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[Rooster]

well... i know how to have infinite stone. i know that wood is infinite (still it grows very slow). Food is infinite, also bones,leather,and some various animal products.
Still there are few things that SHOULD be infinite but they aren't
for example magma/lava is melt metal that flows from uderground (am i right?) so there are magma smelters,funances but they work strange. what i mean is that there is a way to have infinte random metal that should be implemented in DF

option 1):A building that would collect magma/lava and would somehow cool it to make some metal bars/items/whatever
option 2): a flood of lava in closed room would leave after flood gone some random metal ore

P.S. sorry i didn't look in the forum of someone having this idea already
i also don't know that this could already be implemented in the game.
please forgive me for my bad english

also is there a way to have infinte flow of gems?

[karnot]

Magma is molten rock.

[Fenek]

Or implement some kind of "mining outposts", which, placed off-screen (which are connected to your fortress just like roads and depots, only inside mountain), could provide you with frequent (or not) ore supply. Make them random or player specified ("search for iron", "search for gold", etc.).

Also in similiar way this enable linking goblin or kobold fortresses to yours. Imagine your fortress sieged on the outside AND inside  

[ October 14, 2006: Message edited by: Fenek ]

[Rondol]

"Oh, whoops, sorry mister goblin. I didn't mean to cut a massive hole in the wall of your nice little throne room. Hey, is that sphalerite? Oooo... gimme!"

[Mechanoid]

quote:Originally posted by karnot:
Magma is molten rock.

This is correct, however, the earth's core is not only molten rock but also molten iron and other trace elements. It could be possible that some amount of the magma that is in the map has some level of metals in it. However, the amount of magma it'd take to create a sizable bar of ore would be considerably large -- very similar to how melting down objects in Dwarf Fortress doesn't always result in a complete metal bar.

quote:Originally posted by Fenek:
Or implement some kind of "mining outposts", which, placed off-screen...

One of the bloats or reqests was that mining off to the northern or southern most border of the map would link you to another map or fortress.

[ October 15, 2006: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]

[Aquillion]

Also...

You're not supposed to have a forever-alive fortress.  Sad but true.  The fortress gameplay is intended to have a clear beginning, a middle, and an end, and if you want to keep mining increasingly precious metals you are supposed to be forced into that ending eventually.

That said, there are some solutions to some of the things you mentioned...

Although gems are limited, glass is not, and can substitute for gems in most situations.  Green glass is almost worthless and crystal glass actually requires gems to produce, but clear glass is a nice middle ground that you can make endlessly with a little work.  Make raw glass of any sort, and it can be cut by a jeweler like a gem, and otherwise used for gem-things.

Metal is limited in quantity, though.  There's no getting around that.  Fortunately, there are very few things that absolutely require metal.  You can't build decent armor without it, and you can't bridge lava without steel.  That's just about it.  You need metal for large trap components and most kinds of weapons, too, but in a pinch obsidian swords can substitute for both quite well, while crossbows and bolts can be made out of bone or wood and function fine as weapons.  Another big issue is the fact that only precious metals can create coin...  but your fortress can live with a coin shortage if it has to, even if your bookkeeper isn't happy about it.

A small amount of metal does arrive endlessly at any fortress, in the form of enemy equipment that can be melted down.  Unfortunately this does not bring you gold, silver, or platinum, necessary for some kinds of coins...  Perhaps you should be able to trade for golden stuff from traders...

Possibly dwarves could be able to trade for raw metals and gems.  Realistically, it is odd that you can find usable quantities of every metal in one mountain in the first place...  and trading for metals you don't have or ran out of would provide more incentive to trade, which currently becomes rather useless after you have enough food and can make your own cloth.

[karnot]

quote:  This is correct, however, the earth's core is not only molten rock but also molten iron and other trace elements.

Well, its also possible to get gold from the sea water, but no sane person would do that.

quote: A small amount of metal does arrive endlessly at any fortress, in the form of enemy equipment that can be melted down.

This amount is VERY small, since nobles will claim stuff as soon as it drops on the floor.

[Aquillion]

It's still collecting in your fortress.  If you ever really need some of that metal, you can just kill the noble who claims it...   Think of it like a piggybank.

[Rooster]

quote: Magma is molten rock.

Quess you are right

[ October 15, 2006: Message edited by: Rooster ]

[Rooster]

Probably you're all right but surviving on iron isn't good enough for me. Do you know from where did all that precious ore got on the surface? From volcanoes of course. I've created lots of worlds and still didn't saw a volcano. There should be an option to make fortress on volcano, and if toady wouldn't like that it leaves the option to trade gold,silver and other bastardly rare metal... platinium (dwarfs from other fortresses don't semm to need metal much   )

[GauHelldragon]

Metal isn't infinte? I know iron sure is! see: goblin sieges -> melt equipment

[Eagleon]

Magma doesn't come from the core. It comes from the mantle. It wouldn't make sense, geologically, to have one lava flow form more than a few kinds of ore (mostly iron), and heavy precious metals would be outright invisible in the mix - usually ores containing them are formed later on through secondary processes, in chemical reactions with other elements and subsequent sedimentation. You might get a flow of magnetite going, but it'd take a lot of work.

That said, it could be different in these worlds. It comes down to the gameplay Toady wants to create.

[Wahnsinniger]

First off. Metal is NOT infinite. Every mine owner ever has known that, at some point, he will have to abandon the mine and move on, because it will run out of available ore.

Second, no one mines Volcanos, save for the one mine I saw on google trying to find someone who DID mine volcanos, and they're mining for sulfur, not metal. Mining magma for resources is beyond our current technology, and dwarves, hardy miners that they are, can't come close to acheiving what we can in real life, so they would not mine Volcanos. Period. (Perhaps MAGIC could be brought to achieve such a thing, buts thats a whole different discussion).

Third,

quote: You're not supposed to have a forever-alive fortress. Sad but true. The fortress gameplay is intended to have a clear beginning, a middle, and an end, and if you want to keep mining increasingly precious metals you are supposed to be forced into that ending eventually.

I agree that fortress gameplay is supposed to have a beginning, middle and end. However, when a fortress begins running out of metals, it doesn't just die. There is a reason this is called a 'fortress' and not a 'mine'. Mines just exist to extract metals and resources from the ground for use by others. A Fortress in this game is actually a City and a mine combined. Cities don't like to disappear, so once the mine portion dries up, the fortress would instead start to import useful metals and perhaps even rare stones and gems if need be, in order to survive.

But since the fortress gameplay needs to end eventually the final goal should be to gain all the important nobles so that your fortress turns in the the capital of your own kingdom (or a whole new dwarf "civilization", in this case), where you can start your own satallite fortresses and import resources from them. At this point, you could leave your kingdom, and it would become an fully interactable dwarf civilization just like any other already on the game map. (This is essentially what all those duchy/county/kingdom plans are on the development page)

So yes, you should eventually run out of native resources, yes you should be able to acquire new resources at that point(trade/import), no your fortress shouldn't just die, and yes gameplay needs to have an ending point.

[ October 15, 2006: Message edited by: Wahnsinniger ]

[GauHelldragon]

Why would you even need an infinite supply of metal anyway? It's not like your dwarves are eating it.

[thvaz]

It would be nice if you could just abandon your fortress and let it running by itself at some point.

And I would like very much if you canīt find every kind of precious or useful metal ever discovered by the dwarves at one fortress. You should have a few kind of ores, and should had to trade for the others. This would give a greater importance in trading - as it is, trading is only useful at the beggining of the fortress.