Print

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

[GRead]

So, we have these vast magma seas now, but aside from all that magma, and the occasional wandering creature, there's not all that much in them. So while thinking about shrubs and trees growing underwater, it hit me; why not have plants that will *only* grow in magma?

They should be more valuable than regular crops, to reflect the difficulty of harvesting them. They'll only grow wild within the magma sea, in squares of 4/7 to 7/7 magma. Once collected, in order to farm them, the farm must be placed on a muddy floor above 7/7 magma in order to feed the plants roots. Alternatively, the farm itself must be flooded with magma after planting, and drained in order to harvest. Plants farmed in this manner would not begin to wither until the magma was drained, to make farming them a bit more sane.

The magma plants themselves would mostly be processed to valuable food, booze and trade goods, but could also have unique properties. 'Magma reed cloth' could have a fixed temperature that would keep the wearer warm in even the most frigid environments. Magma tree wood would naturally have a magma-safe ignition point. There could be plants with strange extracts that burn and melt, or could be processed into unusual products, such as useable ash or even metal bars\gems.

And besides, what could be more dwarven than growing your food in magma?

[Dwarf]

Make them grow slowly and astronomically expensive. Maybe they could be used in the most luxurious of foods and booze and rare powerful healing stuff.

[Ilmoran]

So, we have these vast magma seas now, but aside from all that magma, and the occasional wandering creature, there's not all that much in them. So while thinking about shrubs and trees growing underwater, it hit me; why not have plants that will *only* grow in magma?

They should be more valuable than regular crops, to reflect the difficulty of harvesting them. They'll only grow wild within the magma sea, in squares of 4/7 to 7/7 magma. Once collected, in order to farm them, the farm must be placed on a muddy floor above 7/7 magma in order to feed the plants roots. Alternatively, the farm itself must be flooded with magma after planting, and drained in order to harvest. Plants farmed in this manner would not begin to wither until the magma was drained, to make farming them a bit more sane.

The magma plants themselves would mostly be processed to valuable food, booze and trade goods, but could also have unique properties. 'Magma reed cloth' could have a fixed temperature that would keep the wearer warm in even the most frigid environments. Magma tree wood would naturally have a magma-safe ignition point. There could be plants with strange extracts that burn and melt, or could be processed into unusual products, such as useable ash or even metal bars\gems.

And besides, what could be more dwarven than growing your food in magma?

I'd say make the magma farm have to be build in open space over 4/7+ magma, like magma furances; except instead of requiring some floor under the building, the entire farm plot hangs over the magma, and must be built next to solid ground.  It should probably require magma safe materials as well.

Alternatively, make it less space-efficient: require each square of magma farm to have a walkable edge, along with the farm plot iteself require magma safe construction materials (basically I'm thinking some kind of cage/equipment/structure that prevents your plant from floating away in the magma).

Visualization of the walkable perimeter version:

Code: [Select]

Pre-construction:
_: floor
m: open space with magma beneath it
_mmmmmmmm
_________
_mmmmmmmm
_mmmmmmmm
_________
_mmmmmmmm

Post-construction:
f:magma farm
_ffffffff
_________
_ffffffff
_ffffffff
_________
_ffffffff

I do very much like the idea of magma-grown plants though.

[Pilsu]

Everything that lives in magma is enveloped in flames or outright made from them. I don't see how you intend to eat that stuff.

Expecting magma seas to not be barren is kind of silly.

[GRead]

I'd say make the magma farm have to be build in open space over 4/7+ magma, like magma furances; except instead of requiring some floor under the building, the entire farm plot hangs over the magma, and must be built next to solid ground.  It should probably require magma safe materials as well.

Alternatively, make it less space-efficient: require each square of magma farm to have a walkable edge, along with the farm plot iteself require magma safe construction materials (basically I'm thinking some kind of cage/equipment/structure that prevents your plant from floating away in the magma).

I had considered something along those lines, though I definitely like the idea of making each square of the plot have a walkable edge, and requiring something like a magma proof cage for ever square. However, given the high values I'm imagining for these products (say, value of 10-15 (twice to thrice sunshine) for 'Fire Brew' booze) I wanted to stray away from something you could just build and set your legendary growers to mass producing with little engineering required. By needing the plot itself to be flooded by magma, a pumping and drainage system, as well as a little oversight, becomes necessary. This makes you actually work for those high-value products, instead of just ordering some nickel cages from the dwarf caravan and calling it a day.

