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[Heron TSG]

updated OP. nice idea catoblepas, very original.

@SHB - thanks for the reminder about fertile igneous rock! also, nice Idea with the whole 'churning up stuff' while farming suggestion.

Unfortunately, I'll have to agree with zchris13; massive caravans are crazy.

[Mel_Vixen]

- Hedges and Shrubs - natural and artifical - which can complicate pathing
- Avalanches
- Naturall fertilizing by forestfires
- Tsunamis (if eqrthquakes go in)
- Locusts swarms
- proper animal behavior
   - day and night cicles for animals (Bats flying only at night etc.)
   - mating season and raising season (many animals get aggresiv during this seasons)
   - territorys
   - Flight distances
   - cave-immigrating (bears, bats etc.)
   - differnt hunting tactics (ambushes, press hunt etc)
- Ghostlights (will-o'-the-wisp) as natural effects (Gas, biolumuscence) as well as Ghosts
- St. Elmos fire
- ball lightning
- white squall
- Biolumiscent fungy (like hallimash) on trees logs etc.

Spoiler: Pictures (click to show/hide)

at Night


In flashlight

- mirages and Fatamorganas in deserts (could work like seeing picture in clouds)

[Neonivek]

Let me think of a few others. I am running out of ideas.

I should note that everything I am writing exists in real life.

-Rock Plants: Though Rare there are plants that can grow on some kinds of rocks.
-Salt Rocks: Natural rock stones laying out in the open.
-Bad Lands: Areas with hardly any plants or living things that have consistant rain.
-Unearthing Toxins: Digging a foot under the soil can unearth diseases into the air that can be toxic to people as well as animals.
-Blight: Diseases that infect plants. Bringing back an infected tree could harm your crops
-Red Tide: An excess of plantlife or Krill in the water sufficates all sea creatures around it killing them. While killing all the animals in a river would be extreme, having it prevent fishing for a while would be sufficiant.
-Heat Explosion: Sometimes an area, especially in deserts, can heat up to unbearable degrees effectively frying everything in the area.
-Odd Rain: Raining Insects, Fish, Frogs, and Blood all can happen. Though in reality this is caused by creatures being sucked up into the atmosphere in storms. In Dwarf Fortress however it could even be caused by Weather being transfered over Spherical lands. You don't want to be the Water Shed to a Fire alligned land.
-Don't Wake the Trees: Trents/Ents while hibernating could appear as ordinary trees.
-Infested Food: You pick an apple off the floor and take a big bite out of it only to find it is brimming with ants.
-Animal Tracks: Worn tracks of land are important survival indicators. Beaver tracks for example almost always lead to rivers.
-Balancing Act: You spot a rock formation, apperantly a large boulder seems to be stuck on a small pillar. You dare not touch it.
-Spheres: Naturally formed boulders in the form of round spheres (My information is actually a bit fuzzy on this)
-Geometric Fun: You spot rock formations in Octagons and other shapes. The wonders of nature never cease.
-Ameoba Infection: You walked through a swamp with an open cut and you seem to have an infection unlike any before. It doesn't seem to act like other infections and you have no idea what could be causing it.
-Confusing Cacophany: You are in the Jungle when you hear a cacophany of noise from unknown creatures. It drives you crazy and you realise that you cannot find the source of the sound anywhere. "Could the animals be using a special kind of defense" you ask yourself as your sense of dirrection goes away.

[Heron TSG]

BUMPASAURUS EMERGES SCREAMING FROM THE SHALE!!!

[zchris13]

That was a lolsaurus?

[Vattic]

I notice you have fencing suggested, I imagine it looking something like this:

Code: [Select]

   ┌─┼─┐
   │ c │
   │ cc│
┌──┴───┤
┼    M │
│ M    │
│   M  │
└──────┘
Instead of those being doors they could be stiles, they even look like them in ascii. The animals shouldn't try and path through them reducing the FPS issues. Proper gates might be something else worth considering also.

On the topic of methods to control animals cattle grids might be another method to keep animals in or out or certain areas, to construct them you'd just need to build floor bars over a channelled out tile like:

Code: [Select]

       M
###===###
###   ###
#########Certain tags could give/remove a creatures ability to use stiles / cattle grids. When it comes to the fences themselves I could imagine humans being able to climb over them fairly easily but I don't know about dwarves for example.

[Heron TSG]

Nice idea with the cattle grids vattic, never would have thought about them, even though I live with them scattered all around me.

[RoboCicero]

In addition to the tree types, some kind of magma-resistance wood type would be amazing. Perhaps only the elves would have access to such an item? It'll certainly give them something to do! As well as being able to carve wooden armor, wooden weapons from the harder varieties of wood.

