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[Neonivek]

"I could definitely see goblins doing it, but they wouldn't build an aqueduct"

Be careful what you say. Goblins may be seen as mindless moronic warriors... but they are highly intelligent at least on par with Dwarves and are often paired with powerful supernatural beings.

I can entirely see them create an aquaduct lined with skulls and Obsideon.

[Heron TSG]

There should be MUCH more difficult places to live in in Dwarf Fortress. Such as a Desert with the Sphere of Flame

I can envision it now... all plant life outside immediately catches fire, magma pours from the sky as rain, and the underground caverns are like enormous ovens. STRIKE THE EARTH!

[Sowelu]

I want to play in a world where EVERYTHING is like that.  Maybe it's not all Flame, but still.

A planet with Pern-style Threadfall would be awesome in particular.  I'm not a Pern fan, but Losing is Fun.

[Flashzom]

I didn't mean it like that.  Only... Entropy wins, and a truly closed system is impossible.

The cavern idea isn't horrible though.

Even today we have problems providing clean drinking water for our populace.  If you go to the edge of the desert and start grabbing 100's of gallons a day, it'll affect the water table.  That's what I meant by 'not sure where all the water would come from'

Seems easier to just build an aqueduct underground

Well, a truly closed system isn't impossible, the water CAN theoretically be conserved, but it would contain plenty of impurities that would need to be filtered out. If you're a stickler for the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of energy, then there you go, we would have to manually filter out the impurities through boiling or something of the sort (I'm not exactly up to date on my urine filtration techniques as this has not proved a viable talent in the work force) But we don't really derive energy from water anyways so it's not like it violates conservation of energy, it's just there to facilitate certain reactions that are already occurring in the cells and to keep cells hydrated enough to maintain their shape. So it doesn't violate any laws because you don't actually get energy from drinking water. If anything, you expend it.

[TheMirth]

Conservation of Matter is what I'm sure he's referring to. Even still suits and especially still sites would lose some moisture due to leakage or foreigh materials absorbing some of the moisture.

[Zaranthan]

IIRC, still suits were only 80-90% efficient, and even then only after sweating into the suit for a few days. You still needed a little water to get by, they just helped. A LOT.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I dunno about dwarfs "forging" such things, honestly, but possibly elves might "grow" something that would do that?

[zchris13]

Like I would use something GROWN BY ELVES! Pshaw!

[SirHoneyBadger]

Well I wouldn't either. I'm just pointing out that a dwarf walking around in some kind of "still-suit" is just going to end up as "still-suit-stew". 

[zchris13]

Definitely getting back into cannibalism, eh?

[SirHoneyBadger]

Not necessarily...I think the scorpions would get to our dwarfs long before our dwarfs ever did.

I mean, given the technology levels and dwarf propensity, the vision I get of a "still-suit" made by dwarfs, for dwarfs, is a big copper diving-suit/platemail looking thing.

What exactly are they going to use to *cool* such a thing? And how are our dwarfs going to see or even breathe in it?

I'm sorry, but I just see it all ending badly...

...Why can't our dwarfs just dig a really deep well until they hit water, again? Pretty much everywhere has *some* groundwater-from my limited understanding-if you dig deep enough.

Ok, maybe not in DF.

I like the moisture collector idea though, and the harvesting of the cacti. Both of those could be interesting to mess around with. Not to mention the toads.

Drinking from a toad is balls-out "dwarfy". We need this as a vermin in the game.

I'm not sure about buying water, but perhaps it might be possible to transport enough of it--either by caravan, aquaduct, whatever--to eventually form a small oasis.

[irmo]

Having still-suits in the game would be nice, but what I was talking about earlier was door-seals at the entrance to your fortress so that the entire fortress is basically a still-suit. Much simpler.

The entire fortress has airtight seals? How do you breathe?

We can handwave the problem of ventilation in most fortresses, but if you specify a fortress that's sealed up tight to trap water vapor, it's hard to ignore the fundamentally related problem of everyone suffocating.

(Stillsuits have a similar problem. If your sweat isn't allowed to evaporate, it doesn't cool you off, and if the climate is warm and you're exerting yourself moderately, you die. [Edit: I see SirHoneyBadger has already pointed out this issue.])

I agree that the game shouldn't go out of its way to make deserts survivable. The occasional cactus that you can brew directly into booze without adding water, fine. Other than that, it should be a matter of aggressively exploiting more general mechanics, such as trading for water or diverting rivers out into the desert.

Flashzom: We actually produce water by burning food for energy. This is highest for fat (more water than the mass of the fat--the camel's hump works like this), moderate for carbohydrates, and near zero for protein because burning protein increases urine output. The larger problem with a closed water cycle is that much of that water is vapor, and hard to keep contained. At best you can set up big chilled condensers of some kind to pull it back out of the air, but this requires some kind of heat pump.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I too agree that the game shouldn't go out of its way to make deserts survivable, but I also think it shouldn't go out of it's way to make deserts *unsurviveable*.

People regularly survive in deserts, all over the world, and they use a wide variety of techniques to do so.

DF should have a wide variety of techniques our dwarfs could use, too. Perhaps none of them both easy and reliable, but enough of them that a clever player who's on top of things, and very fortunate, could build there with a degree of success.

I'm not saying that building in the middle of the Empty Quarter is a brilliant idea, but building in a desert should be as interesting as building in a jungle, inside of a volcano, by the beach, on a tropical island, etc.

DF, to me, is partly a survival game-and losing can indeed be a lot of fun-but it isn't fun unless there's a lot of ways that might also win.

[zchris13]

Heresy!!

[SirHoneyBadger]

Heresy!!

Not really. Hear me out:

Consider that just because there are many paths of victory--like a mirage in the sand the clearest paths may be illusory--and should as often be.

A given loss is fairly pointless, if you should lose within the first 15 minutes. Your 7 show up, they're roasted to a turn, and you have to restart. It's an ersatz act of masturbation. 

Having the chance to build the tension up to a point where a loss is truly-and spectacularly-crushing, is important in DF as in any good drama.

In other words: You have to give your little lost Fortress atleast an infinitesimal shot at success, or their ultimate loss won't mean anything.

Hope-in all it's splendiferous glory-must first exist, in order that it may be crushed, trod upon, lamented.