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[Kogan Loloklam]

I listened to the dwarf talk 8 recently, and the whole time only one thing popped in my head. I'm on nightquil right now so my evil plot of dragging you along on it won't work so I'll just come out and say it.

Weponization.

Every thing he said the whole time, the only thing that popped in my head is "How do I use this to kill things"

This is why I am in favor of a realistic model of cave-ins. Yes, it'll be hard to figure it out, but we already have tools that allow automated constructions. Plans of things that won't cave in. Guides and such. We might have problems of copying the filthy defiling Ziółkowski's plan using a mace instead of an arm, but people will figure it out eventually. A beginner fort usually begins pretty simply. Losing dwarves in learning is part of the process. I still remember the first dwarf I lost. It was in channeling out a brook so that it couldn't be crossed in the summer. I only had 2 picks, and both miners were lost. Pretty devastating blow. My next fort didn't have that problem, but my people starved to death. The one after that had some crude farms, but the production was designed so badly that I couldn't get things together.

Right now, my current "fort disaster" consisted of using hammerdwarves as my starting military in an area that goblins really, really hated me.

It's all part of the learning curve, but every disaster I have had has helped me learn a important application of weaponization of the techniques in dwarf fortress. My current project is a giant outdoor washing machine to drain demonic-infected blood away from my fort. I already plan to "weaponize" this. Realistic cave-ins are things that should be weaponized. Isn't that why pillars can be attached to levers (or used to be able to? Haven't tried lately)


So let's get the complex system in. Newbies will make simple stuff that will fall apart if it gets too complex, teaching them by experience as things fall apart, and learning to weaponize it as we weaponize anything else.

[Retro]

Cave-ins are already easily weaponizable. Supports + lever or buildingdestroyer. That being said, I'm against realistic cave-ins because it ruins my digging abilities (same thing for realistic mining).

[Dakk]

I'm all for it. Cave-ins should be something DF players should have to pay attention to. I've already grown used to leave a few stone pillars on every room I carve, just because it looks pretty and more realistic then a huge room supported by nothing but a layer of air, dwarves, cats and vomit.

Of course, it should remain an init option anyway, so you turn it off so that crazy anti-gravity megaproject doesn't fall apart on your head, but when its turned on it'd force players to think their megaprojects much more carefuly and realisticaly.

[pubby]

The whole problem with cavins is that it would require a messy algorithm, would lag more, and is not directly "fun".

If any one can come up with a great way to do caveins, them I'm all up for it, however I have a feeling the game would lose 30 fps while having to check what can support what.

[Goran]

cave-ins, at least those like in 2d version take out the fun from megaprojects. plus, considering how the underground is now, i dont think their implementation would add anything but headache.

[Areyar]

I really don't understand your arguments against cave-ins, the added challenge creates only more fun.
Besides my miners still get killed regularly by undercutting each other and/or digging a multilayer project in unintended sequence.
And as I dislike big rooms without supports, I always have a copious amount of pillars.

[Squirrelloid]

What do you mean by realistic?  Its easy to make pretty large open spaces if you can vault the ceiling.

[Black]

What Squirrel said. Add more comprehensive and realistic construction before you add more realistic failures of construction.

[Coilgunner]

It's not a problem of figuring out how not to make things collapse, it's a problem of Toady having to write code which would, pretty much be guarenteed to cause considerable lag during gameplay.  That is of course, unless Toady really puts some considerable time and effort into coding something amazing which right now, I don't think he's to concerned with.  He's got a lot of stuff he's juggling right now.

[Richards]

There's a good portion of the new dwarf talk discussing the possibility of cave-ins in the 3d version, about 30mins in or so, before the 45 min mark at least. You should listen to what Tarn says about that. It's a bit complicated, but he's interested in implementing it.

[PsyberianHusky]

I'm for it being a little less ridiculous, but then again I could careless.
The sane being a liquid thing he was talking about sounds cool

[nenjin]

Toady's big point was, how do players know about the rules for cave-ins without being force to go outside the game for it? When I didn't know how the current cave-in mechanics worked, I caused them all the time. When I figured out how they worked, I actually had to engineer just to make them happen. Causing a cave-in for non-fun purposes, without injuries, is harder than it looks.

So if it's already that hard even with the simplistic one connecting tile rule. And then if you consider the mega structures people make, and the math that would have to be there to make those possible, while still providing realistic cave-ins....people joke that you need a degree in something to get into DF. Realistic cave-ins might actually make that true.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Dwarf talk #8, 8:36 >> 10:56

"If we step away from that then communication becomes the largest problem" (referring to stepping away from the simple cavein system and communicating the problem to players.)

I think the potential to play with it and weaponize it is greater than the problems it comes with. Players will learn via trial and error. it's not like the first time they dig the tunnel will come down on their heads. They gotta start doing crazy things first. The losses they experience from a single fortress or two is worth the awesome factor of them weaponizing this stuff. Sure, SOME weaponizing of this is possible now, but it could be greater. If it's only the learning curve holding it back, bring it on!

[furrot]

I liked Toady's idea of making the soil layer respect the old 2D cave in rules. When digging in soil layers you need to have a support every 3 tiles or a collapse could occur. If you looked at it as each pillar supporting the 9 squares above it then it should be easy for people to understand the general rule. Right now (well if you don't count the irrigation bug/feature) soil has a lot of advantages over rock for fort building and adding in cave-ins for it could add a little more flavour. I'd love to see soil collapses bringing every soil layer above it downwards too so it would simulate sinkholes and make channels appear on the surface. Might need to raise the limit to 3 squares between supports though or we wouldn't be able to get caravans inside without building constructed walls and ceilings.

For the reasons stated in the DF Talk I'm against a total rewrite of caveins. There are a lot of world level features I'd rather see first that would be better at bring people into the game.

[jfs]

Another thing that could be interesting re. cave-ins would be adding "thin" supports, that essentially sit in the corners of tiles. Think wooden supports along the walls and ceilings in real mines. This could be maybe even required for soil areas larger than 1 or 2 wide, and you'd still be required to leave columns of dirt at regular intervals for it to be stable.
Maybe that'd be too much micro-management or require too much material for supports. (OTOH there might be bigger trees = better wood-supply by this future!)