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[mickel]

We have water levels that can be 1-7, so why not walls that can be fractions of a full wall height too? I'm not sure of the practical applicability at this point, but they'd be great for limiting flows for example.

If combat got more detailed, you could have a wall that, say, a human can fire over and duck behind but a goblins can't reach over, or walls that a human can easily step over but which impede goblins. Or, indeed, walls humans can scale but goblins can't... Or children for that matter.  

[SquashMonster]

If I carve a 1 high wall, my dwarves can stand on it, yes?

So I could carve another 1 high wall behind that wall.  And I could keep doing that, until I have a 1 high floor.

And if you're standing on a 1 high floor, you can step onto a 2 high floor.  In fact, you could make a gradual staircase up to 7 high.  At what point do the dwarves hit their head on the ceiling here?  We'll have to add ceiling height carving too.  And you'll have to be able to place doors on walls, and do that with all the other buildings.

The idea makes sense, and it seems like something you should be able to do.  But, I can't see how it wouldn't end up with the same effect as multiplying the number of Z levels by 7.  Which is too much.  Navigating fortresses, alone, would be a pain.

[Tahin]

I'd like to see this. Walls below a certain height could be usable as tables, for placing things on and eating at, (Bar, anyone?) and it should be possible to see and shoot over them.

[Zulaf]

Would this mean that you would need 7 stones for one piece of wall?

[Mechanoid]

IMO this should only be possible through constructions, otherwise the "Z-levels * 7" problem SquashMonster stated would happen far too often... In fact, i can't even think of a way you'd be able to carve x/7 walls without butchering the designations menu (further)

Anways, it's definitely a good idea, as it'd allow fairly unique construction options. I think it should function like this:
- Step height :: As simple as dividing creature size by 3 and rounding down. Why 3? Most creatures cap out at 20 size; divided by 3 and rounding down, that's equal to 6. This means that a Dragon can "step" over a 6/7 wall, but cannot step over a fully-constructed wall. Given that Dwarves/Goblins are 6 units tall, their step height would be 2/7; they cannot step up to a 3/7 or higher wall. Humans/Elves would be the same.
- Climbing :: If a creature cannot step up, then they will try to use their climbing skill to get on top of it. (when climbing is put in)
- Liquids :: Liquids in the square* are treated as they normally would be, except that they are at much more shallow levels. Liquids treat 6/7 walls as 5/7 walls, otherwise you'd have 1/7 units of water evaporating on top, incapable of flowing. In order for a liquid to flow over a x/7 wall, the liquid in that square must be equal to that wall's height+1.
- Projectiles :: Walls shorter then 4/7 should be able to be shot over. Why shorter then 4/7? Because firing a bow from 4/7 would be a literal pain in the neck, and a crossbow would have no support for it's recoil. As well, it's safe to assume that ballistae fire at the midline of a square, considering the chances of the ballista arrow chopping someone in half when it connects with them.

...
As for the talk about ceilings, sure... But it will complicate the menu AND display of such walls both in the game window and in the menu.
I think the best way to display it in the game window would be to:
- Have the stone color as the background color
- Have the floor and ceiling height numbers colored in relation to the wall color :: floor numbers are in the opposite color, ceiling numbers are in the nearest complementary color.

So, a granite wall would have a (dark?) grey background. If a fractional wall was built there, it would have a white number as it's floor, and a (light?) grey (or black?) number as it's ceiling.
When you loo'k' at the wall, there will be the same colored numbers, but instead of x/7 it will be x/7/x representing the layering on the floor and ceiling, with the remaining space between them. (and possibly wether or not that's filled with liquid)

*Any time water or magma flows over a fractional wall, the wall is replaced with a double tidle, dark blue for water or dark red for magma, with the background being the color of the wall. [If the liquid is flowing, it should animate with a single tidle. As well, it should generate mist if it falls more then 3/7 in distance.]

[ December 06, 2007: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]

[Capntastic]

It would make looking at the height of things at a glance a massive headache, so I dunno.   I am against it because it would be really complicated to use it, view it, program it in the first place, and such.

[Lord Dullard]

quote:Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>It would make looking at the height of things at a glance a massive headache, so I dunno.   I am against it because it would be really complicated to use it, view it, program it in the first place, and such.</STRONG>

Ditto. Just trying to visually represent this in a text-based world would be.. insane.

Climbing.. the idea of climbing in DF makes me shudder. I don't even want to THINK about silly dwarves all suicidally trying to scrabble up the side of a mountain to retrieve a single bolt on the top..

[Mike Mayday]

It would work very well in an isometric view, which allows you to see the height with ease. (see: http://spriteattack.cator.de//df/show//dwarf_show.png  )
This way, we could have both constructed and natural terrain this varied (while still retaining the basic concept of layers as it is now).

In a top-down view, as it is now, it's simply not feasible.

[Red Jackard]

Some of the varied ground tiles could be slight raises in height, similar to the isometric concept art above. Otherwise, this isn't possible with the current system.

[Wahnsinniger]

This does seem to just make things a bit too complicated. Though I think it should be applied to grates, so when you install a vertical grate, you can set it's "height", thus being able to limit the level of water in an area.

[Geofferic]

quote:Originally posted by SquashMonster:
<STRONG>If I carve a 1 high wall, my dwarves can stand on it, yes?</STRONG>

Oh how bout, no?  If you simply disallow standing on the walls, all the problems you talked about go away.

[herrbdog]

Honestly, if you wanted to add that level of complexity to the map, with multiple height floors and ceilings, it would probably be better to scrap the tile-based map system and switch to a vector-based map system. However, vectors & ASCII don't go well together =p.

This would be a total rewrite of the game, however.

To do so in the existing map framework seems it would be unneccessarily complex and time-consuming for minimal gain. And more map data to store and process.

[Alfador]

quote:Originally posted by herrbdog:
<STRONG>Honestly, if you wanted to add that level of complexity to the map, with multiple height floors and ceilings, it would probably be better to scrap the tile-based map system and switch to a vector-based map system. However, vectors & ASCII don't go well together =p.

This would be a total rewrite of the game, however.

To do so in the existing map framework seems it would be unneccessarily complex and time-consuming for minimal gain. And more map data to store and process.</STRONG>

If you switch away from tiles like that, you're going to lose the temperature and fluid dynamics. Or you're going to lose everybody to 0.00001FPS until Moore's Law catches up.

[Geofferic]

You really don't have to make it an actual physics piece of the code type change.

All you do, for combat purposes, is have 7 or 8 'types' of wall and the person standing next to the wall has a flag set for each cardinal direct as to whether he's next to a wall and then if so, check that wall's height, then resolve the combat issues with a percentage chance to hit someon on the other side of each type of wall.

Prolly can do it simpler than that, too.

[Drex]

I, too, think all the problems with this concept could be overcome by making it simply an extension of the current system of walls, and not necessarily making any new rules.  I guess what I'm thinking of is just more of an 'elfier' (read "wimpier") version of current walls - more like a sort of fence.  For the half-height walls I envision, I'd be satisfied if it were some arbitrary height around 3 or 4 (in regards to containing fluids), non-walkable on top of the tiles, obstructive to all movement through, represented by a slightly different tile from full-height walls, and fit somewhere into the current system of different types of fortifications (i.e. somewhere between crenelations and walls).  I'm not too familiar with all the specifics, but it seems like something that could be easily added into the current set of building options.  It's also exciting to think of what could be done with something like this in place in the future, as the game develops more (what with things like climbing, defending barriers, and throwing objects as a part of everyday life).