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[Fossaman]

Unless dwarfs are using a really odd metabolism, they're going to have trouble with CO². Carbon dioxide levels in the bloodstream are one of those fiddly little things that has to be juuust right. If it goes off either up or down you change the pH of blood, and that makes everything else go out of whack. Whatever magical abilities dwarfs have, at the end of the day it comes down to having a low enough CO² level in the air they breathe for the excess to be exhaled efficiently.

As to 'breathing' CO² instead of oxygen: Plants can do that because they take the stuff and turn it into wood, or leaves, or fruit, etc. etc. They need sunlight to do it. There's no sunlight underground. And potted mushrooms aren't going to be scrubbing the stuff either, they're just going to be breaking down the poo they're growing in.

All of that ignores other dangerous underground gases (radon and methane off the top of my head, from granite and coal respectively) and particulates. At the very least we should need to have ventilation to prevent massive explosions when mining coal.

[ChairmanPoo]

Agreed in general terms, but an objection.

at the end of the day it comes down to having a low enough CO2 level in the air they breathe for the excess to be exhaled efficiently.

CO2 diffuses far more easily than oxygen, so, as far as exhaling it is concerned, CO2 levels in the blood are a non-issue.

As to 'breathing' CO2 instead of oxygen: Plants can do that because they take the stuff and turn it into wood, or leaves, or fruit, etc. etc. They need sunlight to do it. There's no sunlight underground. And potted mushrooms aren't going to be scrubbing the stuff either, they're just going to be breaking down the poo they're growing in.

There is such a thing as chemiosynthesis.

[Fossaman]

Fair enough. I couldn't find any good, thorough sources for how CO² gas exchange works.

There's still the problem of losing oxygen because it's been used by the dwarf's body (and replaced by CO²). There's not really any way out of that one. And they'd still need a mechanism to avoid inhaling additional CO² when the atmospheric concentration starts getting up there. Humans start having trouble at about 2%, and fall unconscious at 8%.I suppose they could have some sort of fancy one way membranes that don't let any in, but still let it out. But that seems silly and contrived to me.

Sure, they might have evolved that way, but most animals that dig burrows dig them so that they're ventilated somehow. And if they were created as part of the mythology with magic super-lungs, you might as well just say "A wizard did it!" and forget the whole thing. Sloppy, I call it.

[Bricks]

A central ventilation shaft that goes to to the surface with air ducts leading to it. The fan would be similarly function to a screw pump.

But I stress, that I don't think think the dorf are in much fear of co₂ poising. However, the human, elves, goblins and kobolds would be in danger of over co₂ saturation.

I just got this image of a group of adventurers in a deep cave.  The dwarf is skipping merrily along, the human is practically hanging off his walking stick, and the elf is face down, his arms stretched out in a last-ditch effort to drag himself along.

Which naturally begs the question: how would the current (i.e. next version) underground caves work?  Would they be sources of fresh air, or would boundaries replenish air, or what?  Not that I don't think there is a purpose to simulating all of this, I'm just wondering how necessary/fun/feasible it all is.  I still kind of prefer the idea of 'bad air' spreading like smoke and miasma do, and limiting it to special cases.  (Also, sorry to OP if this is going way off topic.  Please chide us if necessary.)

[lordcooper]

This is the DF forums, I'd be offended if it was still ON topic 

[lucusLoC]

Lol to that.

As to the ceilings, it sounds like the problem here is akin to the one sided walls. There are more complex gameplay issues though. I am sure players are going to want seperate materials for a ceiling/floor. if you have a granit floor and a gold ceiling, and you remove the granit floor what happens? Just getting a gold floor seems silly, sine at the point the exsisting adjacent floor *should* be uneven. I think the problem is that floors have no thickness, so there is no room for a ceiling in there.

The 2 ways i can see it working now are 1. Removing the floor or ceiling generates the mats contained in both and an open space or 2. removing the floor leves an unsmoothable, un removable rought floor of the ceiling material type of the level below, with the reverse true for ceiling removal.

