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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

[Andir]

Different ways of creating a pit are also, believe it or not, part of game design. A pit, a channel, or a handcrafted underground stadium are all made with the basic game tools. They're parts of the game, that you create. In this specific case, we have two parts of the game - one is passable, looks irritating, and presents an immediate safety hazard - the other is clean, insurmountable, and perfectly safe unless someone pushes you in. In addition, the parts are essentially the same thing, and one can be seen as a different form of the other. In plain ingame terms, having the two being equally easy to construct is an imbalance, however small on the grand scale of things. It's not a squadron of cheap sentient cruise missiles that can dropkick your entire defence perimeter before you zoom in on the matter. But it ever so slightly stands out. You can overlook it - there's a reason the "Balance" is a sub-option in the list - but if there's a decent way of marginally increasing the more useful item's construction cost, it would make sense in the game, and ultimately allow for a better experience.

Yes, and the old method to create a hole without a ramp was a valid option, no matter how much you dislike it.  Just because there's more than one option to create a ramp-less hole doesn't mean the option to make a ramp-less hole is overpowered... it just makes it an option to make a ramp-less hole... nothing more.  It did create a better experience of being able to dig a moat without having to create a way out.

[Andir]

Also... let's get your opinion on a few things while we are on the topic...

There's more than one way to make an up/down stair.  Are you also petitioning that we remove that as well?

Are you petitioning that we remove the dig down stair and dig up stair because there's already a way to construct up, down, and up/down stairs?

Are you advocating leaving all ramps dig out no matter if they can be used so that all ramps must be cleared manually?

These are the same policy you are complaining about.  Simplifying a way to build something dwarfing the harder way (Digging out the pit, removing the material[ramp] then constructing an up stair, then a down stair)

[Lord Darkstar]

Well, you had to create a way out if it was more than 1 Z Level in depth--- or if you wanted to collect the stone (if you channeled a stony material).

I dislike Sean's talk about "balance" in the dig commands. You only need balance for human versus human competition. Since there is none in DF, this is a non-issue, and will remain a non-issue until we have human on human competitions.

Weapon "balance" is actually pertainent to the human player, as you need to know what weapons to equip your military who "compete" with whatever they attack. In weapon versus armor, you need to know that balance, and obvious "imbalances" will draw criticism from the user base (ie, pure gold swords holding a cutting edge, rock swords being better cutting weapons than bronze or iron swords, etc). However, this "balance" for weapons is an efficency issue in the game, rather than "balancing" the work versus reward or effort and time versus result. Channelling isn't a competition of any form (are you DIGGING A LONG MOAT structure as goblin siegers charge to protect your dwarves? Not likely!), so there is no balance at play, merely the ease or lack of it to use it.

[Josiwe]

Urist McDidn'tReadTheWholeThread jumps headfirst into the fray.

I think a neat solution would be to implement a new type of machine component:

"Drill".

A drill would be a constructed building of 2x1 tile - the anchor tile and the drill tile. It would require 10 power and 1 enormous corkscrew for each z-level you wanted it to be able to breach, with a reasonable limit - say 10 screws and 100 power. When built and powered -either by hand or by windmill/waterwheel- it would drill a shaft analogous to the old channel, with the added benefit of being able to go multiple z-levels. You would have to deconstruct it when done.

So - for example - you could use the new designation build your channel, and then build a drill out of corkscrew to breach the river/magma. Or you could build a drill out of 10 corkscrews to dig a well shaft up to 10 z-levels. Dug stone would be screwed up to the surface, depositing a quantum stonepile next to the drill.

This solution would achieve the desired result of making moat digging more difficult and would undoubtedly add new and interesting types of fun.

Of course this is mainly mental masturbation, as Toady already has so much to do that ideas like this will almost certainly never see the light of day. That, and I'd bet someone has already thought of it before.

[Andir]

This solution would achieve the desired result of making moat digging more difficult and would undoubtedly add new and interesting types of fun.

I don't understand the thought process that moats should be difficult to make...  They were most likely the first line of defense for as long as written history has been around.  All it takes is a man or group of men with shovels and they simply climb out when done.  Building a wall is much more work.

[zagibu]

This solution would achieve the desired result of making moat digging more difficult and would undoubtedly add new and interesting types of fun.

I don't understand the thought process that moats should be difficult to make...  They were most likely the first line of defense for as long as written history has been around.  All it takes is a man or group of men with shovels and they simply climb out when done.  Building a wall is much more work.

The difference between those moats and the DF moats is that DF moats act more like the Grand Canyon. They are completely impassable obstacles for all land-bound creatures. Such moats can surely not be climbed out of easily, hence the ramp.

[Andir]

This solution would achieve the desired result of making moat digging more difficult and would undoubtedly add new and interesting types of fun.

