Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Lord Darkstar]

Make the Channel designation a double-task designation. Channeling a flat surface will make a sloped canal, channelling a downward slope will remove the slope. If possible, do the same with the Dig designation, adding the "remove slope" functionality to it, and removing the dedicated designation. If you value aesthetics and/or safety, designating a second channel job to remove ramps won't be too much work.

This would defeat the purpose of the change. I'll just find the IRC log, so people actually know why Toady did this instead of bickering constantly.


Okay, here we go:

[01/04/10 06:46:47] <ToadyOne> we added ramps because it was too easy to block off invaders and so on, wanted to make it more of a project
[01/04/10 06:47:42] <ToadyOne> I mean, the improved sieges stuff is the true fix
[01/04/10 06:47:56] <ToadyOne> it was just something we noticed when testing started, and it was an okay change

Then Toady One failed. It is still trivial to protect yourself. Until the sieges fix are in the game, it will be trivial to protect your early fortress as long as you want to set up a wall and doors/floodgates or a moat. So what we get from this is ugly breaches, dwarves dieing when breaches, and lost equipment.

Old style channelling was very intuitive before. You did it, you saw your results. Now, it is less intuitive if people want to make a pit. So this was a bad change.

Frankly, figuring out that you have to designate an "Up" stairs or an "Up/Down" stairs directly below your Down stairs was more difficult to a new player than CHANNELLING. Channelling's most difficult part was getting dwarves unstuck, but being careful in construct and digging is called for anyways.

I applaud most of the changes to Dwarf Fortress. But this change does not meet Toady One's objective, and just irritates his user base--- the very user base that provides him with the money to continue developing Dwarf Fortress itself.

A feature to let users make ramps from above is good, but taking away their ability to breach water and magma safely is bad, and having ramps appear in channels while all on map water is old style pitting, rather than sloped, is just going to further irritate the player base.

As has been stated many times, it is quite easy, compared to smoothing sheer rock without any tools, to dig a square pit.

[Grocer]

Poll is here.  Let's see some numbers.

[Dwarftosser]

This thread makes me look forward to when Toady finally implements "more realistic cave ins."

[Crossroads Inc.]

Maybe if you get two choices for channeling, one with ramps and one without.

Personally this would be perfectly fine by me...

Everyone in this debate has had good points.. The new channeling system IS useful, its incredibly useful for making huge pits safely.  It is also wonderfully useful for making easy exits to keep people for drowning or getting trapped.

The problem is that it prevents you from doing certain things the old system could do.  Case in point is making "Pits" IE a 1x1 hold for something like a Well or a Magma forge.  Also as stated, there are those who REALLY DO like having a 'moat' to keep out invaders early on.  Digging such a thing is a cheap and quick way to provide defense to an early fort just getting going.

As of now, I find myself being forced to dig out an area underground First, THEN 'channeling' the top out in order to get "Real" channels with no ramps.  The other thing I find myself doing, is using vast amounts of stone to "Pave over" the ramps. A very taxing process.

Really this would be simply fixed by allowing BOTH options. 
You can have "Dig Channel" which would be the No-Ramp old version and
"Dig Pit" which would be the new ramp version.

[Lord Darkstar]

Really this would be simply fixed by allowing BOTH options. 
You can have "Dig Channel" which would be the No-Ramp old version and
"Dig Down Ramp" which would be the new ramp version.

Fixed.
Be best if the ramp version told you it was a down ramp, for intuitive use. "Dig pit" and it results in a down ramp doesn't seem as intuitive.

[random51]

Channel defense still works just fine after this change.  Sure, I had to designate removal of the ramps after the channeling was done, but at most that made it take twice as long, which still left me plenty of time to complete it before having to worry about goblins or kobolds.

Did this on 2010:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[darkflagrance]

Even though I know that it can be done otherwise, I much prefer the new way of things, and so will nearly any player new to DF. Because it makes sense, and is easier to use.

The so-called "new" way of things is not substantially different from functionality that already existed in Dwarf Fortress. The difference is that the switch in channeling has caused people to realize the options already extant in prior versions of Dwarf Fortress, but that does not change the fact that as a consequence, other actions are now more inconvenient or impossible.

The trade-off of lost functionality for a function essentially unchanged that was publicized due to the change is clearly an unequal one.

Well, I can understand why some people would. For one, a single-wide ramp-channel with water would be indistinguishable from any such channel that goes into a hypothetical blue stone. But having them invisible always is also not advisable - because then you wouldn't be able to see when there's a way down underwater. This would make navigating the flooded cave complexes more difficult. And you won't be able to see when there's a way down into the water. In general, I think having ramps displayed in water is a lesser evil at the moment. Maybe later we'll have a different display for ramps, when/if the game moves away from its purely ASCII graphics, but until then I'd rather have them the current way.

Maybe there could be an alternative solution, like an ingame toggle of ramp drawing priority for this purpose, but I suspect this is needlessly complicating. There can be an easier and more elegant solution. Like background gradients, for example.

I am just curious: are you upholding the status quo for its own sake, because you believe that it needs defense?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Essentially, you wouldn't be wrong in saying that. I'm not sure whether I said it in this or the other thread, but I find this line of reasoning - "The reason behind the change makes sense, so there's no sense in just reverting it." - to be particularly applicable here.

The change was made, and hit a few significant snags in implementation despite being a sound change overall, but instead of calling attention to bugs with implementation and voting for ways of regaining initial functionality, suddenly a whole heap of people just want the old simple tool back.

