Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Heron TSG]

This is a new thread about underwater stuff! Request stuff to be added to the list!

If it's above ground and doesn't have to do with water, here!

This is a brainstorming thread about features, creatures and events having to do with water. Please feel free to contribute your ideas, point out flaws, or provide useful images, links or source materials.

Note: This can be anything from storms to trenches of the deep.
This is not a discussion about game mechanics, balance issues, bugs or anything else not related to features, races, plants or animals pertaining to water or other liquids.
UNDER NO CONDITION is this thread meant to be the end all, be all absolute PROPER place to post a water related related suggestion. DO NOT go around berating others for not posting here. Instead invite them here, or link their suggestion into this thread.

Weather Features
Anything to do with the weather

• Flooding - Some super-heavy rainfall events that cause a 1/7 tile of water to appear when the rain hits anything. more and more water would build up, giving you a fairly good reason to cover the entrance to your dining hall with some hatches.
  
  
• Dangerstorms - Some storms can be downright outrageous. Hailstones the size of fists (up to the size of cows?) can harm anything they hit, and if they melt on the way down, super-blobs of water can cause landslides or just turn an open field into a muddy bog.
  
  
• Waterspouts - Tornadoes formed over the sea that cause huge amounts of water to swirl up into the clouds. Disastrous for ships.
  
  

Ruins and Structures:
In the long history of the world it is more than possible that a fortress or adventurer might find an ancient ruin made by a previous group. Also, this area is for building ideas.

• Sunken ships - Could provide a free artifact or two, and may be able to provide wine or oils along with metal bars and the like. Coins may also be present in them. Could also serve as a way to get otherwise unobtainable goods.
  
  
• Message in a Bottle - You may one day find a bottle with a treasure map or hastily scrawled note on the inside.
  
  
• River Chains - Massive chains strung across rivers to block access by boat while still allowing the river to flow.
  
  

Geological Features:
Anything having to do with land formations in the deep or on shore.

• Wadis - Dry riverbeds that may contain excessive amounts of scorpions and other desert creatures. During winter, they flow in a raging torrent, while in summer, the only nearby water is the groundwater beneath the wadi.
  
  
• Spit in the Bay - An outcropping partially blocking the mouth of a bay or cove. Prerequisite for a Baymouth Bar.
  
  
• Baymouth Bar - A sandbar blocking a deep bay that has only a single layer of water on top. Parts may stick out above water.
  
  
• Hot Springs - Like streams that produce another form of (warmer) water that doesn't freeze.
  
  
• Pretty rocks! - At the bottom of a river, there may be smooth boulders, (like a large gem but worth less) or smooth pebbles in a stream bed. (a cheap small gem)
  
  
• Coastal Cliffs - Cliffs by the coast where there is more than one Z-level.
  
  
• Bottomless Lakes - Lakes with an infinite depth. Rocks would fall endlessly, gigantic terrors of the deep would swim upwards at you, and sewer systems could dump in. An example of this would be (mythical) lake Voulismeni or the sea-tunnels of the Caribbean.
  
  

Ocean Features
One of the classic features of DF is the joy of playing in and with the oceans. Now here are a few suggestions to make this even more enjoyable.

• Trenches- bottomless pits under ocean tiles that can spawn fun creatures or magma.
  
  
• Sea Caves - Like the caves now, but at the shoreline, and waves flow into them. all manner of crazed beasts could flop around in the shallows of this lair.
  
  
• Thar she blows! - A hole in the top of a sea cave acts like a whale's blowhole, shooting up water and occasionally creatures. All we need is some hyper-pressurized water and some critters to shoot it at!
  
  
• The pathway will reveal itself during the Blue Moon - Tidal Islands are only islands at high tide. At low tide, a small isthmus connects them to the mainland.
  
  
• Bays, Coves and Fjords, oh my! - Various round (cove), irregular (bay), or just plain lumpy (fjord) dents in the coastline would be classified as one of these, depending upon the type, different deposition of sediment may occur.
  
  
• Lagoon - An estuary that has been mostly filled with sediment becomes a lagoon, and has pockets of salt water surrounded by muddy sand.
  
  
• Brine Pools - Pools of extremely salty water at the seafloor which harbor an abundance of salt-loving sea life.
  
