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The new channeling is covered in awesome sauce, the old channeling smelled real bad.

113 (19.3%)

The old channeling was the best, we don't need two ways to make ramps it is just silly.

245 (41.8%)

Old channeling was the best, new channeling is also the best.  Can't we all just get along?

132 (22.5%)

You people need to get on with your lives, it's not a big deal either way.

96 (16.4%)

Total Members Voted: 583

[Sean Mirrsen]

Even in the existing poll, we see that less than half of the voters are actually against the new channelling. A fifth is strictly pro, and the rest don't mind either.

We could probably get an efficient poll on the matter set up if it was in the announcements somewhere, or cross-posted across the board with links to it. Then it'd have to have a thorough analysis in the poll's starting post, of situations where the two modes of channelling offer notably different results.

As a matter of fact, we could try this now. Let all pro-old and pro-new forumspeople assemble and think up situations where their mode of channelling proves superior to the other. That way we could see exactly what we're fighting over.

[LegoLord]

People.  One ramp tile, away from where your fort is actually constructed (and that you won't be looking at often) will not have a significant impact on FPS or aesthetics - especially if you have partial print on, because the graphics for the tile won't be updated when you aren't looking at it (if I understand the description of the function correctly).  That's just nitpicking.

Now, let me show you an easy example of how to avoid dwarf pathing through the ramp.

Code: [Select]

level Z
########
#___#D.#
#___V...
#___#...
########

level Z-1
########
#~~~####
#~~~V...
#~~~####
########V: Ramp
#: Wall
~: Magma
.: Floor
D: Dorf
_: Open space (level above that which magma occupies)
Dwarf shouldn't path into the ramp unless you tell him to.  Which, I will say again, is in no way remotely necessary.

Honestly.  This is making a mountain over a mole hill, only it's actually much smaller than a mole hill.

[Pickled Tink]

The whole discussion boils down to the annoyance of having a ramp where a channel would look a bit nicer.

Nice Strawman there.

One of our arguments is that it costs dwarven lives, though the whole "We like new channels" crowd is seemingly deliberately ignoring this.

[LegoLord]

One of our arguments is that it costs dwarven lives,

Which I just demonstrated is easily avoidable.  But that doesn't stop this:

though the whole "We like new channels" crowd is seemingly deliberately ignoring this.

Does it?  Hypocrisy does not help you here.

Oh, and by the way, things that can swim don't need ramps to come onto land.  So if something can move in the magma lakes to begin with, it doesn't matter whether or not there's a ramp there.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Old channels cost dwarven lives too. Anytime you had someone drown after dodging into water, it was because there weren't any ramps they could use to get out. This is not mentioning uncooperative miners stranding other miners on chunks of land. Right now, you only have to be extra careful when routing dangerous liquids into canals - and if you usually weren't extra careful when routing dangerous liquids into canals, you're a hypocrite when saying you care for dwarven safety.

[Squirrelloid]

Old channels cost dwarven lives too. Anytime you had someone drown after dodging into water, it was because there weren't any ramps they could use to get out. This is not mentioning uncooperative miners stranding other miners on chunks of land. Right now, you only have to be extra careful when routing dangerous liquids into canals - and if you usually weren't extra careful when routing dangerous liquids into canals, you're a hypocrite when saying you care for dwarven safety.

And before you just designated ramps, not channels, if you were worried about any of the problems you mention.  The old designations provided all the tools you needed for both types of digging.  The new ones give  you two virtually identicial tools and take away an important one.

[LegoLord]

And in the new way, you just . . . well, you don't really have to 'do' much special.  I just put those walls one either side of the ramp in my diagram for the benifit of the extremely paranoid.

[zwei]

Old channels cost dwarven lives too. Anytime you had someone drown after dodging into water, it was because there weren't any ramps they could use to get out. This is not mentioning uncooperative miners stranding other miners on chunks of land. Right now, you only have to be extra careful when routing dangerous liquids into canals - and if you usually weren't extra careful when routing dangerous liquids into canals, you're a hypocrite when saying you care for dwarven safety.

Oh come on!

No ramps to water? Player can make some if he choose to. You can't currently choose not to have them.
Stranded miners? Player could have simply chose to carve ramps isntead of channeling or he could have chosen to deisgnate chanelling tile by tile.. He had tools to solve that before.