I can see their reasoning, but I don't find it prudent. It'll be better for the game if the bugs are fixed and the new tool is adapted to make it work for everyone. Call it anything you want, but it's a step towards making the game more adaptable. Maybe a step towards a future interface overhaul. Digging and mining can be reduced to just three commands, instead of five ("mine/dig up/dig down" instead of "mine/channel/make up ramp/make down ramp/remove upward ramp").

You may want to have the old tool back as a temporary measure if the new one's bugs are too hard to fix - I can understand that it's a possibility and won't object if it happens, but ultimately it's Toady who's doing the work, and only he can decide which way to go on the matter.

As for the "not entirely different" functionality - "Channelling should make channels, not ramps." So why would anyone think of using ramps to do channels? Especially if they're being designated on the level below? That's something you need to know beforehand, and something that's not easy to use despite ultimately being less useful than the more straightforward channelling. For the whole mess to make sense, "channelling" should handle both, and for this reason changing channelling to make ramps on level ground while making clean pits anywhere else is the best way to go with the problem that I can see. Making two separate designations is also a good way, but not the best one currently, as it still means "taking the easy route", and still means some form of balancing would be required to justify the two variants' game-side differences.

[Shades]

The fact remains that this change was not an improvement but was done to get around a flaw in the siege ai (namely that it's not very good), by your own argument it would have been better if this was fixed than this temporary hack (that also introduced a number of other problems).

The second fact is that the game is now less flexible as not only can't you do things that were possible before but can't do anything new either, this means your options are now more limited and has reduced the scope of the game. Pretending otherwise doesn't not change this fact.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yes, the initial reason was to get around the flaw in AI. Yes, the game could actually benefit more from the AI flaw itself being fixed. But if you follow my reasoning further, you'll see that I agree that if bugs are too hard to fix, a workaround solution can be introduced. The workaround happened to be a great benefit, even if it is plagued by different bugs, so while the game can again greatly benefit from the bugs being fixed and the workaround remaining in place, if it's again too hard then the workaround can itself get a workaround in the form of the initial function, made harder to perform in some way to compensate for its usefulness.

Later, the workaround's bugs will be fixed, and the initial function may again be removed, only to be re-added later when the initial problem is resolved that caused the workaround to be introduced in the first place. At that point, there may no longer be a meaningful distinction between the "old" and the "new", due to the AI fixes and everything that came with them.

[Shades]

This was the workaround solution. It didn't work.

[Sean Mirrsen]

You now got three threads (I think) arguing about how it made channels more annoying to make, and you're still saying it didn't work? It worked alright, the problem are the bugs. Say what you want about it, but it's the extra things you have to do that annoy you. Get rid of the bugs and the workaround will perform its function perfectly.

[Shades]

You now got three threads (I think) arguing about how it made channels more annoying to make, and you're still saying it didn't work? It worked alright, the problem are the bugs. Say what you want about it, but it's the extra things you have to do that annoy you. Get rid of the bugs and the workaround will perform its function perfectly.

How? It doesn't even achieve its stated goal. Making a siege proof defence is effectively no harder than before, mine one extra square, mark all the rest for ramp removal and that task is very quick even for unskilled miners. Or you could just fill it with water like before.

And yes I've posted on each the threads where this as come up because that same arguments for it where made. It was a change, made in good faith (or possibly accidentally made and left that way depending how you read the irc comments) that has failed to achieve what it was meant to do and has remove functionality from the game.

[Sean Mirrsen]

How much harder would it have to be for you to accept it as "effectively" harder? Limiting the tool to designating one tile at a time? For the kind of widespread use the channels have, doubling the designations required is just the right amount of "hard".

[Lord Darkstar]

How much harder would it have to be for you to accept it as "effectively" harder? Limiting the tool to designating one tile at a time? For the kind of widespread use the channels have, doubling the designations required is just the right amount of "hard".

There is only one person that can say "that's the right amount of effort", and that's Toady. [flames removed - threetoe]

We've already established that this change to channeling fails to meet any of its design requirements. It exposes more of the games bugs. It is inconsistant with the rest of dwarven digging. We have also established that according to "Sean Mirrsen's" own logic, this change needs to be UNDONE, and Seiging and better Pathfinding to be be done soonest. So why is "Sean Mirrsen" constantly returning to points he has acknowledged were bad/false? That makes no sense whatsoever. But here you, Sean Mirrsen, are again, defending the change. Frankly, these topic would have died out days ago if you hadn't kept returning to say the same proven false positions and stating the exact same opinion, "Toady can do no wrong so this change must work exactly as envisioned and therefore be exactly right."

So, are you a sock puppet for Toady or just his one of his most hardcore faithful? Look through these threads, where you've acknowledged that your own position is that digging needs to be made consistant (with channeling reverting until digging and new mechanisms functionality is added in, to support clean breaching and safer digging among other things, while also giving us new channelling functionality for designating down ramps from same level), seiging needs to fix the "unstoppable moat/wall" issues, and all the other fixes required (pathfinding, etc). But after all that, back you circle to the beginning: "Toady did it to make defending by moat more irritating to the user without actually making it any more challenging to the user, thus needlessly angering his user base and his paying customers, ALL ACCORDING TO HIS PERFECT PLAN FOR DWARF FORTRESS."

Consider, your latest return has you back on the track of "make old style channelling take twice as long, and not irritate the players by double designation AND avoid all the exposed bugs which will get fixed in future arcs of DF." Note that the "Old Channelling" camp doesn't care how long channelling takes, just that they have that functionality back--- not for "instant moat defense", but all the other places that old style channeling is superior (channeling into a freezing aquafier, clean breaches, no death for miners due to the ground they are standing on being channeled away, etc).