  
• Estuaries - Areas of fresh(ish) water behind a spit that contains extroardinary amounts of life.
  
  
• Tsunami - A huge wave caused by an offshore earthquake. May cover most of the map in water. The further you are inland, the less water there is. [init toggleable]
  
  

Subunda Creatures:
Any suggestion for improving or adding to the existing underwater creatures.

• Watery Megabeasts -
  
  • Kraken - In the deep sea, there dwell ginormigantic squids. Be caught at sea in a boat, and you're gonna get ate.
    
    
  • Leviathan - Amphibious gigantic whales with the ability to shoot high-temperature laser beams out of their eyes, causing eyes to melt and people to burn.
    
    
  • Snow Serpents - Dwelling inside of glaciers, when they are freed from their icy holes in the ground, they eat you and your dwarves to death. breathes ice.
    
    
  • Charybdis - Was essentially a giant mouth/whirlypool, so that could be interesting. (Anything it touches disappears forever!? Sweet living garbage dumps!)
    
    
  • Scylla - A huge monster, with 6 lizard heads, 6 dog heads, 3 shark heads, and 6 spiked tails, Scylla would likely be the Terror of the Deep.
    
    
• Crab People- Amphibious creatures with claw attacks
  
  
• Humboldt Squid - The ferocity of a shark, the tentacles of a cephalopod, and swarms of them.
  
  
• Raining Frogs and Fish - Yes, the ability for coastal stormfronts to pick up frogs and fish using their winds and evaporation. Frogs, Fish, and WHALES will rain from the sky, and the denizens of the coastline shall tremble in fear!
  
  
• Fresh fish - Fish caught recently may be eaten on the spot as a tasty (if disease-ridden) snack. Fish that have been out of the water too long will need cooking.
  
  
• Fomorians - Dead rulers of the deep, who send vast legions of dead sea critters to the surface to prey upon the locals. These may work as rulers for underwater civilizations just as Demons do for Goblins.
  
  
• Sea Hags - Half witch, half octopus. These things could lightning you to death while they strangle you with their tentacles. Some might say 'wizards of the deep'.
  
  
• Coral - Coral is nice and pretty, and attracts fish. When coral meets evil, however, the shells of the innocent coral form together and produce a towering monstrosity, a veritable colossus!
  
  
• Them dam' Beavers! Beavers on small to medium rivers might build dams, creating artificial lakes.
  
  

Ice and Glaciers
Anything to do with Ice, Glaciers, or Both.

• Avalanche! - When enough noise is produced on a steep snow-covered slope, a cascade of crushingly frozen ice particles may fall down the slope.
  
  
• Different Colored Glaciers - Glaciers often take in microscopic creatures of the sea and thus color themselves often making Green or Red lines on them. Add in Red, Orange, and Green Ice. These lines could be a form of 'vein' of ice, which would prevent a glacier from turning into a technicolor blob. Also, the veins would need to be rare enough to prevent the whole 'candy cane glacier world' effect.
  
  
• Icebergs - Floating chunks of ice.
  
  

Aquatic Resources
New things await in the depths.

• Pearls - Oysters and some Clams/Mussels create pearls when irritants enter their shells. Clam and Oyster colonies growing on sand could be harvested for food and pearls.
  
  
• Ambergris - A highly flammable material made in the digestive systems of sperm whales. When you kill a Sperm Whale, it'd drop a chunk of this, which can then be used as a season-long torch.
  
  
• Sea Salt - Eventually, salt is deposited on beaches. This could either be harvested as sand is now, if you want to spice up some food, or simply mined, if you like statues.
  
  
• Driftwood - Driftwood stacks already exist, but it'd be nice if they were usable as normal wood.
  
  
• Whalebone - When whales die, their bones should be usable for special crafts or decoration, such as whalerib spears and supports, or just a nice design on a set of armor.
  
  

Transient Water
Moving freshwater, lakes, swamps, or crazy moving saltwater

• Meanders and Oxbows - When a river hits a dense chunk of rock, it can either cut through or meander, based on its speed. If the river cuts through after the meander is formed, the river runs straight once again and an Oxbow lake is formed.
  
