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[Mike Mayday]

Well, yeah, but then we've got ramps with walls on all sides, ramps with no walls, ramps with some walls and some ramps around them... I just want to know what's really there

[Typoman]

I imagine ramps with two walls on either side being like this...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(open in paint and zoom in if its hard to read)

Probably not at all practical, but still.

no not at all you are implying if you go down the left hand ramp you can pass through the right hand ramp to access the room and vice versa

[Untelligent]

I imagine ramps with two walls on either side being like this...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(open in paint and zoom in if its hard to read)

Probably not at all practical, but still.

no not at all you are implying if you go down the left hand ramp you can pass through the right hand ramp to access the room and vice versa

It actually does work that way.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1660-howdwarvestraversecertainramps--part1

A little odd in that the dwarf instantly moved from one side of the ramp to the other, but for all intents and purposes the dwarf used both sides of the ramp.

Well, yeah, but then we've got ramps with walls on all sides, ramps with no walls, ramps with some walls and some ramps around them... I just want to know what's really there

Maybe that's the problem here; you have an inherent need to visualize everything (thus the ever-popular graphics packs you've created for yourself and others, to facilitate that), and some abstract concepts are just better off unvisualized. I suppose I could give my own take on the subject, though:

1) Not all ramps are created equal.
2) When a dwarf builds a ramp, he uses the adjacent walls to determine which way the ramp faces. (This is why the ramp requires an adjacent wall to traverse the ramp in that direction.)
3) If the ramp is adjacent to more than one wall, the ramp will be shaped accordingly.
4) If an adjacent wall is added or removed after the ramp is constructed, the ramp is also re-built accordingly. Exactly how this process works doesn't matter to me.

There is no universal 8-sided four-dimensional construct; the dwarves simply use a different ramp shape each time they build one. The suggestion of removing the so-called multi-directional ramps and having the player decide which direction they go does nothing but shift the responsibility of deciding the ramp orientation from the dwarves to the player; the dwarves seem to be doing a good job of it, though, so that wouldn't really do anything but further complicate the game's interface.

[Bricks]

If it can't be visualized, there is something seriously wrong with it.

I imagine a ramp with walls on opposite sides (say E and W) and empty space on opposite sides (N and S) would look like some sort of hyperbolic paraboloid, opposed to a tightly-bunched double ramp.  I guess I need to build some ramps myself and check them out in adventure mode.

[Untelligent]

I never said it couldn't be visualized. 3Dwarf visualizes ramps quite well (I believe it uses the same system I metioned later in that post). Sometime's it's just easier not to think too hard about it, though.

[Bricks]

I never said it couldn't be visualized. 3Dwarf visualizes ramps quite well (I believe it uses the same system I metioned later in that post). Sometime's it's just easier not to think too hard about it, though.

I guess what is most important is to make sure that ramps, as they are, make sense to players (which I am willing to argue either way); and the game notifies players when ramps don't make sense, both when constructed and when the surrounding terrain is modified.  I still advocate a menu that shows the entrance and exit tiles of a ramp, and possibly allows a player to modify the ramp so that certain directions aren't valid, even though the game would naturally allow it.  (A mason/miner should probably actually do the manipulation, so you can't trap attackers in an ever-shifting maze of ramps.)

[Outcast Orange]

I would really like ramps that have a direction. The direction could be chosen automatically, or in strange cases, the game would ask us,
in the same way that it asks about the direction of bridges.

Then from there on, we could start adding new features that make the game even more of a physics sandbox.
Velocity is one of them.
Ramps direct moving objects, including:
Water - Flows in the direction of the ramps, is halted by upward ramps, until it overflows.
Round objects - Some sort of player constructed "ball/boulder" or even player constructed carts.
Not round objects - If something not round falls down, and lands on a ramp, it will keep going and end up at the bottom of a ramp.
So a falling dwarf could be directed by a bunch of cleverly placed ramps and end up at the bottom of a secret passage.

Sorry, just pointing out future game play elements.
Also, that "2%" of ramps actual use, is the 2% a lot of us would be focusing on.

