, power requirement, and possibly power storage options. So if you wanted a device that needed 3 lever-pull inputs, 2 pressure plate hits and a flood level of 3 to activate, then in turn would activate 2 other devices, you could do it. If you had even more vision, you might require it to use 500 power/frame units or a constant power input of 200 to activate. Further, it could store 1000 power/frame units, which would be input by activating a gear connecting to a power source of 100 over 10 frames. Thus, you see, it would activate twice before needing to be reset. It could work instantly, or have a delay of 10 frames (or whatever you want, of course).

I think that would be the ultimate expression of dwarfputing. It would make absolutely anything possible, and/or/yes/no/multiple and to what effect. It would be possible to make each component as simple or complex as you like (a single yes/no function, or a plethora of effects). Everything has limits, of course; you'd have to have minimum/maximum values for every option in order to program it into DF.

It would also satisfy my own personal crusade to have player-set delays, and the endless requests for power integration with trap mechanics.

Andeerz · « **Reply #272 on:** February 17, 2010, 04:11:53 am »

Again, Architect, I find myself very much liking your suggestions. :3

The Architect · « **Reply #273 on:** February 17, 2010, 04:14:21 am »

Quote from: Andeerz on February 17, 2010, 04:11:53 am

Again, Architect, I find myself very much liking your suggestions. :3

Woot for polite compliments! Thank you. If other people like it then please speak up, and I can edit it to send off to Toady. He is very good about reading his personal mail, but I wouldn't want to bother him with an idea that isn't widely approved and desired.

jokermatt999 · « **Reply #274 on:** February 17, 2010, 07:58:13 am »

Quote from: The Architect on February 17, 2010, 04:14:21 am

Quote from: Andeerz on February 17, 2010, 04:11:53 am
Again, Architect, I find myself very much liking your suggestions. :3

Woot for polite compliments! Thank you. If other people like it then please speak up, and I can edit it to send off to Toady. He is very good about reading his personal mail, but I wouldn't want to bother him with an idea that isn't widely approved and desired.

He said he was going to go through this thread in the latest DF talk, so email may not be necessary.

NW_Kohaku · « **Reply #275 on:** February 17, 2010, 11:23:28 am »

Architecht: I hardly consider it trolling to disagree... (It makes you my personal enemy forever, may the rivers run red with your infidel blood, but it doesn't make you a troll.)

I simply think it is more fun (and potentially Fun) to deal with the actual schematic of the machine you are building. Otherwise, what you are talking about is essentially the same as what I was suggesting, although I would prefer the gearbox require an outside powersource to wind its coils for stored power, rather than having to get a dwarf to come by and actually turn a key to make the spike hall activate.

That way, instead of having to send a dwarf to repeatedly crank something, a single lever flip would engage/disengage the power to the dwarfputer gearbox, which would be set to continuously alternate between sending "on" and "off" signals to the spike traps. (Better still if the triggering mechanism is not a lever, but a pressure plate that the enemies trip, themselves.)

The Architect · « **Reply #276 on:** February 17, 2010, 05:31:38 pm »

*just fixed this message*

Quote from: NW_Kohaku on February 17, 2010, 11:23:28 am

Architecht: I hardly consider it trolling to disagree... (It makes you my personal enemy forever, may the rivers run red with your infidel blood, but it doesn't make you a troll.)

I have found that I can never underestimate the likelihood of strangers on this forum taking any disagreement or indeed overtly helpful statement as an example of trolling and a blatant insult to their personal intelligence. I can't tell you how many people have tried to pick a fight with me in the past 3 days on this forum for suggesting solutions to their problems. I now post a disclaimer with every single response I write.

Quote

what you are talking about is essentially the same as what I was suggesting,

Yep, similar function, but I think with even more possible uses, and definitely with less hassle to both Toady and the players.

Quote

although I would prefer the gearbox require an outside powersource to wind its coils for stored power, rather than having to get a dwarf to come by and actually turn a key to make the spike hall activate.

