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[madpeople]

sorry, i know a few of these have been suggested before (i did a search)

1'st
it would be very nice if it was possible to give names (or some form of associated text viewable from pressing k or q and moving over the building). mainly useful for levers, yes, i try to build them in places where its easy to remember what they do, but some times you just end up with a few next to each other, and if you return from a break from playing it can be hard to remember that the top lever does the pump not the flood gate etc

2nd
if a dwarf is digging a channel, and something is standing on top of the square it is digging, then it would be nice if it didn't complete digging that channel and went on to do another square and come back to it later. so annoying to have to channel 1 square at a time some times because they channel the square the other is standing on and they then get stuck in the channel / drown (yeah, you can ask them to dig their way out, but that can mess things up)
and you would think it isn't too hard to notice you're digging out the floor from under your friend, (they do notice they are trying to build a wall where something else is standing)

3rd
that they don't walk past the thing they are trying to do before starting it, a more specific example would be

code:

xxxxxxxx
x..aXb..  <-- way in
xxxxxxxx

x = wall
X = floodgate to be built

right now a dwarf will almost always
walk over b, through where they are going to build the flood gate, stop on a then build the flood gate, then be stuck.
right now I sometimes have to play about with suspending the construction so they walk to b then enable it again and hope they decide to continue form where they are (though they do sometimes walk back to a to carry on). why walk further to a when they are perfectly capable of doing it from b?

i've seen the same thing with doing constructions and digging channels
like if i want to make a pillar of rock

code:

xxxxxxxx
x......x
x.xxxx.x
x.xxxx.x
x.xxxx.x
x.xxxx.x
x......x
xxxxxxxx

x = floor
. = channel
they may get this far

code:

xxxxxxxx
x......x
x.xxxx.x
x.xxxaxb
x.xxxx.x
x.xxxx.x
x......x
xxxxxxxx

then to do the last bit
a dwarf will walk to a instead of stopping on b, then channel out the last bit and be stuck on the platform
so then to get him off, you build a floor

code:

xxxxxxxx
x......x
x.xxxx.x
x.xxxx.x
x.xxxx+x
x.xxxx.x
x......x
xxxxxxxx

+ = floor
he walks off, you de-construct the floor...

code:

xxxxxxxx
x......x
x.xxxx.x
x.xxxx.x
x.xxxa.b
x.xxxx.x
x......x
xxxxxxxx

the dwarf walked to a instead of de-constructing it from b and now we have a different dwarf stuck on the platform instead and a building material may be stuck at the bottom of the channel.
however, i have only noticed this behaviour with horizontal or vertical building, with diagonal building, they do stay on the correct side.

but it would save a lot of time and trouble (yeah, i could avoid it in some cases, but some times it is hard to avoid) if they wouldn't walk the extra distance and just stay on the side they came from.

maybe a traffic restriction which is "do not step on this area ever no matter what!" would be useful, so i could jute designate the side i don't want them to stand on as that

3rd
after several attacks i noticed that enemys just stand still if there is no way to get to your dwarfs. i simply lifted my entrance drawbridge and the huge goblin army just sat there getting shot by my siege engines until they left, but they could have easily walked closer and shot all my dwarfs who were outside but inside of the moat with their ranged weapons, but no, they just sat there because there was no path to my dwarfs, similar thing with a dragon that came
dragon came, one silly dwarf decided to ignore the stay indoors order,i shut the way in as it was close, dragon chased the dwarf, toasted him, then sat there with the ground all around on fire, then the dragon caught fire from the ground around it and died, dragons probably should be a little more resistant to fire given they breath it, and things should probably move away from tiles that are on fire.
so for suggestion 3, make things which can't find a direct path to their targets try and move as close as they can to try and use ranged weapons, but if there is no direct path and them or their friends are taking damage to move away.