  
• Waterfall Erosion - Water falling from above is sure to cause a basin at the bottom where water collects before moving onward, as well as eroding away at the base of the cliff (see overhang)
  
  
• Great Lakes - Currently the only massive inland seas we have are saltwater. Civilizations may wish to settle on the shores of a lake to rival the size of Lake Baikal
  
  
• Lakes - Currently we have three bodies of motionless water- murky pools, oceans, and ocean-sized lakes. We need to have lakes that take up ~1 regional tile, so that we don't have to dig our own to get that fortress-on-or-under-a-lake vibe.
  
  
• Fords- sections of shallow water (or brook) where the water only comes up to waist height, and may be crossed.
  
  
• Catarakt - A zone in a river full of boulders and such where the water becomes more pressurized and speeds up.
  
  
• Riverbanks - In some areas, such as the meanders of a river, the river's banks become sloped and ramplike.
  
  
• Floppy Fish - When a river is drained, fish will flop about for a bit, waiting to be collected, instead of disappearing.
  
  
• Floodplains - Depending on the steepness of a river's banks and how big it is, Springtime floods would be in order. (for things like rivers, as your measly brooks aren't gonna flood over any time soon.)
  
  

Water Flora:
underwater plants, or plants that require at least 2/7 water to grow.

• Edible Plants - Plants such as rice that grow faster than land-based crops could be added to create more diversity in farmland.
  
  
• Seaweed - A plant that can be made into clothing, hammocks, food, or ropes.
  
  

Meta-game Modifications:
Some aspects of the game may have to be augmented to integrate the above suggestions.

• Pathing Underwater - So that fish people and underwater dwarves could go places with a goal in mind, instead of random flailing.
  
  
• Ship Combat - Obviously, we will need combat once we get ships. Safe-Keeper had a nice version.
  
  Spoiler (click to show/hide)

  :ordering the slaughtering of a new litter of kittens:
  
  Yaawn... :stretching: ...slow season so far, wish something would--
  
  *Fjordfalcon* of Woolsand the Longboat is approaching from the east!
  
  Yowzers, what is this? That's no carp! :throws away bloody butcher knife and kitty head, tears off apron and taps 'k' key; hovers cursor over craft on river for then to press Enter, spilling kitten blood on keyboard:
  
  

  This is *Fjordfalcon* of Woolsand, an exceptionally well-built Longboat. She is made from oak and is lined by shields on both sides. On the shields are colourful decorations. The vessel has a bow ornament in the shape of a cougar head, the symbol of the city of Rustbeard. On the vessel's sail is an image of a red horn, the symbol of the human Beardspire civilization. The vessel is being manoeuvred by rudder and oars. The vessel is under sail. The crew appears to be preparing to lower the sail.
  
  The vessel looks brand new, and most likely has not seen much action [read: there's no noteworthy records of this vessel in Legends -SK]
  
  The vessel is crewed by about two dozen well-armed, well-equipped men who appear to be readying to disembark. The men look to be in high spirits.

  
  Armok save me ! Siege operators, target the *Fjordfalcon* and fire at will! :mobilizes military while ordering siege operators to target the vessel and fire when ready:
  
  

  Urist McBallista Operator fires his ballista!
  Urist McCatapult Operator fires his catapult!
  The ballista arrow shatters the Longboat's bow ornament!
  The catapult stone cuts through the *Fjordfalcon*'s sail, tearing it badly!
  The catapult stone crashes through the *Fjordfalcon*'s mast, cutting it down!
  The *Fjordfalcon* is making for shore!
  The *Fjordfalcon*'s crew is dumbstruck by the unexpected attack!

  Ha-hah!Now look at you! Thought you could just rush ashore and make off with supplies, slaves and livestock like that last boatload, did ya!
  

  *Fjordfalcon* of Woolsand, Longboat of Beardspire
  Owned by Ragnar McRaider the Raider of Dwarves
  
  Agile
  
  Bow Port Hull
  Bow Starboard Hull
  Stern Port Hull
  Stern Starboard Hull
  Keel
  Bow Ornament
  Sail
  Mast
  Cargo
  Rudder                                  Crew in disarray
  
  g: Gen c: Crew  i: Crg [Materials and Cargo -SK] p: Pref w: Dmg
  Space: Done
  

  Bloodied your noses, have we? Blown the cougar head off of your pretty boat? Well, hold on tight, ya river-skulking scum, we're not through with you yet!
  