That way, instead of having to send a dwarf to repeatedly crank something, a single lever flip would engage/disengage the power to the dwarfputer gearbox,

I'd encourage you to review this:

Quote from: The Architect on February 17, 2010, 04:02:22 am

I think a device should consist of a series of input, delay, output, power requirement, and possibly power storage options. ...Further, it could store 1000 power/frame units, which would be input by activating a gear connecting to a power source of 100 over 10 frames.

Quote from: Kohaku

which would be set to continuously alternate between sending "on" and "off" signals to the spike traps. (Better still if the triggering mechanism is not a lever, but a pressure plate that the enemies trip, themselves.)

All input options are available already in the suggestion, but I think an automatic repeater would be a good addition. So it would repeat so long as it had enough stored power or enough of a power source to do so. Think of it in terms of connecting a waterwheel to a series of counterweights, which would store its energy over time. This way even a small stream could power your field of spike traps if it's been "charging" for a long time. Alternately, you could have a dozen waterwheels hooked up to provide enough direct power at any time.

NW_Kohaku · « **Reply #277 on:** February 17, 2010, 08:53:44 pm »

Quote

All input options are available already in the suggestion, but I think an automatic repeater would be a good addition. So it would repeat so long as it had enough stored power or enough of a power source to do so. Think of it in terms of connecting a waterwheel to a series of counterweights, which would store its energy over time. This way even a small stream could power your field of spike traps if it's been "charging" for a long time. Alternately, you could have a dozen waterwheels hooked up to provide enough direct power at any time.

Well, what I was suggesting, though, was not to simply have a menu that says "automatic repeat", but rather, to let a player build a system that would automatically alternate.

When you look at what we have now, people can build water-based "dwarfputers" that can create alternating actions simply by using a pump to drop water over a wall, triggering a pressure plate, which will flow downhill (preferably back to its source), and can be set up to hit another pressure plate or two on the way back down. This, however, requires a waterworks and a large amount of space and preplanning, as well as processor power for the way that water flow is calculated, as compared to just getting your Duchess Consort to flip a lever on repeat until you feel like letting him go.

The idea of making a player-designed gearbox is that you get to keep the satisfaction of building a mechanical device, rather than simply having a function designated, without an aquaduct and multi-floor construction that will take up a large chunk of space, framerate (for the moving water), and excavation time.

Quote

Yep, similar function, but I think with even more possible uses, and definitely with less hassle to both Toady and the players.

Holding off the question of how, exactly, giving players full customization would reduce the number of possible functions... I think the difference here is that you see designing your mechanism as a "hassle" for the player... but since there is really no need to make a dwarfputer in the first place, I doubt anyone would even be interested in a dwarfputer if they were not interested in the notion of designing something themselves.

I want to play with gears and dwarven XOR gates because I think it's fun to think in terms of designing a (superfluous) water-flow and gear-based "circuit", not because I consider it a chore to get some other, greater purpose achieved.

----

Also, since I didn't really go into it before...

I've been thinking about its benefits as a way to save processor power when using a gearbox.

The idea, while it would require some programming work on Toady's part, would preferably give a player a chance to produce a "black box" - where you can fiddle around with all the inputs and outputs, and then, when you close it, all the combinations of inputs are calculated, and its outputs are fixed. (This is why I was talking about using "marbles" instead of just smaller water flows, it would be using a much less processor-hogging set of mechanics.) In this respect, once constructed, it might be similar to what you were talking about, but with the greatly added benefit of letting players actually design their own contraptions.

RAM · « **Reply #278 on:** February 17, 2010, 09:08:25 pm »

Quote from: The Architect on February 17, 2010, 05:31:38 pm

This way even a small stream could power your field of spike traps if it's been "charging" for a long time

Brilliant! I suspect that many people feel that waterwheels are too powerful, this would allow waterwheels to be dramatically reduced without reducing the mechanisms that could be powered by them. It would also make power a valuable resource that could be put under pressure when the goblins tear down your surface power generators.