As to the building acces argument, there are ceiling types that are built (or can be built) from the level below, such as various forms of cloth roofs, thatch roofs, simple wood slat ceilings, and of couse any decorations that go on a ceiling have do be done from below.

I like the idea of having the view toggle between floor and ceiling. That seems to be a workable idea.

The ventaltoin thing has been discussed elsewhere. You should go and res that thread, as many of the points being discussed here were already talked about there.

[Fossaman]

Floors don't necessarily have 'no' thickness. It's just undefined at this point. Of course, things like the fluid mechanics blur this point a bit; a square with no floor holds the same amount of liquid as a square that does have floor.

I think any concept of ceilings that separates them from the floor below would need to look something like this in cross section:

Code: [Select]

░░░░░░░░░░░░░ceiling
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓z-1
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓z-1
░░░░░░░░░░░░░floor
░░░░░░░░░░░░░ceiling
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓z-2
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓z-1
░░░░░░░░░░░░░floor
I have no idea how to handle all the niggly little details with this though. Can you remove a ceiling only? A floor only? Does doing so cause cave-ins? Could each floor-and-ceiling slice be its own z-level? Could each row on the diagram above represent a vertical layer, with tunnels being diggable starting on any vertical layer? If that was done, you could end up with stuff like this:

Code: [Select]

░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░░░░░
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░
░░░░░░▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
░░░░░░░░░░░░▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
Where a floor layer is a ceiling layer further down the tunnel. With fancier ramps, this would allow for some pretty nifty tunnel configurations. But it adds complexity to mining and fortress layout, and I don't know if that's desire-able. It might make it easier to handle 'tall' creatures...I don't know.

[lucusLoC]

Yeah, once you get into all that you are talking about expanding the z levels to some thing like the oft sugested 7 "slices" per z level. Floors are 1 z level thick blah blah blah. I wrote up a long post about that somewhere, i think it was in a ramps thread. The problem eventualy boils down to: tiles, and their boundries, are not defined, and that leads to sillyness with 0 thickness floors and one sided walls.

Edit: i had a moment to log on to a real machine. here is the link:
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=26075.0

and because it is relavent the quote :

Necromancer!

2 main problems with this:tile display and item handling.

the "robust" solution: this would be to simply expand the z levels to 7 (or whatever realy) times what they are now. creatures would then be x number of tiles tall, and you would be able to dig and build on multeple levels at the same time.

   pros: (ignoring coding requirements) allows for creatures to have a different height, e.g. dorfs are 4 tiles high, and humies are 6. dorfs dig 5 unit high tunnels, and build 5 unit high walls. material usage is made consistent (more or less) as a wall would now need the right amount of material to build (depending on how high it is). floors are now one tile thick, instead of existing between tiles. slops are natural. no more x/7 water, so no more strange flows. a puddle is only on tile deep, and water would only slosh around if there was a tile of water under it. items would also have to be given a height. tables would be 2 units high for example. chairs might be 3. for dorfs that is, for humies it would be different. this would also help to define an exact volume for tiles, as 1 tile would be about 1 foot thick.

   cons: requires multi-tile creature support, as creatures will need to travel through a volume. item definitions just got crazy. display and designations also just got really complicated. the learning curve is no longer  wall, it is an overhang.

