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For !

Against !

[Luke_Prowler]

I vote yes, but I think some other stuff should be done first.

[LegacyCWAL]

I would be for it IF it was done well.  However, Serg said it well:  if you think the AI has problems now, imagine how bad they would be trying to navigate stuff that winds up destroying even experienced players' fortresses.

So for now, I vote no.

[SirHoneyBadger]

By the way, I'd like to give my support to the "Nydus Canal" idea above. I think that's the ideal solution for animals/monsters, and for regular (aka fast and ugly) sapper crews, but that it should be the poor cousin of making real tunnels. It should only last for a certain amount of time before it automatically caves in, and it should be 1 direction only: In or out.

Also, creatures (or atleast intelligent humanoids) emerging from such a canal should really have some sort of short duration combat penalty, I think, from disorientation, having grime in their eyes, cramped quarters, etc.

[bjlong]

This might have to move to a seperate thread, but if we want to make this more general, we could just say that tunneling has a drastically higher rate of caving in, and always have something like "loose dirt" or "loose rock" filling from 1/7 to 4/7 of the tile.

[Neonivek]

My vote is yes.

[Tormy]

Uh, tormy, not to step on the toes of the man who originally suggested tunneling... but mining/sapping is actually a very dangerous business. It requires strength, time, trigonometry (so's you know how far to go once you've surveyed topside), and bracing the tunnels when you go in. Collapses -do- happen, but that's not really represented to the most realistic point in the game- nor bracing the walls and floors of the tunnels. There's five-hundred tons of earth above a mined out tunnel deep underground. You think tunnels stay up by themselves? Tunneling/mining takes a lot of knowledge, and I'd say what most think of as "digging some holes" is more complicated than building a siege engine. Mainly because there isn't a risk of a part of the effing world collapsing on top of you.

Doesn't mean I don't want this included! If I can do it, I expect the game to be able to do it as well. Just... I felt for some reason to make miners and surveyors appear as intelligent as they are. And balls across the walls tough. It takes some serious cojones to mine. There's rather a lot that can go wrong, even when there isn't ravenous antmen on the other side of that tunnel, ready to strip the flesh from your bones.

Yes I know, but right now, it's absolutely unrealistic in Fortress mode also, agreed? [We don't even have cave-ins. If it's gonna be realistic, it must be material dependant.]. So, if the system will be changed one day, dwarves should not skyrocketing through loose materials without risking the chance of random cave-ins for example. They must spend some time with reinforcing the tunnels/rooms also. Everything must be balanced out. Digging is "easymode" right now. 

[Neonivek]

Kinda odd...

We have people saying No because it cannot be done sanely right now
and
We have people saying No because it can never be done sanely

Personally I think that the vote has to be a bit more concise like this

Vote Yes if you think tunneler units will ever be a good idea!
Vote No if you think Tunneler units are a bad idea and will never be anything but a bad idea.

[Timst]

Neonivek is right, but it's sure that the concept, if accepted, need to be worked in-proof.

Well, after 24 hours of voting, there's about 73 % of FOR and 27 % of AGAINST, and 67 users have voted.
Short summary of what I often saw (but I didn't proofreaded, so if someone spammed his idea, it's possible that I think that many people proposed it) :

- A lot of people agree on the fact that ennemy tunnelers should be slower that dwarves at digging.
- Some people thinks that digging should be the last measure of an invading army.
- Many users said that other siege devices (such as catapults or battering ram) should be implemented first.
- People seem to agree that caveins are a prerequisite for tunneller, for difficulty balance or realism reasons.

[SirHoneyBadger]

The reason that I don't think it should be a last resort, is because if an option has a reasonable chance of working-and saving a lot of lives and resources in the process-then it should be implemented when the time is right, not when half your army is annihilated.

That's just common sense.

[Neonivek]

That and intelligent Fortress design should include the possibility of tunnelers if they are included. So having a few squads circle a barrier you put around your underground fortress on each level would be a good idea.

As well putting up supports to prevent accidental cave-ins incase of tunnelers, earthquakes, and other such events would become commonplace.

It only because a "Trump everything" Card when two things happen
1) Non-tunneling Sieges are otherwise impossible
2) When the player doesn't plan for Tunnelers.

Not planning for tunnels should be just as deadly as not planning for normal sieges. You don't say "Not fair" you say "What was I thinking?"

[Tormy]

The reason that I don't think it should be a last resort, is because if an option has a reasonable chance of working-and saving a lot of lives and resources in the process-then it should be implemented when the time is right, not when half your army is annihilated.

That's just common sense.

This is exactly what I was talking about. 

[SirHoneyBadger]

Well then, please consider me a supporter of your idea, rather than a userper 

[LegoLord]

- A lot of people agree on the fact that ennemy tunnelers should be slower that dwarves at digging.
- Some people thinks that digging should be the last measure of an invading army.
- Many users said that other siege devices (such as catapults or battering ram) should be implemented first.
- People seem to agree that caveins are a prerequisite for tunneller, for difficulty balance or realism reasons.

I fully agree with this, but add that there should be an init.txt option.

[Belteshazzar]

It occurs to me that when we get the ability to play other races (without modding) dwarves will be besieging us and it would be very dwarfy of them to send a platoon of miners armed with picks to undermine our Dark Towers or channel carp water through our castles. I grant that Dwarves are simply going to be the fastest diggers (aside from the odd megabeast, mages or gods) simply by merit of skill, practice, and having the largest pool of practiced stoneworkers.

Invading non-dwaves are probably at most going to be dabbling or proficient with very few reaching the proper skill of a dedicated dwarvenly miner.

[Pilsu]

Advanced ability? What? So digging out a tunnel requires more knowledge than constructing a catapult you say?  Please...

Spoken like someone who hasn't dug as much as a ditch in his entire life, let alone hacked tunnels into bedrock