  Urist McCatapult Operator fires his catapult!
  The catapult stone crashes throught the *Fjordfalcon*'s port bow hull!
  Einar Stonemasher, Swordsman, and Ulf Goatbeard, Axeman, are killed by the catapult stone!
  The *Fjordfalcon* is flooding!
  The *Fjordfalcon*'s crew is abandoning ship!
  The *Fjordfalcon*'s crew is badly demoralized!
  The *Fjordfalcon* is going down!
  The *Fjordfalcon* has run aground!

  :whistles: Splash one Longboat! Now mop 'em up before they make it ashore! This'll make even Saving Private Ryan's opening scene look tame! :watches in glee as a welcoming party of Crossbowdwarves, Swordsdwarves, war dogs, mountain goats and carp rush for the Longboat's crew as they frantically scramble for shore:
  
  
• Off-map River Effects - Blood flows until it dissipates or hits the ocean, rivers dry up downstream from dams, and mob turncoats might swim back out further downstream, only to reappear later.
  
  

Formatting inspired by Othob Rithol's Underground Diversity Thread
Also, we now have an Eternal Voting Suggestion option. VOTE HERE.

[Slogo]

Tsunamis maybe? Giant waves that crash in covering the map in a large amount of water.

[Phantom]

Riptides and recreational sports, sharks, and watery megabeasts.

[Granite26]

I would sort things based on 'requires/assumes ships in worldgen' and 'requires/assumes ships in actual play'.

As it stands, neither situation offers any means for actors to get on the water.

Setting up traderoutes over water (like roads on land) could be a good transport mechanism for worldgen.  The capability would stick around after ships were added to normal play, so it wouldn't be wasted code, but it would allow civs and whatnot to move over water.

Moving over water allows for realistic shipwrecks as a world gen event.  (In XXX PurringMaggot the ArgleBargle was lost at sea travelling between X and Y), which would allow people to look for it.  (using ocean draining tricks).

If necessary, the trireme rules could be used (no more than 2-3 squares from land).

This would also allow settling of other continents.

Coral Reefs are the awesome.  The surface layer should be consider a gem (and mineable?)  They are alive but grow so slow that it's not worth modelling (1 in per 100 years, so worldgen MIGHT allow 1 square of growth)

Fire coral is a fun one.  Chemical burns on touching.

Anyway, reefs are good places for animals to live, while the deep blue sea is relatively barren.

Pods of whales and annual migrations could be cool.  Every spring you get a 'pod has arrived' event, and they go from one end of the map to the other.

Dolphins and Octopi would make neat item thieves, and octopi might even have some fun trapavoid abilities.  The 'adopts' code could be used on dolphins as well.

Water buildings are a must, from sea worldesque training kennels in the water to the ability to make pilons one level into water.

Tides

That's all for now

[Slogo]

Yes! We need a Kraken badly!

Also ships as 'wagons' and docks as depots.

[Granite26]

Crap Pots as an animal trap + rope + food bait

Cast Nets

Harpoons (stuck in = auto 'get' on a kill)

Sponges

Aquiculture (Kelp mostly), implies 'salt tolerant' tag for water plants

Slogo's Giant Squid as a megabeast... implies a need for ranged grab and snare attacks (see harpoon above).  Urist has been dragged to his death!

Ability to appreciate things through glass... Ability to appreciate pretty fish.

Sufficient water pressure should start doing damage to constructions (or really anything)  Say, 1 pt per z-level.  DR on wood should be about 5-6, same with glass, etc and modified by quality.  Would make underwater forts harder but also more awesome.  Damaged constructions should leak.

Poisonous jellyfish as vermin (so they can be picked up).  Throwing jellyfish <eg>

The AD's variable sand height would be helpful for natural beaches with slopes into the water.  Makes training swimming easier.

Lifeguards:  Sufficient swimming skill should enable a dwarf to save another.  Insufficient swimming skill could lead to disastrous failed attempts.

Life Jackets: Duh.. yay!

[Mel_Vixen]

Well i am for true salinity. Means that water that evaporates leaves a spatter of salt.

