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[SirHoneyBadger]

This has been suggested before, but I thought I'd gather it into an actual thread.

It seems (to me) like they'd be fairly easy things to add (with the shafts for them-see below-ignored/set aside, for now), even before heating/lighting was implemented, and that they're pretty obvious items to include in a Fortress as "room" items.

A fireplace could be an additional piece of "furniture", that could be added to pretty much any room. Nobles of very high rank might sometimes require one in their bedrooms, dining rooms, and/or offices.

Fireplaces could either be carved out of natural stone, or constructed from blocks (or bricks, whenever they're implemented). Either task could require a mason, and could be further enhanced by the addition of a mantle (which could be constructed from stone or metal, and added as a piece of furniture. The mantle's quality could entirely represent the overall quality of the fireplace, itself, or maybe just add to it.).

If we get shelving (and I hope we do, at some point), a mantle could count as a shelf. 

Fireplaces could also require the construction of a shaft leading to the surface, which could be secured by a metal grate. Later on, whenever we get secret doors, these shafts could be disguised. The height of the shaft could factor in to it's quality, since the higher the shaft, the better a fireplace supposedly works.

To use a fireplace could require a log of wood, which dwarfs could burn when they're very cold, getting rid of an unhappy thought. Some dwarfs might also like fireplaces, and burning a log of wood in one might give that dwarf a happy thought.

When we get heating/lighting, a fireplace could ofcourse provide both.

Due to living underground, and their high standards of craftdwarfship, fireplaces could work more efficiently than human-built ones, but an even more efficient method could be to use a stove, instead.

Stoves might have to be built out of metal, or possibly some kind of ceramic. They could provide much more heat, but less (or no) light, compared to a fireplace. In addition to wood, they could also burn charcoal. Kitchens might require atleast one of them, but Nobles might not.

Metal stoves might require a metalcrafter to construct one, and they could be quite valuable. Adding one to a room might enhance it's quality.

Stoves (especially high-quality ones) could be used to heat a much larger area than a fireplace. They could still require shafts, as fireplaces do, and might not give any happy thoughts to individual dwarfs, to balance them out.

Stoves could be separate from ovens. Ovens would be cooking-appliances that could be constructed from brick (whenever we get bricks). The bricks themselves might possibly need to be of a heat-resistant type to work.

Fireplaces and stoves might be used to cook some foods, but others (bread and roasts being major ones) might require an oven.

Fireplace mantles could be decorated (since the inside of a fireplace isn't typically decorated), while stoves could be entirely decorated. Stoves might also be used to heat water, and pipes could possibly be used to channel heated air away from stoves, and maybe also ovens.

Good application of stoves could be used to provide hot running water (not necessarily steam, but better than bathing in an icy mountain stream), warmed floors, saunas, central heating, and maybe even be part of a laundry-service. The heat exhaust could also be used to melt ice for water, in wintertime.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I agree with a good deal of that, creating a fireplace as a type of construction much like a fortification (carved from bedrock or build with blocks) is logical and natural, but I see no need for mantles.  But requiring a chimney is too much considering the extreme difficulty of making chimneys at this point.  A possible compromise is to use a Miasma like system, if the Fireplace has 'sky' access nothing bad happens otherwise an unpleasant 'smoke' is produced on occasion partially canceling the happiness generated by the heat or cooking that took place.  Fuels have different smoke generating properties, wood always smokes but charcoal has only a 25% chance of generating smoke making it much more likely to give net-happiness.  Metal Stoves sound reasonable and could be placed as furniture giving them a degree of flexibility that a constructed fireplace lacks,  but I don't see a need to separate ovens, cooking could be done on any fireplace or stove so long as its not designated for private use.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Well, mantles would be for decoration, and optional. I agree that shafts aren't necessary right now (but could be added to the fireplace idea at some point).

Your miasma solution to this problem is a good one, atleast temporarily, as is the idea about charcoal.

For that matter, some woods burn cleaner, and hotter, than others. Maybe we'll see that someday.

As far as ovens go, I disagree. Ovens are entirely different from fireplaces or stoves in their construction, they were separate throughout large periods of history, they have separate uses (and for similar uses, one or the other will perform better, or differently), so I think they should atleast be an optional third choice, especially and particularly for kitchens.

[alfie275]

How about with a fire place it just prduces smoke in a designate output tile, either the horizontal adjecent tile, above, or if you have some crazy under-floor ventilation: below. So its like this for the tile above method:

Code: [Select]

  WWWW
W         
F
W
  WWWW
[Code/]

Then just have a shaft going to the surface, maybe a z -level dedicated to ventilation and plumbing or possilbly a smoking room where you smoke meats.

