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[HollowClown]

Right now, dwarves can only detect damp/warm stone from the sides.  To tell whether stone is damp or warm from above, a dwarf has to dig a downward staircase over it.  This reveals the tile below, but it also leaves a downward staircase to nowhere on the tile.  If I'm trying to find a route through an aquifer, this can leave most of a z-level paved with downward staircases that will never be connected to the z-level below.  I feel that this is visually and conceptually irritating.  It's possible to pave over the downward staircases with constructed floors....but then the entire z-level will flash green when doing further designations, which is even more irritating.

To solve this, why not add a designation to let dwarves reveal a single z-level below the tile, without needing to dig a downward stair?  Admittedly, dowsing isn't quite the right word....'dig tiny hole', 'drill core', or 'poke stick into ground' would also work.  It's simple, it's easy, and won't break any core mechanics that I'm aware of.

Any thoughts?

[qoonpooka]

Right now, dwarves can only detect damp/warm stone from the sides.  To tell whether stone is damp or warm from above, a dwarf has to dig a downward staircase over it.  This reveals the tile below, but it also leaves a downward staircase to nowhere on the tile.  If I'm trying to find a route through an aquifer, this can leave most of a z-level paved with downward staircases that will never be connected to the z-level below.  I feel that this is visually and conceptually irritating.  It's possible to pave over the downward staircases with constructed floors....but then the entire z-level will flash green when doing further designations, which is even more irritating.

To solve this, why not add a designation to let dwarves reveal a single z-level below the tile, without needing to dig a downward stair?  Admittedly, dowsing isn't quite the right word....'dig tiny hole', 'drill core', or 'poke stick into ground' would also work.  It's simple, it's easy, and won't break any core mechanics that I'm aware of.

Any thoughts?

I like it, but I'd like it more if floor tiles (After excavation) had the rock type of the lower Z-level rather than the rock type of whatever you removed.  While gemstone floors are nice to have left over after you've dug out the gems... it's just not useful for anything else.  Any hole you punch in the floor could be small enough so as to not be a security vulnerability, which stairs are not.

I think this would obviate your suggestion, as well.

[HatfieldCW]

On a related note, once we know where there's water, doesn't it go without saying that the tile directly beneath it will in fact be damp?  It's always annoying to have to unpause and re-designate every tile as you dig under a murky pool, and it's often necessary to excavate there, especially when an aquifer is severely limiting the Z-levels you can operate in.

[alfie275]

I think you should use search:
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=39672.0
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=4138.0

Also, that is not dowsing, this is dowsing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing

[Silverionmox]

I like it, but I'd like it more if floor tiles (After excavation) had the rock type of the lower Z-level rather than the rock type of whatever you removed.  While gemstone floors are nice to have left over after you've dug out the gems... it's just not useful for anything else.  Any hole you punch in the floor could be small enough so as to not be a security vulnerability, which stairs are not.

I think this would obviate your suggestion, as well.

Floor tiles are the same as the surrounding rock because there's a floor left over. I like that because it  gives the idea of tunnelling into a mass of rock rather than picking up a layer. Removing it entirely should be possible however, so I think a designation that removes the floor will be helpful: you can see what's underneath, but the underlying rock still counts as as floor, so you don't use functionality. That floor will disappear however when the underlying rock is dug out in the future.