Of course, to get the seeds themselves you need to pump out\wall off a large section of the magma sea to begin with, so either way it's not exactly a cakewalk...

Everything that lives in magma is enveloped in flames or outright made from them. I don't see how you intend to eat that stuff.

Expecting magma seas to not be barren is kind of silly.

Not necessarily; some of the plants could simply be fire resistant, cooling off once removed from the magma. Others could in fact be made of fire, and require special equipment (such as fire-proof gloves\tongs) to handle\process. Those plants would, of course, have uses other than eating, such as fuel, ash, alchemical extracts, etc. etc.

For precedent, take a look at fire imps. They are quite tasty.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

No, no complicated farming stuff- just make them *only* grow in magma, but quite commonly there; the only way to harvest them is to drain the magma then send dwarves in to gather them.

[Silverionmox]

That's sounds like something for the magic arc... However, things like thermotropic plants (plants that use heat rather than light to get energy) are also possible; they would also proliferate near magma, without trashing one of the basic tenets of the world (e.e. magma is deadly).

[Pilsu]

I'd say all underground flora does that. Ice melts underground, presumably the earth is quite warm in the Dwarf Fortress universe.

Eh, I like magma barren and deadly. Never would have guessed that Dwarf Fortress players would look at a giant sea of magma and be all like "eh, boring." Too much energy can be equally bad for plants. It'd be nice if it had more magma- and fire men in it though. Perhaps even the occasional giant ones and forgotten beasts.

[Keita]

I'd say all underground flora does that. Ice melts underground, presumably the earth is quite warm in the Dwarf Fortress universe.

Eh, I like magma barren and deadly. Never would have guessed that Dwarf Fortress players would look at a giant sea of magma and be all like "eh, boring." Too much energy can be equally bad for plants. It'd be nice if it had more magma- and fire men in it though. Perhaps even the occasional giant ones and forgotten beasts.

I think it's less of "we think it's boring" but "magma, how can we make it more AWESOME and FUN"

[Ilmoran]

A halfway point might be to make it so that the plants themselves don't grow in magma, but you need to flood a farm with magma and then drain it afterwards before certain seeds will germinate.  After all, iirc, there are seeds that don't germinate until they've been through a forest fire.  The dwarven caravan could probably bring the seeds, or maybe they could be scattered in the cavern above the magma.

[Psieye]

I can definitely see magma crop being a solid addition as a lategame crop. Less for food/booze (though it'd be fun to have that possibility) and more for 'growing' your own fuel/gems plus some hideously expensive (but not Adamantine-tough) cloth. It reminds me of Elona's weirder crops (http://elona.wikia.com/wiki/Farm) growing the most improbable things (from spellbooks to artifacts to sewage). Charcoal, gems and cloth seem the most sensible products of magma crop to me.

[Nikov]

Plants growing in molten stone = silly
Plants growing next to molten stone = weird
Fungus growing next to molten stone = Dwarfy!

I'm all for little harvestable patches of Demon Bulb and Magma Moss, particularly if they have alchemical properties. So far as 'late game food source' goes, it seems pretty odd that perfectly good, tasty beer made from longland grass is going to be supplanted by charcoal-flavored firewater.

Oh hell. I just gave the first booze suggestion; 'Firewater'. FINE. DO IT. GOD.

Be good mod material.

[Psieye]

Oh who said extremely rare, exorbitantly expensive food/drink had to actually taste good? Rich people will spend money on it just because it's rare. Though I suspect dwarves will want firewater for the thermonuclear kicks it gives them when they drink it.

[Draco18s]

Rich people will spend money on it just because it's rare.

Foie gras and Salmon Roe anyone?

[Urist McCheeseMaker]

the necessary systems could be added without making it too silly in vanilla.. basically just like how toady plans to handle other systems: keeping vanilla df simple and "sane", but allowing modders to do all sorts of crazy stuff!

firewater sounds nice though. here's a thought:
there's a mushroom named "demonspore", which grows next to/just above magma. it can not be eaten raw (heavy poisoning if you do that, good trap material) but it's valuable if ground up first to get the spores, mixed with water and brewed into a highly nutritious and alcoholic drink. the spores can also be rinsed and burnt in the kitchen instead of those last two steps, for a good kind of food.
cooking instructions: magma and seeds for the plant, mill the plant, mix in kitchen, brew at still, , profit!