The Architect · « **Reply #279 on:** February 17, 2010, 10:50:21 pm »

Sorry, this post needed a ton of work. Just fixed it, now it's readable and actually makes sense. Sorry for the numerous code mistakes. My only excuse is that it was way too late to be posting.

Quote from: The Architect on February 17, 2010, 05:31:38 pm

^^^ If you were wondering what the heck it was supposed to say/mean, look here ^^^

Kat · « **Reply #280 on:** February 27, 2010, 10:13:07 am »

for things that consume power, I think it might be nice to have the mechanised carpentry shop, and mechanised mason's workshop.

e.g. mechanism+serrated disc+blocks to form a mechanised workshop.

perhaps have a limited selection of items, to make the non-mechanised workshops still have a purpose.

Or, alternately, might help with storage as well.

Saw Logs into Planks which could fit in bins like bars of metal do. Carpentry and woodcrafts can use Logs or Planks as necessary.
Saw raw stone into Blocks, which can still then be used in some masonry and stonecrafts. and also fit in bins.

Then you can use bins to reduce the amount of space needed for storage.

And a Horse Pump, or something, using a horse or other work animal instead of a dwarf to run a pump, and to run things like millstones, or workshops.

Gazz · « **Reply #281 on:** February 28, 2010, 04:06:18 pm »

If Granite26 happens to be around... this item should be included under

Code: [Select]

Class A:  New Systems

[url=http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=50185]Hydraulics[/url]

It belongs to the mechanics arc but doesn't really fit in another sub-category.

immibis · « **Reply #282 on:** March 15, 2010, 01:53:13 am »

Spoiler: My opinion (click to show/hide)

Mr. Penguin · « **Reply #283 on:** March 15, 2010, 05:36:43 pm »

I <3 this thread.

Uristocrat · « **Reply #284 on:** April 03, 2010, 05:23:26 am »

Man, I'm new to this and I was thinking of things I wish they would add. I see the "check to see if someone else has already suggested your idea" and... sure enough, they're all here.

So I'll contribute some proposed mechanics, instead.

Rolling boulder: a 3x3 machine, drops boulders through a down ramp in the center tile. Reloaded by dwarves. Boulders are made either by smoothing natural boulders, or from stone blocks by a mason. Like other things, they have a "direction" they fire in (imagine the ramp beneath them as being roughly cone-shaped).

Mister: a 3x3 machine, filled through the center tile, one z-level up (it creates a 'floor grate' on the level above, through which liquids enter it). You can enable/disable each direction: north, east, west, south and down (but only if you built a floor grate below it before making this thing). It's gravity powered and shoots out whatever liquid drops into it in a cone shaped emission (with further tiles being less common). If you make a magma-safe version, it can be Fun.

Powered carts: Bins with a mechanism attached. Lower the weight of the objects inside for easier hauling.

Now, how would I combine these? Other than the obvious magma + x == fun (if they ever make these, a flamethrower above the fortress entrance can be considered a mandate), I had a good laugh imagining a "dwarven juicer" like this:

Z4 [Rolling Boulder Trap] [Pit for dropping monsters]
Z3 [Long ramp down] [trigger for boulder trap -- or trigger one manually]
Z2 [Floor grate]
Z1 [Mister that sprays blood from whatever you dropped in there]

Intimidate your enemies! (And your friends...)

News:

Author Topic: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist (Read 126003 times)

NW_Kohaku

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

The Architect

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

Andeerz

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

The Architect

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

jokermatt999

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

NW_Kohaku

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

The Architect

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

NW_Kohaku

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

RAM

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

The Architect

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

Kat

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

Gazz

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

immibis

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

Mr. Penguin

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist

Uristocrat

Re: Additional Mechanics/Traps Wishlist