Routing magma? Old channeling did not force you to choose between dwarf and ramp.

See, new channeling took away tool and replaced it with something we already had.

It basically gave back nothing except two-step designation for moat defence. That does not accomplish primary goal (nerf chanels for military purporses) because that is not time-senstitive deisgnation and seccond designation is not exactly challenging and while that makes making moat more projecty, any building fun added by that is ruined by those damn ramps (neat benefit being in red numbers because you have fun designation once, you live with ramps for rest of fortress).

[LegoLord]

he could have chosen to deisgnate chanelling tile by tile.

Required micromanagement is bad game design.  Toady is moving away from that - an example being the new military equipment screen making it much less of a hassle to get dwarves to equip what you want them to (or at least it will once the bugs are cleaned out).

Old channeling did not force you to choose between dwarf and ramp.

There is no need to remove the ramp.  The ramp is a single tile that dwarves will not pass through.  It will have no noticeable effect on FPS.  It's easy to keep it away from any part of your fort that you want to look aesthetically pleasing (and come on, it's ASCII.  It's neat, but aesthetics is not its strong suit to begin with).

The old channeling, while a tool we no longer have, was an unnecessary tool.  As I said before, this is just a mountain made from pebble.

[Grocer]

One of our arguments is that it costs dwarven lives,

Which I just demonstrated is easily avoidable.  But that doesn't stop this:

though the whole "We like new channels" crowd is seemingly deliberately ignoring this.

Does it?  Hypocrisy does not help you here.

Yes, you can avoid dwarves pathing into the newly created and imminently dangerous ramp if you make sure that there's nowhere the dwarf can path to through the ramp.  Yeah, that might only require two walls and some bars or something in the channel itself.  Unless you need the dwarf to path back out through the channel because you want the magma pipe to have only one outlet (for example).  And then you're back to traffic designations and hoping the pathfinding work as designed.  But sure, in your hand-picked example it's not a terribly onerous increase in micromanagement.

This is not mentioning uncooperative miners stranding other miners on chunks of land.

Miners only get stranded temporarily if they've got a pick on them.  If this happens to you a lot then you are doing it wrong.

Required micromanagement is bad game design.

I totally agree.  This change is bad game design.

Old channeling did not force you to choose between dwarf and ramp.

There is no need to remove the ramp. 

Pretty sure zwei meant having a dwarf in the channel dig straight into the flow instead of channeling from above.  To avoid having a ramp you must often sacrifice a dwarf.

It's totally great that the left over ramps don't bug you, we're all real happy for you, but that doesn't mean that they can't drive some of us bonkers.  Your opinions are not the only valid opinions. 

The old channeling, while a tool we no longer have, was an unnecessary tool.  As I said before, this is just a mountain made from pebble.

The new channeling adds no new functionality that wasn't already in the game, with the exception of not designating under trees when doing ramps from above (which would be far more sanely handled by an announcement such as Cancel Dig: Loadbearing Floor).  It makes breaching a bigger pita and uglies it up.  It doesn't make quick defenses particularly difficult.  It doesn't add to the realism. 

Just because they aren't your concerns doesn't mean they aren't real or significant.


edited to remove meanness.

[LegoLord]

Here's the question, though:

Why does it drive you bonkers?  If every single tile on your map is not exactly the way you want it, do you abandon?  Or do you only abandon when a large portion is not to your liking?  Will you risk your starting party just to alter it?  Or do you try to work with it?  Generally, the latter most is easiest.  The only exception I can think of is a very environment-sensative mega project or test - and let's face it, this probably wouldn't have too great an effect on that.

As for only wanting a single route for magma critters, why not just floor over the ramp?  That worked with the old system, where channeling left an open space (which critters could still enter through, because they can swim.  If they couldn't, they wouldn't be a problem anyway).

Those addressed, everything else that has been stated in support are micro work-arounds.  I don't want to have to moniter my miners to make sure that if the get stuck I can tell them to dig themselves out.  Normally, when that used to happen, the first I'd hear of it would be "Urist McMiner has starved to death/died of thirst," in pink letters on the announcements strip.

I also don't want to have to moniter their progress so that I make a new designation over and over again for just a simple square.

[Rotten]

Even in the existing poll, we see that less than half of the voters are actually against the new channelling. A fifth is strictly pro, and the rest don't mind either.

