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[Akjosch]

Hmm, could we have it so that they make a sort of "temporary tunnel" that reverts back to rock after a period of time?

I'd prefer a general ability to fill up spaces with sand/gravel (creating natural sand walls, on which stuff starts to grow normally after a while, and getting filled up from the "far end" if there is any to avoid too much micromanagement) and sand+stone (creating unsmoothed stone walls).

[Schaffer]

-For

With some conditons
1. no super strong tunnelers knocking on my back door without some kind of warning. Megabeast size creatures should have some sort of the ground is shaking alert prior to its entrance
2. Ability to patch the wall and re-engrave it
3. Some sort of option to turn it off

Personally i think swarms of creatures are preferable to megabeasts

[pbheadtemp]

Can there be a middle option?


I would have no issues with things digging around in the dirt layers.  dwarves should not be living here anyway. besides, it makes seiges more intresting... err, well, if you desided to farm in the soil layers.

digging in stone layers is a little less believable, and considerably more annoying as far as preety much everything.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Perhaps we can eventually get critters with differing tunneling abilities. Antmen might go right through soil, but be stopped by most or all stone, while some other beings could chew through softer stones but be confounded by granite.

That would actually make the game more interesting, as you'd want to consider whether or not to strike the earth in a soapstone area, that happens to have lots of gems, or hold out for diurite. Importing and cutting hard stone could then be a point of interest, as even manufactured walls would hold off such intruders, while still being susceptible to bronze colossi attack, and the like.

Eventually, ofcourse, you're going to want invulnerable metal walls. Considering that bronze is very tough, and doesn't corrode, it would make a fine material for this use, giving you a reason to still employ bronze in the late stages of the game. 

[Dutchling]

Only if we can revert the tunnel back to the original rock (so no wall)

[Solace]

Yeah, is suggested in either this or another thread, built tunnels, not dug tunnels. You could then "deconstruct" vermin-tunnels to repair your masterwork engraved wall.

On the flipside, maybe goblins could make more permanent tunnels, or some creatures could hollow out small, permanent dens.

And maybe your dwarves could make constructed tunnels for some sort of advantage/disadvantage situation? Possibly they'd be faster to make and would be closeable, but wouldn't give you ores (making mining much harder than constructing tunnels?) and might be more vulnerable to cave-ins.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Maybe dwarfs can get access to concrete? We've got plaster of paris now, so building plaster, and cement, aren't that far away.

[RAM]

Only if we can revert the tunnel back to the original rock (so no wall)

If you honestly feel that way then I suggest that you just turn tunnellers off in the configuration settings. It should certainly be possible to revert an area to unknown, it would be appropriate for large cave-ins and the like, but tunnelling is an attack on the very ground in which your fortress is built, of course it will degrade the quality of the walls, that is how you know that your fortress is legendary, because you can see the scars. Having tunnellers without tunnels would be like goblins without goblinite or HFS without HFS or animals without bones, if there is no evidence that something was there, then it may as well not have been...

[SirHoneyBadger]

Some very good points, RAM.

Although I do think it's important to have a variety of good-to-excellent methods in place for repairing the damage, and I agree that our dwarfs--undisputed masters of mining, masonry, and military that they are--should be able to restore a breach to a form more or less consistent with a "natural" wall. One of the reasons being that I'd like to see secret doors in the game, at some point in time.

[nil]

Some very good points, RAM.

Although I do think it's important to have a variety of good-to-excellent methods in place for repairing the damage, and I agree that our dwarfs--undisputed masters of mining, masonry, and military that they are--should be able to restore a breach to a form more or less consistent with a "natural" wall. One of the reasons being that I'd like to see secret doors in the game, at some point in time.

We should simply be able to engrave constructed walls.  We can already carve fortifications into them, and there's really no reason a dwarf can't scrawl graffiti on brick walls instead of smooth rock ones.

[SirHoneyBadger]

It would be nice if engravers had some special abilities. Maybe give them the ability to camoflage constructed walls and secret doors, with the level of craftsdwarfship representing how natural the construction looks? Camoflage engraving might even improve the strength of constructed walls, so that a masterpiece would be as strong as natural rock.

[noob]

cant we just have catapults and battering rams? i like my 30 fps as it is.

[Lungfish]

Dungeon Keeper had this, and I enjoyed the race to harden my cavern walls before the enemy could break into a sensitive area. Hardening walls should be a designation, or maybe wall reinforcements could be built by a mason. Given that the other civilizations in the game aren't really the digging and mining types, maybe this would only be an occasional special unit, maybe a returning snatched up dwarf, or maybe this would only come up when being seiged by a dwarven civilization.

In fact, this would be coolest if worrying about this kind of threat was the reason why getting into a war with another Dwarven civilization would be a threat as terrifying as it would be unusual. Digging without care of ventilation, lighting, or realistic cave-in physics must be a secret Dwarven skill or a magical aptitude.

Rarity removes the threat of having a normal amount of sieges turning the map into a swis-cheese pathfinding nightmare.

[Sabin Stargem]

I would like the ability to create metal walls and floors that are extremely resistant to tunneling.  Expensive, but probably worth it when the purple worm comes to play.

Having most creatures that do tunneling to have their creations reversible, for aesthetic and simplification purposes would also be good.

[SirHoneyBadger]

maybe a returning snatched up dwarf,

This, is brilliance.

If dwarfs are the only ones in the game who can tunnel through (hard) stone, in one fell swoop it both explains why goblin snatchers exist, and gives us a very strong mechanical reason to protect the children in our Fortress from being snatched. I admit I don't currently pay that much attention to goblin-snatchers, in the early portions of the game (overall Fortress survival already being a huge obstacle), but the risk of the kidnapped kids returning as sappers in a seige would force me to pay a lot more attention, because it then turns into an "overall Fortress survival" issue.

If these dwarfs (yes, mysteriously) only came from your Fortress, it would also shut up a lot of the tunneling detractors, because you'd only get tunneled if you're not doing your job.

Bitching because you can't be arsed to protect helpless children is a pretty weak argument, and makes the one bitching look bad, at the same time. 

Thanks, Lungfish!