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[Footkerchief]

As many others have suggested, an init option and/or worldgen searches for features you do/do not specifically want is the best solution to make as many people happy as possible.

Once again: making the massive caverns optional is not a suggestion, it's a current development goal.  It's probably going to be in the world gen params.

Yeah, it's easier to cram things in when you are free of the one-per-(x,y)-coordinate restriction.  I was worried a bit about the limited Z levels, but I think the recent 15-or-so-deep HFS releases have alleviated that somewhat.  I can make things lower, a bit, but there's plenty of room within several slices that boxing you in on several sides and given you several large layers of wholesome mystery below shouldn't be too restrictive.

That said, this was also one of those world gen param thingies...  some people wanted hidden out-of-place civilizations at every turn, some people wanted something that felt like 2D, some people wanted *something* as long as there was something, and I'm sure there are a few quiet people out there that just want to dig in the rock and not be bothered by weird crap at all with the possible exception of a few outside threats.  I'm going to try to keep it versatile.

[Zironic]

...but I can't see how it would actually change the layout of a cool looking fort.

A lot of people want a perfectly clean canvas to craft their masterpiece fortress on..  spending hours without unpausing the game just setting up the 'ideal' design from the onset. That type of time investment is all gone to waste if you find a gigantic open cavity where you wanted to put the masterful bedroom suites. Yeah, you can patch trouble areas with walls and floors, but I can see how it could be annoying for that type of player.

As many others have suggested, an init option and/or worldgen searches for features you do/do not specifically want is the best solution to make as many people happy as possible.

..

Personally, while I can see the fun in building that perfect fort exactly the way you want, I think it is more challenging and realistic to build that perfect fort around the available landscape..  just like real dorfs and gobos have to.

I hate specific layouts of my fortress. I usually design it, as I go. However, I do have specific ideals for rooms.

[Jackrabbit]

I wish I had even that

[Volfram]

As I said previously, just wanting to build a fortress isn't DF, it's a bizzarre version of Microsoft Paint where your paintbrush occasionally demands booze and food before it'll draw again.

[Inquisitor Saturn]

It's really more like MARIO paint. Or Kidpix.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Looking good, but I reiterate my request to have the floors littered with gems (just the ones being removed in the current system).  Also some of the larger rooms should get more vaulting (aka span more z-levels) and get more debris piled on the floor, in a real cave a larger chamber will have a pile or rocks and debris in it that fills practically half the chamber very much paralleling the roof, at the least consider covering the floor with boulders.  Were also going to need the water system to interact with surface hydrology with water entering and exiting the cave in the form of springs and sinkholes, some 'dry' entrances would provide access for dwarfs immediately from the start though not all caves need to have such entrances.

[Baboonanza]

Toady: Are you going to add support for building downwards stairs?

Without them these caves could be really irritating, since once you've breached a cavern roof the only way to build a staircase to the bottom would be to dig a tunnel all the way around and build one up. And if you can only see part of the cavern (with the new revealing technique) then even this will be difficult.

[Jackrabbit]

You could just move to one side, build a down stairway, and construct up/down stairways from there

[Footkerchief]

Toady: Are you going to add support for building downwards stairs?

Without them these caves could be really irritating, since once you've breached a cavern roof the only way to build a staircase to the bottom would be to dig a tunnel all the way around and build one up. And if you can only see part of the cavern (with the new revealing technique) then even this will be difficult.

It's a "consider" for this release:
# Consider rope/ladder/etc. building particularly for downward movement into large open spaces

[Tormy]

04/19/2009: Mushroom forests are in...
Oh boy, I gotta force my dwarves to eat mushrooms only, and nothing else! 

*edit*
It looks like that Scamps is now a legendary wrestler! 

[Puzzlemaker]

Is there any way to see that cave in 3D?

[Mel_Vixen]

Ok that might sound a bit crazy but in a cave there is no sun, the water leaks into the cave from above (where rain can leak down) and the nutrients arent only in the ground. So i think Fungy and plants could grow on walls and the ceiling as well as on the ground. Would it be possible (and easy enought to implement) to get such behavior? Oh and Flora that only grows on walls/the ceilling?

It would be very interresting to have a "vertical" Mushroom Farm.

[LumenPlacidum]

It might be easy enough to implement something like that, but since it would be difficult to display using current methods and since dwarfs cannot really get AT those wall-fungi, I don't see why it would go in.  There'd be no interaction with the player or the dwarfs.

[Mel_Vixen]

A Fungus on a ground level wall is easy enought to harvest and you can build Stairs, ramps, ropeladders and platforms to get to other the goodies.

I also thought mostly on stuff like some sort of fungal grass, moss and lichens.

edit: on walls growing plants could also be interresting on overground stuff like Cliffs. For example vines of wine, ivy or mosses climbing the walls around a big waterfall.

[Drakale]

Is there any way to see that cave in 3D?

I did a 3d of the previous cave(the one without tunnels), but didnt post it since its not very pretty. The walls are just straight extrude so the result is not natural looking. I might rework it to make it more cave like with some random noise displacements on the walls. If you have a 3d viewer i could send it to you, just PM me with the format you want and your e-mail.