Spores are a fascinating extension of the multi-tile items. Perhaps a type of soporific, causing anyone who ventures too close to the fungi to fall asleep and, eventually, die. The presence of animal skeletons would probably tip off the observant adventurer!

Algae growths in standing pools of water (fouling it, perhaps) would be interesting. Also, pumping directly from a stream might occasionally or gradually cause the pump to become jammed, either due to seaweed / fronds gumming up the mechanism, or a dead fish (there's a carp stuck in the screw pump again!)

Soft sand! Treating sand as a type of fluid (with 6-7/7 sand filling the tile, rendering it walkable). Sand would 'flow' but only reluctantly. While digging into sand would be difficult (the sand rushing in to fill the hole as quickly as the dwarf can dig it out), a sand 'leak' would probably mean the loss of 5 tiles or so. Perhaps treating all sand as having no pressure, and sand only 'tumbles' from high to low?

Example : one tile hole in the ceiling


      1         3456543
 1   121        4567654
121 12321 etc.  5677765
 1   121        4567654
      1         3456543


When all adjacent tiles to the breakthrough fill up with sand, the hole is considered 'blocked'. In addition, sand only spreads out if the sand within one tile is more than 1 higher than an adjacent tile ( 31 > 22, but 21 would be stable).

Sorry, got side-tracked in mechanics land : but this would certainly make playing deserts fun! Add into that shifting dunes, and you'll get Urist Ronavlud Cancels Sleeping : Entombed in Sand in no time.

EDIT : Also, meteor strikes. Perhaps having them as an adjustable frequency within the init file. A huge hunk of valuable meteor matter slamming into your fortress? Great! It took out the Countess? Even better! However, these should be incredibly rare in the first place, otherwise it'd just get silly.

[Kennel]

-Odd Rain: Raining Insects, Fish, Frogs, and Blood all can happen. Though in reality this is caused by creatures being sucked up into the atmosphere in storms. In Dwarf Fortress however it could even be caused by Weather being transfered over Spherical lands. You don't want to be the Water Shed to a Fire alligned land.

This sounds fun. Raining cats and dogs would cause a literal catsplosion. And of course beer rain (and vomit rain).

I should note that everything I am writing exists in real life.
[...]
-Don't Wake the Trees: Trents/Ents while hibernating could appear as ordinary trees.

[Neonivek]

Whoops that last one... may be... flat out false (Ignoring a few exceptions)

[Mohreb el Yasim]

this should be on the ehernal voting list ... (i haven't found on it ... at least ...)

[Heron TSG]

In addition to the tree types, some kind of magma-resistance wood type would be amazing.

Example : one tile hole in the ceiling


      1         3456543
 1   121        4567654
121 12321 etc.  5677765
 1   121        4567654
      1         3456543

to the wood, I think I'll add that. Please elaborate on the picture.

EDIT: made a clever pun about the new 'Bauxwood'

[Guy Montag]

I'd be happy just to see lakes on the surface. Something the same shape and size as a underground lake that opens to the surface with some typical wildlife living in it.

Also, hermit shacks and logging cabins that appear randomly near cities would be nice, occupied or not.

A 1x1 bottomless pit that appears in the ocean would make for a cool whirlpool effect, though it would prolly devour your FPS and make your CPU melt.

Also, maybe not related to this thread exactly, but I think wondering adventurers/ pilgrims/ tourists/ ect that show up to your fort as temporary friendly units would be nice. If you have your economy enabled, they could buy crap from the shops or just as likely go bat-shit insane in the middle of your meeting area, or steal things, or disable your traps or just hang out for a while before they go along their way.

Would add some diversity compared to the seiges/ caravans that appear like clockwork.

[RoboCicero]

Please elaborate on the picture.

Ah, sorry. The picture was where I was typing up a thought about how building a fortress in sand would work. The picture was an example of a one tile 'leak' in the ceiling, from beginning to end, when the hole is plugged.

In retrospect, the bulk of my post about sand can really be cleaned up like this :

Sand acts as an unpressurized fluid. In addition, sand only flows if there's more than a 1 height difference between adjacent tiles. A sand distribution of :

232
222
211

would be stable, since each tile is no more than 1 higher than adjacent tiles.

Shifting sand dunes would be a interesting result of this, leading to scenarios where you woudl want to keep entrances clear of sand in a desert fortress / being wary of sleeping near a dune in adventure mode, because there's a strong chance you might suffocate in the night.
 

[Granite26]

You could even take that one further, and say 1 difference + wind in that direction.  We have 2 wind speeds as it stands (no direction, but that's easy...)  That would allow sand to actually form dunes (especially if you allowed for 2 spaces of lee per height..

Code: [Select]

444444444444
would become
354435443544
would become
345434543454
would become
254444534445
would become
343544443545
Or something... You could run it so that dunes would form naturally, and sand would bunch up against buildings and even bury things...