4th
"all dwarfs stay indoors" etc
the "indoors" seems to actually mean "under ground"

i have some towers with siege engines in which are built outside, i've put floor over their tops so the areas with siege engines in are marked "light","inside" and "above ground"
but if i change it to anything other that "all dwarfs allowed outside" then my siege operators abandon their machines as they are in a place their not allowed and retreat underground, even though they were in an area marked "inside" and so is the way to where they are, its just that it is also marked "above ground"

it would be nice to allow them to be in their towers but not have everyone else wandering around outside not inside.
perhaps make the list
all dwarfs allowed outside
soldiers allowed outside others inside
all dwarfs inside
soldiers allowed inside others underground
all dwarfs underground

(again, a "do not ever stand on this area" traffic designation may be useful here)

this one may be a bug, but on the map i'm on, there is no river and my only source of water is an aquafier. I have wells, but i keep getting "xyz cancelled give water: no water source/collection zone", i tried designating water collection zones on land next to water (zone covering the land and the open space above the water), but the zone thing always says (0) (though the number for fishing increases from 0) next to water collection no matter where i put it (tried over channels, over murkey pools i filled up again with pumps and channels - i'm in a hot place and they keep evaporating).
[using un-modded 33g (i changes some things in the ini to show flow numbers and save seasonally etc, but nothing game mechanic changing) on a map generated with the previous version]

also, you don't seem to be able to build a downward staircase construction from above onto a already existing mined upward staircase

code:

z=0
ffffffff
f.>....f
f......f
f......f
f......f
ffffffff
> = to be constructed down stair
f = floor (natural)
. = open space
z= -1
xxxxxxxx
xf<ffffx
xffffffx
xffffffx
xffffffx
xxxxxxxx
x = wall

< = upward staircase previously carved (top down stair previously channelled away... why doesn't that remove the bottom part too, it does when you do it to solid wall)

i'm sure i had some other points/questions, but i can't think of them right now

...yeah, i know,
nice descriptive title..
(and yes, not everything is in the right place in the forums, sorry about that, thought it better to condense it all since i'm not sure if the things i thought may be bugs were etc.. bit of a long post though :/)

[ January 03, 2008: Message edited by: madpeople ]

[ January 03, 2008: Message edited by: madpeople ]

[ January 03, 2008: Message edited by: madpeople ]

[Draco18s]

#1: Requested repeatedly
#2: Implemented in 33f I believe
#3: Has to do with directional preferences and is considered a minor bug (dwarves prefer to build/dig from the West over any other direction, followed by E, N, S, NW, NE, SW, and finally, SE)

[Kagus]

You could try color-coding your levers.  Make them out of colorful rock types, and either leave it at that or coordinate them with what they effect.  Microcline blue lever -> Microcline blue floodgate for farming.  Bauxite red lever -> Bauxite red floodgate for fiery burning death.

[Nesoo]

quote:Originally posted by madpeople:
<STRONG>2nd
if a dwarf is digging a channel, and something is standing on top of the square it is digging, then it would be nice if it didn't complete digging that channel and went on to do another square and come back to it later. so annoying to have to channel 1 square at a time some times because they channel the square the other is standing on and they then get stuck in the channel / drown (yeah, you can ask them to dig their way out, but that can mess things up)
and you would think it isn't too hard to notice you're digging out the floor from under your friend, (they do notice they are trying to build a wall where something else is standing)</STRONG>

This should have been fixed in 33f. If it's still doing it, it's probably a bug. From the dev page:

quote:12/12/2007: Fixed laced typo, made engravings go away properly upon channel and other dig jobs, handled snow etc. versus construction removal, stopped cancelled smoothing jobs from undesignating tile, stopped dwarves from mining out/removing their own and each other's floor tiles, stopped burned corpses from dropping two skeletons, tweaked dwarf site entrances, made adv mode people talk about surrounding regions again, made adventure mode travel ambushes happen again

Which reminds me, I'd actually still like them to dig out from under themselves. Sometimes I want a pit without stairs in or next to it, and digging out their own floor tile is a good way to do it  

And mind editing that post to insert a few line breaks in that last line in the last code box? It runs waaaaaaay off the edge of the screen, making it hard to read the rest of your post.

