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[Tacroy]

It would be neat if there were some additional uses for magma up in the higher levels of the fort. I was thinking that perhaps warm tiles should get a value bonus (i.e, "oooh, warm floors."), and perhaps it could even be something that nobles require (not "demands warm floors in room", but as part of the basic room requirement, that is "royal throne room with warm floors") This would encourage dangerous magma-based construction projects in the vicinity of nobles, which is something I think everyone enjoys.

[vanarbulax]

I reckon Roman style dwarfish bathhouses would be awesome. You could start hot springs in ice covered areas.

[McDoomhammer]

The "room requirement" thing seems impracticable to me.  It doesn't just encourage magma use, it makes finding a location with magma and messing with it mandatory if you want to achieve certain things- where's the fun in that?

Making the temperature more important might have potential, but perhaps in a different way.  After all, who wants warm floors if you happen to already be in a hot/scorching location?

[Decimator]

Well, if water and magma could change the temperature of the area near it, that would be interesting. In a hot/scorching area you'd want to run water under the floors of rooms.  In a frigid area you'd want to run magma under the rooms. Then you could use a pressure plate to control the pump that runs the water past magma into a bath room.

[Troas]

I'm getting a vision of a dwarf apartment complex - alternating Z levels of rooms and magma/water pipes.  Each room has a pair of levers linked to floodgates to control whether water or magma is piped into the space below the room.  A pump tower beside the complex to recycle flushed magma back to a reservoir on the roof...

[Tacroy]

quote: The "room requirement" thing seems impracticable to me. It doesn't just encourage magma use, it makes finding a location with magma and messing with it mandatory if you want to achieve certain things- where's the fun in that?

It wouldn't show up unless you'd found magma (using the same logic that enables magma buildings, natch) and since this is just an encouragement, only the King/Queen would require it (and it would show up in their requirement list, so you'd have time to set the system up).

Of course, we'd also need magma plumes that replenish themselves for this to really work, as any mistakes will cause you to lose precious, precious magma.

[Nate879]

I think these are good ideas, but for them to be useful, magma should be made more common.  It's a bit hard to find right now.

[McDoomhammer]

quote:Originally posted by Nate879:
<STRONG>I think these are good ideas, but for them to be useful, magma should be made more common.  It's a bit hard to find right now.</STRONG>

But, see, for me that's kind of putting the cart before the horse.  IRL and in game, magma and volcanic activity aren't that common- it's part of what makes them cool.  Finding a good site with magma is a reward in itself, the presence of magma makes you consider taking on challenges you otherwise wouldn't. If it were common, it would be less fun.

Which is why I question why the player should be encouraged to use it.  I think it is, and should be, cool enough to be its own reason, no encouragement needed.  Or, to put it another way, I don't think encouragement should be pushing the player to do this or that.  I concede the point, and am duly natch'd, but I still feel that  "You have to have heated floors if you have magma" is only one step down from "You have to find magma so you can heat your floors".

[InquisitiveIdiot]

The ability to smelt and forge things without worrying about trees already more than justifies the extra work involved in finding magma.  Melting down the equipment of entire goblin armies is icing.  No additional impetus should be required.

[Karlito]

I don't know about heated floors for my King.  I'd certainly do heat walls though.  Heated walls with mysterious bauxite floodgates in them.

[Squeegy]

I'd prefer heated floors. Minus the floors, of course.

[Alfador]

Magma honestly is easy to find no matter where you are. You just have to dig a whole lot deeper in some places. Deeper, to be sure, than the current game allows. Because nobody wants to dig 100 extra z-levels and allocate that many extra layers of processor torture just to get magma in a place where the crust happens to be of a normal thickness.

Then again, an option on the bottom layer to "drill thermal borehole" might be a nice, properly time-consuming way to get a tile of magma, just like digging a well in the old 2d version. Downside: You're effectively CREATING a magma vent tile that wells up magma. So this would have to wait until magma vent tiles actually replenish magma.  

[ January 31, 2008: Message edited by: Alfador ]

[Sowelu]

I don't think finding magma and underground water should be as hard as it is.  I mean maybe it's rare, but still.  In the game's era, humans would never settle somewhere that they don't have access to fresh water.  Dwarves would probably not send resources to a glacial site that they didn't know had magma, or a mountain without aboveground OR belowground water...I dunno, just seems like dwarves should be smarter, and they should know where to find that magma.

[McDoomhammer]

Maybe they're just sturdier, braver and more resourceful (or more ill-advised, depending on the player) than humans?

[Align]

quote:Originally posted by Alfador:
<STRONG>Then again, an option on the bottom layer to "drill thermal borehole" might be a nice, properly time-consuming way to get a tile of magma, just like digging a well in the old 2d version.</STRONG>

Delicious terraforming.
I don't know if even the dwarves would be capable of digging into the mantle though, and especially not in Dorfworld where the demons of old are imprisoned in the deeper darkness. Es.