[Stephen]

I never said it couldn't be visualized. 3Dwarf visualizes ramps quite well (I believe it uses the same system I metioned later in that post). Sometime's it's just easier not to think too hard about it, though.

I guess what is most important is to make sure that ramps, as they are, make sense to players (which I am willing to argue either way); and the game notifies players when ramps don't make sense, both when constructed and when the surrounding terrain is modified.  I still advocate a menu that shows the entrance and exit tiles of a ramp, and possibly allows a player to modify the ramp so that certain directions aren't valid, even though the game would naturally allow it.  (A mason/miner should probably actually do the manipulation, so you can't trap attackers in an ever-shifting maze of ramps.)

Ramps aren't confusing in the slightest if you're not trying to confuse yourself.  Having to deal with specifying entrance and exit directions would just complicate the matter.  And if I removed/rebuilt walls, would I have to go through some steps to replace the ramp with a new one?  I can visualize ramps just fine; the only actually confusing setup (no walls on any side of the ramp) doesn't actually work.  Other than that, it's quite easy to picture a tile that reaches the upper height on every side with a wall, reaches the lower hight on every tile with a floor, and has a smooth as possible transition throughout. 

[qwertyuiopas]

Then how about two types of ramp? The every direction possible type(current), and the single-direction, premade ramp that allows 3 directions to pass up to the opposite 3, and if an object falls onto it from one of them, it goes across, otherwise it goes down the middle direction?

Bonus, it means that Tarn doesn't have to BREAK THE MAP FORMAT AGAIN to add such a small change.

[Derakon]

It's hard for me to argue that ramps don't confuse players when we get regular complaints from people who have stranded their miners by trying to make ramps in U-turns. Even if their mental model of ramps is wrong, the fact of the matter is that the mistake they're making isn't uncommon. I'd certainly accept some kind of alert when there's no way to go up a ramp.

[Bricks]

Ramps aren't confusing in the slightest

A search of "ramps" on the gameplay questions board yields 15 pages of results, a number of which are exactly about confusion regarding how ramps work.  I get that you understand them.  Congratulations.  Other players have trouble, and as Mike is trying to say, ramps aren't graphically represented well, leading to further confusion.  I, for one, thought ramps were just a one-level variation on stairs, and have since had to rethink how I build and negotiate ramps.

[Typoman]

I imagine ramps with two walls on either side being like this...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(open in paint and zoom in if its hard to read)

Probably not at all practical, but still.

no not at all you are implying if you go down the left hand ramp you can pass through the right hand ramp to access the room and vice versa

It actually does work that way.
etc

uh yeah that is my point. you can go down and continue in the same direction from all directions. that is not possible with that representation. you can't walk through a wall.
also that is not possible with any construct i have ever heard of. hold on i will do a quick graphic since you all seem to be failing to grasp the core concept here



ok the R is an impossible(irl) ramp that can be used in game. the red lines are the possible paths. at the bottom of each of the lower ramps is a 1 tile wide corridor.

now if you had 3 of these next to each other a wagon could go down either way.  it can't jump and the path to be relativly smooth. now you try and think of something that works to allow this to happen. keep in mind it has to scale to any number or ramps. you would also have a different type of ramp for the number of directions you can travel. so that is at least 4 types (1 direction would be a standed sane ramp) that will allow you to walk down and a 3 ramp wide wagon to go down from any point along the ramp.

[Draco18s]

You're going to have to supply what that ramp looks like in game for me to properly visualize it.

[Granite26]

You're going to have to supply what that ramp looks like in game for me to properly visualize it.

You're missing the point... He black boxed it.

[Typoman]

You're going to have to supply what that ramp looks like in game for me to properly visualize it.

gah again with missing the point. the whole point is that it CAN"T be visualised and also is physically impossible

edit: just realised i may have missed your point. i thought doing it side view like whis would be more clear so fine it looks something like this

...
...
.R.
...
...

www
www
wRw
www
www

w.w
wRw
www
wRw
w.w

w= wall
R= ramp
.= floor

you can reach any floorspace in this

also we really need a monospace font available for doing diagrams.