It's clear that when people mention whether or not creatures should tunnel, it's not a very well defined scenario.
so, to think clearly, everyone should post about:
What odds are acceptable for a fortress to be breached by a tunneling creature?
Tunneling
creatures? Well it depends, really.
I'd daresay that it might be acceptable to have some large creatures digging in dirt, though tunneling as such shouldn't be random clusterfck, ever. It should act somewhat intelligently in designing a nest of sorts, and only through dirt. Maybe a few of these creatures working to build (and maintain) a nest in an area. Of course it's only in dirt, and you could exterminate them from it getting out of hand, though if it's limited to a relative small nest size.
As for digging through rock? Well, the occassional, very rare rock-digigng monster. Perhaps solitary or in very small groups (2-4). They would tend to live in mountains, generally in natural underground caverns and carve out some tunnel systems throught it. It would be good for when the Underground Diversity is finished, have some rock-digging creatures at an underground lake with a cave tunnel nearby. Not much more than that though. They shouldn't dig like crazy. Just a very little bit around their "home".
As for tunneling for by intelligent humanoids? Well first off, rock digging needs to be slowed down a lot, imo. High level digging is like nothing. Albiet other races aren't as good at digging as dwarves, and certainly would never get as high a skill in digging as dwarves do, but it still needs to be taken down a notch as it increases in skill, imo.
Lets use an example here. Goblins assaulting your fort. They need a way in, there is none -- you've lowered an iron gate. They'd go through some basic tactics first.
Advanced pathing would be used to determine other possibilities. Set priorities on what happens next if you can't walk in. If anything, next option would have a % chance to be used, if fails % roll, try something else until you get a useable tactic. Siege tactic AI would go through lists of potential things to try.
- Is their a way around? Is there a back entrance they can try to walk into?
- Is there a way to swim across a river or moat, maybe?
- Can you build a bridge to get across a channel or river?
- Is there a wall you can try to get over? Can we build siege ladders [that would act like ramps when placed] to use to get over a wall?
- Should we build a ram to try to break down (presumably) metal bars?
- Should we try to dig? How far would we need to dig? Through what: dirt, or stone?
- Could we build siege weapons [cats, ballista, treb] to try to break down the gate or the walls to get in?
- Sitting and waiting out a siege. Blocking off any caravans, hoping that it'll hurt your economy. Ambush anyone trying to get out. Possibility of trying a different tactic after a long period of time sitting at a siege, if any others are possible.
Just some examples. It would calculate difficulty of different things before trying anything.
Building ladders, bridges, rams, or siege weapons would require wood to be built with and someone in the attackers to have an axe to chop wood. No trees or no axe - none of these can be done, try something else.
Digging would require someone to have a pick. No pick, no digging. If you're digging through stone, difficulty is exponentially greater than when digging through dirt. The farther you dig, the much more difficult it will be. Dirt should be fairly easy to attempt. This would also encourage not building on top of lots of dirt. A long way in dirt would be easier than a short way in stone. Digging through stone would also take a lot longer than dirt, obviously. If the difficulty for digging is higher than it would be for trying siege ladders, try that choice first. If that fails, then this can be used. This should never be a first option. Also digging speeds should be lowered simply because of this. You don't want someone digging into your base in 5 seconds. That gives you no time to respond. That's no fun.
Tunnels would also be one space wide,
maybe if # of siegers > a certain large number, say 25? They would also path to try to enter your base through the new entrance if it wasn't covered up. You'd basically have to block it up with a wall or gate. Though this would just give them an easier route to dig through. Theyd just bust through your new wall you put up or one nearby, using the same tunnel, rather than making 100 different tunnels, they'd use the same ones, unless you plug it up completely, giving them nowhere to start. Though chances are if that spot was chosen the in the first place, it was chosen because it was the quickest and shortest route possible to dig through, so chances are they'd probably choose it again. We don't need superstellarAI. Just good AI.
I do also like the idea of being able to "collapse" a tunnel or "fill in" to get rid of these. Would help a lot. Though the idea i've presented would definately keep swisscheese to a bare minimum.
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Topic: Acceptable odds of tunneling abilities (Read 3687 times)