Bonus poits if you are burning kittens that died from choking on previous kitten-smoke that goes to the kitten choking room above, creating an endless fuel source without getting blood anywhere.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Kitten Auschwitz aside, it sounds like a pretty good idea.

[tsen]

I won't be happy until we've turned DF into Ceasar 2 on steroids.  

Sounds good to me.

[Vattic]

Picturing the smoke coming out of the chimney on the surface makes me want this implemented.

[alfie275]

Hmm I could OPTIMIZE by smoking the meat and killing at the same time!

[Bricks]

You didn't really mention it, but wall-mounted torches (and most light sources, but these in particular), which I believe are planned, seem like a logistic nightmare, as you start adding more physical models to what is essentially reams of grid paper.

Seems like the best way for these to work, at least as tiles, is to have an "alcove" designation, where you could either place knicknaks, or torches.  That way we don't have to dig out chunks of wall just to place a brazier.  Not that braziers shouldn't be a type of light source.

The whole contention about chimneys is sort of unreasonable - the issue is not the chimney, as air shafts should be included anyway.  It's designating the buggers, which I think can be expected to improve.  Maybe tethers for miners to use when next to cliff faces.

[chucks]

Love the ideas.  Here's some that I would like to see in terms of lighting and heating:

What do you do with all that tallow you get from rendering fat?  Make tallow candles!  You could have a candlestick craft and allow dwarves to load them with candles to have as a portable light source that isn't as messy or dangerous as torches, but doesn't last as long.  Also, having some source of wax would be neat for this, and could even be used as some sort of food preservative (seal the barrels with wax, who knows?)

Glassware lighting.  Perhaps you could create a lamp that would take a block of metal and glass to make (raw or block, I don't know.  Maybe you have to specifically make glass bulbs).  As for powering the glassware, you could perhaps add some sort of oil production industry from either animal fat or plant products.

You could make lanterns.  Durable, high efficiency, high quality, portable light sources.  You could have flasks of lanter oil and tell soldiers to carry them in a way similar to waterskins.

Firepits, bonfires, lighthouses, spotlights, scouting towers, etc:

Maybe you want to have a shining beacon of dwarven justice to shine in the midst of an epic goblin seiges from atop your glass tower lighthouse.  This sort of structure could be built in such a way that it requires a fueling stove and a system of mechanisms or a quern-like wheel to turn it.  You would light a huge area, so much that anyone entering the maps would be drawn to it.  Unfortunately, it could also draw additional invaders and thieves.

Maybe you want a system of spotlights for your soldiers to man, looking for the advancing enemy.  The spotlights would direct a disc of light on a specific spot, allowing spotting towers to light only a small area for tactical reasons.

Also, perhaps you want a huge firepit with an exhaust chimney as an alternative to a fireplace in the very middle of your great hall?  It could be as simple as an open stone container on the floor, or it could be a 2 level pit channeled out for haulers to load it without disturbing the diners in the hall.

And, of course, maybe whatever could feasibly be powered by magma has the possiblity of being powered by magma.  Now, magma powered heat sources wouldn't exactly provide only a very minute level of light, but damn would they be hot.

[Rilder]

Picturing the smoke coming out of the chimney on the surface makes me want this implemented.

You can sort of make this happen in the current version by having an indoor refuse stockpile with a hole in the roof, causes massive plumes of miasma to to erupt from your fortress.

[Bricks]

Good call on the tallow, chucks.  I was trying to rationalize all the wood it would take to keep a fortress lit.

Magma lighting also sounds great.  I keep picturing the aquarium tunnel concept, with windows all around and above (beneath?) you.  Except with magma.  That should cause some goblins to flee without question; the sheer magnitude of the engineering should terrify them.

[Footkerchief]

@ Bricks & Chucks: the use of tallow candles, torches, lamps, braziers, magma lighting, etc. was covered in some depth in the lighting arc discussion thread, although the smoke-and-heat aspects were not really covered.

[Funk]

maybe army dwarfs can stand next to fires to get heating. the power to shoot fire arrows

[chucks]

@Footkercheif  Yep, I read that in the devlogs, and it's a really ingenius idea to add to the difficulty of the fortress.

I was thinking of some system of lighting a series of metal & glass lighting fixtures using some sort of pumped fuel, similar to turn of the century gas lamps and lanterns.  Not exactly how feasible this is in a medieval dwarven fortress or if it begins to border on the machinations of gnomes, but it would definitely make an interesting contraption to waste a lot of time on.