In a Similliar way Rivers could move sediments, gold nuggets etc.

(The best way to implement this would be as some kind of extened spatter-system. I already had this uggested once on the FotF:LRI but it fits here)

Multi z level waterplants like seaweed would be awesome as well as some kind of fish-breeding by "cageing" and feeding them.

Building dams by droping stuff into water - depending on weight and density.

[Pyrophoricity]

Perhaps flotsam washed up on the shore, could range from broken sails to crates and chests to the bodies (alive or otherwise) of shipwrecked crewmen.

[Sensei]

Do you think this should be merged?

[Heron TSG]

Adding stuff

@Phantom - all but the megabeasts are already in.

ADDING
Tsunamis
Watery Megabeasts
Trade Routes
Shipwrecks on world map
Fire coral
whale pods
octopi
dolphins
Pressure damage
seaweed
dam dropping.
everyone else, your ideas aren't rejected, they just need more detail.

[Granite26]

Perhaps flotsam washed up on the shore, could range from broken sails to crates and chests to the bodies (alive or otherwise) of shipwrecked crewmen.

Well, new 'feature invasions' are in for the next rev from underground... perhaps a 'feature invasion' from the sea based on wagon like 'creatures' that beach themselves and then deconstruct, dumping contents.  I kind and generous developer could base the items based on things that couldn't be traded for with the local civs

[Sensei]

Water civs that work?

Make underwater cities for worldgen, and then they can siege or trade out of rivers and oceans and lakes (where they live probably being decided by new biome tags. Just make suer you use a species that can breathe in water and you're done.

[Grendus]

In another thread, the suggestion was made for slings as a cheap weapon that would use the throwing and macedwarf skills. If slings were added, dwarves should be able to gather bags of slingstones similar to how they gather sand currently (IE designate a "pebble gathering" zone and order the bags to be filled from a bowyer's workshop).

Also, if pebbles were treated as cheap gemstones, they should either be difficult to find (tough to find just the right kind of pebble), incredibly cheap (like 1 or 2 dwarfbucks apiece), or limited in quantity (maybe the ground tile changes after so many uses to no longer give pebbles).

It also should be pointed out that noise almost never causes avalanches. Seismic activity (like say, a cave in underground caused by careless dwarves), or heavy impacts/explosions (like the firing of a siege weapon) however might do the trick.

[Heron TSG]

I'll add the pebble thing to above ground diversity. The pebbles as gemstones thing would be a rare change, and you'd likely have to drain the river to get them.

[LordZorintrhox]

What, no explicit mention of underwater ruined cities?  Perhaps still sealed?  Dwarflantis anyone?

Sunken cities would be awesome, especially with the dwarven penchant for sealable fortresses.  Half sunken fortresses would add SO MUCH to the atmosphere of adventure mode.

When magma/lava/volcanism gets an update, underwater volcanoes would be a must, as would pillow lava formations.  On a similar note, the disturbing tendency of volcanic islands to snap in half and let loose a massive chunk of dry land would be really cool to witness...even if your fort is on the part that falls into the sea.  Tsunami ensues.

Tides (yeah, Granite26 mentioned it).  If Toady really wanted to get into this one, world gen would involve some planetary system simulation including modeling the number and influence of the world's moons (can be disabled in world gen with substituted "standard" earth-like tides)

Made with Dwarven Ingenuity!  Dwarven submersibles.  Too dwarf-punk, really, but if we could ever build vehicles in-game with the various mechanics suggestions out there, it would be inevitable that someone would engineer one.

Icebergs, roving blocks of titanic ice that could play all sorts of havoc with trade routes, caravans, sea-side fortresses, the odd "oil platform" fortress that a player builds from digging up an entire island.  Constructed stone walls wouldn't do very well against an ice berg, and you can forget wooden ones.

Liquifaction on aquifer maps when an earthquake hits...bye-bye fortress.

Recently, it was found that the Congo River can reach depths of 700+ feet...that would be cool, just saying.  A bottomless pit randomly below a large-wide river would be surprising.

Giant amoebas: maybe 3 flow tiles square?  You wouldn't exactly know they were there...until the river got up and started flowing towards your fortress.  VERY HARD TO IMPLEMENT given the current 1 tile = 1 creature system.