   mitigation: many possibilities, but here is my idea: set the default "height view". what i mean by this is set the volume you want to be viewed in one display tile. for dorfs this would be 5. so looking at a tile would also show the contents of that tile and the next 4 tiles up. volume of water wold be conveyed as it is now, with a number, but the number would be a different fraction. volumes of dirt would have to be conveyed as well. in the case of a 7 height standard you would use . , ` ' " : ; and # the standard full tile.
Code: [Select]
. is completely empty, with a floor
, is on unit of rock/dirt/ruble
` is two units
' is three
etc.
# is displayed as a solid wall like we have now.
       you will have to either k over the tile or switch to a finer z level resolution to see the exact distribution of those tiles. i do not think there is any way around that. any item that is contained in a z slice that you are looking at would also have to show up in the tile, even if it also occupies space outside your current view. moving up and down should move you up and down in blocks of whatever your resolution is set to. so for dorfs ever press of > or < would move you up or down 5 tiles. designations would start on the bottom tiles and designate the entire 5 unit volume, including any partial tiles. you could also enter a finer resolution mode to carve out only x tiles high from this location. so you would carve out a 2 tile high crawl space for water, or a 1 tile high shelf in the wall. you would also be able to manually dig out stairs and slopes, though a designation tool for these should also exist (our current stairs would become a carved out ladder). since items would now have volume as well, things could now be on top of other items. a barrel falling onto a table would be supported 2 units above the floor the table was on. if your view only contained the legs of he table you would only see that as occupying the tile, you would have to scroll up to see the barrel. this also solves the quantum stockpile problem, but would be very difficult to code. there would also be the issue of unusual items balancing on top of each other. a "balance" mechanic could be added to prevent a bin on a statue on a table on a chair. items may also have to have a weight limit to prevent other weirdness, but this whole thing is already complex enough, and i thing we can make due without it (and without balance for that matter)

      there is also the problem of multi-tile items. once a volume is more rigidly  defined, and multi-tile creatures are in multi-tile furniture is a must. a 2x2x8 golem race is not going to want to use a 1x1x4 chair to sit on. how do you handle a 3x3 table sitting on a slope? or on the edge of a cliff? at this point a balance mechanic is almost a requirement. also how do you display it? if it were me i would just stretch the table/item/creature character over the required number of tiles. there will also have to be a rotation mechanic of some kine to handle items/creatures who are not square. . .


the "simple" way: this would keep the display more or less the way it is now, but would add the concept of "dirt" volume

as above this volume would be displaye with . , ` ' " : ; and #
Code: [Select]
. is a standard floor
, is one unit of "rubble"
` is two
etc.
# is walls as we currently have them.
slopes would not exist anymore, and transitioning from one z level to another would only be allowed if the volume of the adjacent tile was 4 or more. so
Code: [Select]
. ; # would be considered the same type of slope we have now.
Code: [Select]
. ' # would be a wall. i know the volume math does not add up, but i am trying to keep this very simple. any more complex and you basically run into the above complications. you may be able to get away with "creature cannot traverse x difference in volume" and not run into to many issues though. so a dorf traverseable slope wold be
Code: [Select]
. " # for the steepest,
Code: [Select]
. ` ; # for the next steepest etc. i would buy that. slope and item handling would be just as it is now, with items falling onto a volume of "rubble" only showing up on that z level. in this version there is not such thing as a crawl space, and rubble is assumed to occupy space from the floor up. material composition its really irrelevant to this solution, but i suppose if the material rework and hauling is ever done, then one unit of stone/dirt/sand would be produced for each volume contained in the tile. the only other issue is water. near as i can figure it the current water display would have to be modified to tell the player how much volume that tile is capable of holding. so water would be displayed as 7/7 or 5/5 to communicate an empty tile and a 2/7 rock tile, respectively. dig and smooth commands should work on a tile with any volume, and reduce tiles to 0 volume and an appropriate number of items. a fill command would also be nice, and would move aggregate to that tile to fill it, where it would become generic " rock rubble". this would allow a large number of other suggestions to be implemented as well. building can either be built only on an empty tile, or would automatically empty the tile. limitations could be placed as needed, for example smooth would only work on tiles less than 3/7, dig would only work on tiles more than 2/7, and building can only be placed on tile 1/7 or less. this solution also leaves the tile volume question ambiguous, so the multi-tile creature/item problem is put off (again).