I don't understand the thought process that moats should be difficult to make...  They were most likely the first line of defense for as long as written history has been around.  All it takes is a man or group of men with shovels and they simply climb out when done.  Building a wall is much more work.

The difference between those moats and the DF moats is that DF moats act more like the Grand Canyon. They are completely impassable obstacles for all land-bound creatures. Such moats can surely not be climbed out of easily, hence the ramp.

Because we all know that moats were designed to let people get in and out at will.

[zagibu]

No, but those "real" moats were also not dug from above.

[Andir]

And we know that walls around castles are not built from a single stone... now we get back to that abstraction issue.  The game shouldn't be real in all aspects.  People have been perfectly capable of digging/building things without getting wet.  Keeping things simple (K.I.S.S.) in this game by not requiring the building of shovels for removing dirt, hoes for planting fields, diapers for the young.... makes it bearable to play.

[Silverionmox]

And we know that walls around castles are not built from a single stone... now we get back to that abstraction issue.  The game shouldn't be real in all aspects.  People have been perfectly capable of digging/building things without getting wet.  Keeping things simple (K.I.S.S.) in this game by not requiring the building of shovels for removing dirt, hoes for planting fields, diapers for the young.... makes it bearable to play.

Maybe Pac-Man or Tetris is better suited to your taste?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Andir. You're trying to draw us back into the useless discussion, aren't you?

Realism be damned, this is a game. A game that should at least try to make sense. Right now the dwarves can twist the hardest substance in the universe into a sock with their bare hands, yet they need a pick to remove some soil? Some of us would indeed like to have shovels and rubble you'd have to remove, and hoes too. Not so much the diapers maybe.

The point I'm trying to make is that the plain channels are more useful, and undoubtedly more advanced than ramping channels, at least as far as digging from above goes. If this were a competitive-play game, there would be a noticeable imbalance. As it is, there's only a minor difference that can be solved with a minor alteration to the mining process. And if you have any more questions, look at the list I posted - the "balance" is a sub-option. It's not "required" in any shape or form. But it's something that could be nice to have.

[Andir]

Andir. You're trying to draw us back into the useless discussion, aren't you?

Realism be damned, this is a game. A game that should at least try to make sense. Right now the dwarves can twist the hardest substance in the universe into a sock with their bare hands, yet they need a pick to remove some soil? Some of us would indeed like to have shovels and rubble you'd have to remove, and hoes too. Not so much the diapers maybe.

The point I'm trying to make is that the plain channels are more useful, and undoubtedly more advanced than ramping channels, at least as far as digging from above goes. If this were a competitive-play game, there would be a noticeable imbalance. As it is, there's only a minor difference that can be solved with a minor alteration to the mining process. And if you have any more questions, look at the list I posted - the "balance" is a sub-option. It's not "required" in any shape or form. But it's something that could be nice to have.

(emphasis mine)  I've highlighted the point.  There's no sense removing the ability that simplifies the process of digging a ramp-less hole.  All you are asking for is making the game more complicated.  You can try to argue all you like about being alternative methods for digging a channel and removing a ramp and I'll point you again at stairs as an example that perfectly fits this argument.  You can build an up/down stair in half the steps it takes you to build an up stair and a down stair.  This is equivalent to the ramp-less channel if you ask me.  up/down stairs are (in your own words...) "more useful, and undoubtedly more advanced..."

Again, I ask... since I wasn't answered before... are you also petitioning to remove the up/down stair designations?

[Shades]

And if you have any more questions, look at the list I posted - the "balance" is a sub-option. It's not "required" in any shape or form. But it's something that could be nice to have.

More importantly balance should _never_ be achieved by making the user interface more complicated. The correct way to balance would be to have some in game effect such as making sheer channels just take longer to mine per square.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Which is why I also pointed out in the list that we couldn't yet devise an appropriate ingame "cost" for this balancing. Play time seems to be a non-issue (not to mention potentially hard to achieve), some kind of designation limit won't work, merging into a double-designation won't work for breaching flows, making it a construction is too intrusive, material cost is right out. The only meaningful balance change seems to be requiring an additional reusable item, like a rope, but that might not fit into the short term as there's no precedent so far for a task that would require two tools at once.
(edit: late idea, though also not short-term. Make an architect "prepare" tiles to be channeled, so that a miner can just cut them out. Handled game-side, of course, without extra designations.)

The up/down stair designations serve a different purpose. Unlike ramps, they do not require horizontal movement to cross, and you can have a single "access shaft" by digging a vertical series of up/down stairs. They are entirely different from normal digging routines, and could justifiably be changed to require an architect skill to carve, but that's superfluous for the immediate future. As they are, the only change they really need is prohibiting them from being made in soil. I know it can be compacted to form a usable stair, but stairs carved into sand...

[Shades]

Play time seems to be a non-issue (not to mention potentially hard to achieve)

Why would it be a non-issue. Also it would be easy to achieve as there is clearly different speeds of mining already with stone and soil.