[madpeople]

quote:Originally posted by Draco18s:
#1: Requested repeatedly

yeah, i found a thread in my searches, but it was very old, so i thought of mentioning it again
 

quote:
#2: Implemented in 33f I believe

ok, i must have missed that, though i think i made this world in 33f and it has happened on this one, maybe i will have to try again and see what happens. i may have made it on an earlier version and have been thinking of that

 

quote:#3: Has to do with directional preferences and is considered a minor bug (dwarves prefer to build/dig from the West over any other direction, followed by E, N, S, NW, NE, SW, and finally, SE)

 

quote:Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>You could try color-coding your levers.  Make them out of colorful rock types, and either leave it at that or coordinate them with what they effect.  Microcline blue lever -> Microcline blue floodgate for farming.  Bauxite red lever -> Bauxite red floodgate for fiery burning death.</STRONG>

might have a go at that, sounds pretty, but not the most ideal solution.

 

quote:Originally posted by Nesoo:
<STRONG>
And mind editing that post to insert a few line breaks in that last line in the last code box? It runs waaaaaaay off the edge of the screen, making it hard to read the rest of your post.</STRONG>

i moved it out of the code box

remembered another thing i was going to say, if there are multiple constructions/designations touching each other, they should choose to build the furthest accessible one

it would solve things like

quote:Originally posted by TheSilverHammer:
<STRONG>If you wish to micro making a wall at once, then you can get away with one stair, but once again, I am trying to get rid of that micro.

Lets say I have this designation:
o = built wall section
- = designated section
x = stair
D = Dwarf

    x
----------------------

What is likely to happen:
    x
---o----oD--------oooo

Now if I place them one at a time and wait for them to be built, I can pull it off, but once again, that is a lot of micro.</STRONG>

[from this thread ]

as they would always choose the end wall to build
(i've had similar situations with channels)
and hopefully it would mean they don't make corners in-accessible as they would get built before one of the side walls, since i've seen this a lot:

code:

________
######w_
......#_
......#_
......#_
......#_
. = ground
# = constructed wall
w = to be constructed wall
_ = channel or empty space (non walk able anyway)

since they don't seem to be able to build diagonally, though they can do quite a lot of other stuff diagonally

[ January 03, 2008: Message edited by: madpeople ]

[Draco18s]

Also:
Building down stairs from above:
Build a floor first, then the stairs.  I've not needed to do it, but I have noticed that downstairs can be built on constructed floors (ones that don't have walls underneath).

[madpeople]

i suppose that's one way to do it, i just thought it strange that given that it was accessible from the top, that they couldn't build it from the top and insisted on building it from the bottom.

couple more things

setting work preferences on siege engines, it would be nice to set my training catapults to not allow my legendary siege operators to use them, so my ones in training get to use them instead.

assigning a room to a job rather than a specific dwarf,
so i could assign a chair to be a hoardmaster's office (select assign, then select the job of hoard master), then which ever dwarf is the hoardmaster will use that office, could also perhaps allow you to assign the room to jobs that don't exist yet, e.g. assign a bed to the job of king -> room becomes "king's bedroom" which will get taken by the next dwarf who is king in your fort.
the result of this is that if one of your nobels dies and gets automatically replaced, then they automatically get the rooms they need, and makes switching people's jobs easier as you only need to replace them in the nobels screen, and not have to go round all their chairs and tables and beds re-assigning them to the new dwarf

oh, and more trainable animals (i want to breed hydras and make war hydras out of the children
    :eek: [i just need a male one to come along, got my female one which hasn't killed anyone..])

oh, and the megabeasts seem a little too easy to kill, i've usually managed it with one or two marksdwarfs behind fortification [one time on a previous version they were shooting through a flood gate which i'm not sure is right] (haven't met Bronze colossus yet though), i think they need to do something other than just sit there when they can't get to you.

would it make sense for fortifications to not let water pass unless its up to 4/7 high - i.e. the holes in the wall are half way up, not at the very bottom.
if the water on one side was 4/7 high, it would then flow into the fortification like it would flow onto an empty square if it was 1/7 high, the empty square next to the fortification would be similar to a channel so it would flow into that very easily. it would limit the flow rate as only the top 4/7 water levels could pass through it, and could produce interesting effects like a room could fill with water up to 7/7 through a fortification, but then it would only drain to 3/7

[ January 04, 2008: Message edited by: madpeople ]

[ January 04, 2008: Message edited by: madpeople ]

[ January 04, 2008: Message edited by: madpeople ]

[ January 04, 2008: Message edited by: madpeople ]