conclusion:
the "expand the z levels" idea, while very robust, would basically require a rewrite of almost everything. while i like this idea the most, as it adds the most complexity and realism, it would also add a lot of problems, weirdness and inconsistencies. by the time it is fully implemented you may as well just switch the display to the 3rd dimension as well. it would make more sense that way.

the "simple" solution, as the current solution does, simply ignores the problems and makes the gameplay work. i think it does add slightly to the game though, and does solve a few of the more interesting issues, such as the ice volume issues, and allows us to implement a few nice features such as earthen dams and  sea walls, refilling moats for sieges, rubble in mining and other ideas, while at the same time allowing us to preserve the spirit of the game and its ascii based roots. it can (probably) be added with a "simple" addition to the map data, which means that it may actually have a shot at happening.

either way the current slope handling seems just a bit off. we don not really have the ability to have gentile hills, mounds of trash and other niceties. i think some sort of revamp is in order.

[Sordid]

Well what I'd like to see is tiles to actually have sides. As in, six of them. Also, I'd get rid of the whole "floor" thing entirely. Want a floor? Leave a z level in between and you have a floor. Or construct one, in which case I'd be okay with zero thickness. Realistically, you won't be able to mine out rock (let alone soil) to make two tunnels above each other two meters high while leaving a sliver of rock a few centimeters thick in between as floor. But if you construct such a floor you could make it very thin, such as if you make it out of simple planks.

[lucusLoC]

I think a 7 part cube has been discussed before as well. Not sure where thogh.

[Bricks]

Well what I'd like to see is tiles to actually have sides. As in, six of them. Also, I'd get rid of the whole "floor" thing entirely. Want a floor? Leave a z level in between and you have a floor. Or construct one, in which case I'd be okay with zero thickness. Realistically, you won't be able to mine out rock (let alone soil) to make two tunnels above each other two meters high while leaving a sliver of rock a few centimeters thick in between as floor. But if you construct such a floor you could make it very thin, such as if you make it out of simple planks.

I think sides may be a necessary move if we are ever to engrave a wall from all sides.  However, you get associated silliness, like if you dig out two side-by-side walls, but come at it form different angles, do you could an arbitrarily thin wall between them?  And how do you represent that?  (In that case, I think it makes more sense that those super thin walls can't exist without a block to be against.)  Floors are kind of weird at the moment anyway, as they act like they occupy the whole square if you try to construct something on them.  Which ultimately saves you some material, but it's confusing.  I remember trying to build a keep for my military and becoming totally confused when I couldn't place certain walls.

[MrWiggles]

Fair enough. I couldn't find any good, thorough sources for how CO² gas exchange works.

There's still the problem of losing oxygen because it's been used by the dwarf's body (and replaced by CO²). There's not really any way out of that one. And they'd still need a mechanism to avoid inhaling additional CO² when the atmospheric concentration starts getting up there. Humans start having trouble at about 2%, and fall unconscious at 8%.I suppose they could have some sort of fancy one way membranes that don't let any in, but still let it out. But that seems silly and contrived to me.

Sure, they might have evolved that way, but most animals that dig burrows dig them so that they're ventilated somehow. And if they were created as part of the mythology with magic super-lungs, you might as well just say "A wizard did it!" and forget the whole thing. Sloppy, I call it.

You don't have to resort to magic for an explanation for this. Even though there are lots of terrestrial animals in the game it is quite clear that dwarfs are not. Nor are elves, kobolds or elves.

A simple addition of a newly added organ to the dorf raw can explain it. [The Schoolvich has been pierced!] I dont find it needing an exact biochemical/mechanical explanation for it. I don't think it breaks the suspension of disbelief.

Dwarves are aliens, with alien biology.

[Sordid]

That's what you're going with? Aliens?

[MrWiggles]

That's what you're going with? Aliens?

Eh... Not as in outer space aliens. Alien, as in unknown.

Dwarfs are not humans, therefore they do not have human physiology.

[Pilsu]

That doesn't excuse a sloppy handwave