We could probably get an efficient poll on the matter set up if it was in the announcements somewhere, or cross-posted across the board with links to it. Then it'd have to have a thorough analysis in the poll's starting post, of situations where the two modes of channelling offer notably different results.

As a matter of fact, we could try this now. Let all pro-old and pro-new forumspeople assemble and think up situations where their mode of channelling proves superior to the other. That way we could see exactly what we're fighting over.

Digging a magma-routing room.

Code: [Select]

▒▒▒PARTY▒▒▒▒
▒..........▒
FVVVVVVVVVVV->                magma source
▒.V........▒
▒.V........▒
▒.V........▒
TVV........▒
▒.☺........▒
▒▒▒D▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒Code:
▒ is a wall
. is a floor tile
V is a soon to be magma filled channel
☺is Urist McBrainDamagedMiner
D is a door
F is to the forge room
T is to the trap reservoir
PARTY is Urist's destination (not necessarily a party)

Urist: Instead of using that perfectly good door to go to the main stairs and around to the party, I will path through this channel that is rapidly filling up with magma because it has ramps!



King: What was THAT?!
Bookeeper: Just 80 years of crippling alcoholism meeting magma for the first time.

[LegoLord]

Wouldn't it make more sense to (D)ig the channel (save the last) so that you only have to rebuild quite one floor tile?  That problem was in the old channeling, too.

[Lord Darkstar]

The quote is for real and it kinda looks like you didn't even read it.  He never said it would "stop" anything, and he said it's a stopgap measure until the real improved sieges, which includes basically everything you proposed.

it isn't a stopgag measure. It is just plain stupidity, as he knows that it won't even meet his own short term goal. Doing something that you know is a failure before you even begin is certainly stupidity.

I know that, sometime in the future, Toady will improve sieging. But the odds are against him "reverting" the change to channeling at that point. People will be used to the new channelling system, and the user base will whine and complain and demand that he change it back, and who cares about clean breaching with just using the channel command, they can do that with mechanisms, or whatever has been added by that point. After all, it is an advantage to be able to designate from the above, and that feature will be useful in other circumstances.

His goal: Make it more difficult to prevent throwing up a one tile moat when the player is first ambushed. Change: Fail. People weren't using that to make their "instant" defense when something nasty showed up before the "real" defense had been built. Worse, Toady knew the change he was making failed on that point. Verdict: Stupidity. If Toady had changed channelling just because he preferred how it works now, or to give us making ramps down from above, then it would be a success. But to make defending harder? that's what his military changes have done. Made it near impossible for dwarves to defend themselves. It's certainly much more challenging getting them to do anything like they used to prior to the military enchancements. THAT will take new players much longer to master than "old style channelling".

I still like Dwarf Fortress, but I hope Toady puts more thought into his minor changes. The impact can be significant to players enjoyment of the game. Having fun while playing is why we play Dwarf Fortress. Having fun with DF is why we support its development with our money. Which is what allows DF to continue to be developed. I don't want Toady to lose that support. And if he continues to do truly stupid things, he will. We don't want that. We want Toady and Three Toes to have very long, very happey, and very successful careers and lives so we can enjoy DF as it evolves towards version "1".

[Rotten]

Wouldn't it make more sense to (D)ig the channel (save the last) so that you only have to rebuild quite one floor tile?  That problem was in the old channeling, too.

Are you replying to me? Because dwarves pathing into magma-filling channels was DEFINITIVELY not a problem in the last version, do to the tiny detail that dwarves couldn't actually path into channels in the last version. Accidents like that happen to me all the time, because you don't have time to designate the channel as impassable- not that my dwarves actually listen to that anyways- before Urist McDumbass goes and fries himself into a tasty magma-man snack. Yes, you can remove all the ramps before breaching, but then you have a miner stuck in the channel unless you dig a ramp to get him out, and then we're back at square 1. Plus the last square you channel out is a oh-so-tempting ramp no matter what you do....

What I end up doing is channeling, digging ramps down, removing the channel ramps (but remembering to leave the access ramps), then flooring over the access ramps, channeling the final tile, and hoping nobody feels like taking that path while I draft and un-draft my mason to get him OFF BREAK FUUUUUUUUU- and walling up that steamy ramp of liquid goodness that several magma men are eying in a bad way...