[Anjey aka PM]

quote:Originally posted by Draco18s:
<STRONG>Also:
Building down stairs from above:
Build a floor first, then the stairs.  I've not needed to do it, but I have noticed that downstairs can be built on constructed floors (ones that don't have walls underneath).</STRONG>

And loose valuable platinum bar  

[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by madpeople:
<STRONG>assigning a room to a job rather than a specific dwarf
</STRONG>

Suggested.

quote:Originally posted by madpeople:
<STRONG>would it make sense for fortifications to not let water pass unless its up to 4/7 high - i.e. the holes in the wall are half way up, not at the very bottom.</STRONG>

Reasonable, though the rest of the paragraph didn't make as much sense as I think it should have.

quote:Originally posted by Anjey aka PM:
<STRONG>
And loose valuable platinum bar   </STRONG>

Build the floor out of ash, then the stairs out of platinum, see?  Didn't lose anything important.

Yes, I know (figured) that doing it that way used up one more block of material, and doesn't truely make sense (wait, I need to build a solid floor to then cut a hole in it?) but it does work.

[Railick Stonemane]

I think it would make the entire channel diggin thing a lot less problematic if dwarfs could climb one Z level up or down. So if they fall down into the channel they could just climb out again without having to build stairs or anything. Maybe even make it so that one dwarf could pull another dwarf out (Though that would be getting overly complicated) Later you could add in Goblins climbing to make seiges more interesting. Could have spear dwarfs at top of walls defending against goblin climbers scaling the walls I would make climbing a skill like swimming so that not every dwarf could do it and they'd have to train at it some how. Might take an untrained dwarf a lot of trys to scale straight up a wall, but a skilled dwarf could scoot striaght up a sheer cliff in moments. Would also make it easier for dwarfs to dig pits straight down if they could climb out again on their own?

[madpeople]

quote:Originally posted by Draco18s:
<STRONG>
Reasonable, though the rest of the paragraph didn't make as much sense as I think it should have.</STRONG>

well, looking at a side view

code:

7   #
6   #
5   #
4   #
3 ~~|
2 ~~|
1 ~~|
0 XXXXXXXXXXX
number = level (water at 3/7 in this diagram)
~ = water
| = water in-passable part of fortification
# = water passible part of fortification
X = floor

here water can't pass the fortification, but then if it raises to 4/7

code:

7   #
6   #
5   #
4 ~~~i
3 ~~|i
2 ~~|i
1 ~~|~~~
0 XXXXXXXXXXX
i = falling water (may make mist)

if flows through the fortification, at a rate that 1/7 water flows as the top of the fortification only has 1/7 water passing over it, even though the water level is 4/7 (if the water was at 5/7 then there would be 2/7 over the top of it, so the other side would fill faster, fame for 6/7 and 7/7)
eventually filling what ever is behind it

code:

7   #
6   #
5   #
4 ~~~~~~~~~~
3 ~~|~~~~~~~
2 ~~|~~~~~~~
1 ~~|~~~~~~~
0 XXXXXXXXXXX

then if the first side is drained of water, water would flow back over the top of it
resulting in

code:

7   #
6   #
5   #
4   #
3   |~~~~~~~
2   |~~~~~~~
1   |~~~~~~~
0 XXXXXXXXXXX

[Draco18s]

Ok, that's what I thought but I thought there was some fortification to fortification flowing going on under some condition and had trouble working out what you meant.

[madpeople]

ah, that would be like this

code:

7   ####
6   ####
5   ####
4 ~~~~~~~~~~
3 ~~||||~~~~
2 ~~||||~~~~
1 ~~||||~~~~
0 XXXXXXXXXXX

the 4/7 water is only 1/7 above the fortification, so it would flow like 1/7 water over tiles with fortification

code:

7   ####
6   ####
5 ~~~~~~~~~~
4 ~~~~~~~~~~
3 ~~||||~~~~
2 ~~||||~~~~
1 ~~||||~~~~
0 XXXXXXXXXXX

5/7 would flow like 2/7 ^^ etc

[Draco18s]

Despite the technicality that Fortifications look like this:

[madpeople]

well, even though the hole is in the middle, not the whole top section, if the water is above that hole, then it is under more pressure, so will be forced through at a faster rate