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[Fortunatos]

quote:This is something that needs some thought put into it.

We need to find someone who can write 500+ planned features and design fixes.

Really, it's all pretty moot here unless Toady comes to talk with us about what he has in mind or considers our suggestions of explosives and machines.

With that in mind, I'll say I vote for gunpowder. We've already got charcoal and brimstone, and a 14th century-esque dwarven arquebus wouldn't be out of place among steel-forgers who already magically churn out crossbows like chairs. The conditional for me is, again, application; whether they provide a different enough alternative to crossbows other than 'better but requires metal.' Maybe if they had a greatly different rate of fire vs accuracy, or bullets weren't cost-effective for shooting marmots or other weak stuff.

Suppose some fanciful/convenient things could only be crafted as artifacts, like Iron Men or fuel-less lanterns?  Or maybe that's how they'd invent stuff, activating the creation of steam power or batteries through moods similar to how finding magma activates magma-related workshops.

[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Fortunatos ]

[Felix the Cat]

quote:Originally posted by naradaman:
<STRONG>Some of you guys are making a pretty big deal out of electricity. All you need to make electricity is move a bar of copper between two pieces of magnetite.

Honestly, I don't think that's out of the dwarves's reach, and it doesn't automatically make laser guns and jets viable.</STRONG>

O rly?

Try that sometime.

Hook it to, say, a light bulb.

Tell me your results.

Now, extrapolating from your results, think of the amount of advancement you need from simply "some copper wire and magnetite" to make anything useful with electricity. Does that sort of technological advancement belong in the game? The sort of technological advancement necessary to make, say, an electrified floor trap is far beyond what was available before the early 1800s or so - we didn't have the technology to generate that level of amperage. Heck, we didn't have a very good understanding of what amperage was, how it was different from voltage, etc.

[Jenever]

Electroplating is a plausible application. I also like the idea of electricity as an expensive option for getting power to mechanical tasks where axles are impractical.
Light bulbs are a little too Industrial Revolution, unless something like civilization-specific persistant technological advances is ever implemented.

quote:Originally posted by Fortunatos:
<STRONG>

With that in mind, I'll say I vote for gunpowder. We've already got charcoal and brimstone, and a 14th century-esque dwarven arquebus wouldn't be out of place among steel-forgers who already magically churn out crossbows like chairs. The conditional for me is, again, application; whether they provide a different enough alternative to crossbows other than 'better but requires metal.' Maybe if they had a greatly different rate of fire vs accuracy, or bullets weren't cost-effective for shooting marmots or other weak stuff.
</STRONG>

Firearms have been used in warfare for longer than most people think, but they were pretty crap compared to bows. Mostly just used for the psychological impact, which may be a good or bad thing depending how much you like the idea of a morale-based defence against cowardly monsters like goblins.
Giant iron smoke-belching cannons are a pretty dwarfish weapon IMO though. Not practical, but when sieges become more seigeish more seige weapons couldn't hurt.
My main interest in explosives would be for mining. I mean actual resource mining as opposed to digging out rooms. Once you have a big fortress with the industrial base to produce explosives it would be fun to be able to blast your way through those 10 z-levels you haven't touched yet. If you didn't mind wasting a little material to expose veins, that is. Right now ore-hunting gets tedious when you've got a big fortress to run.

[Felix the Cat]

quote:Originally posted by Jenever:
<STRONG>Electroplating is a plausible application.</STRONG>

It isn't really, for reasons I hinted at above.

[Jenever]

quote:Originally posted by Felix the Cat:
<STRONG>

It isn't really, for reasons I hinted at above.</STRONG>

Sorry, but I want to clear up somthing, as I think you might be confused. 'Electroplating' is not a type of 'electric floor trap'. It's a simple chemical process used to plate a material in a thin layer of metal. It can be performed with direct current and not a lot of power. There are two-thousand year-old artifacts which appear to have been used for electroplating, this is debatable but the point is it's a plausible simple crafting technology. An application in DF might be adding value to your stone crafts by coating them with small amounts of gold.

I apologise if I misunderstood you.

[Felix the Cat]

quote:Originally posted by Jenever:
<STRONG>

Sorry, but I want to clear up somthing, as I think you might be confused. 'Electroplating' is not a type of 'electric floor trap'. It's a simple chemical process used to plate a material in a thin layer of metal. It can be performed with direct current and not a lot of power. There are two-thousand year-old artifacts which appear to have been used for electroplating, this is debatable but the point is it's a plausible simple crafting technology. An application in DF might be adding value to your stone crafts by coating them with small amounts of gold.

I apologise if I misunderstood you.</STRONG>

FFS, I was a chemistry major for a while, I know what the hell electroplating is.

The amount of power that dwarves would be able to generate, if they figured out how through trial and error, is comparable to the amount of power you get from one of those potato-lemon batteries. It wouldn't be enough to electroplate much of anything in any reasonable amount of time.

[BurnedToast]

a 1.5 volt battery can electroplate a penny in a few minutes. I think with windmills and water wheels dwarves could generate quite enough power to electroplate things.

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: BurnedToast ]

[Jenever]

quote:Originally posted by Felix the Cat:
<STRONG>

FFS, I was a chemistry major for a while, I know what the hell electroplating is.</STRONG>

Yet you referenced a post which makes specific mention of electric floor plates, and contains an argument which does not preclude electroplating. I withdraw my apology.

quote:Originally posted by Felix the Cat:
<STRONG>
The amount of power that dwarves would be able to generate, if they figured out how through trial and error, is comparable to the amount of power you get from one of those potato-lemon batteries. It wouldn't be enough to electroplate much of anything in any reasonable amount of time.</STRONG>

Fortunately, the game operates on a time scale of years.
Doubly fortunately, it's simple enough to link even lemon batteries in parallel if you need to.

Using the right metals as electrodes you can squeeze 1.5V out of a lemon. Yes, it would take a lot of lemons in parallel to boost the current density to practical levels, but that does not mean the application is implausible, only that specific technology. There's no reason to say mechanically adept dwarves would develop lemon batteries and stop there. It's also a fantasy game, with no requirement that dwarven technology parallel human development. Why can't dwarves discover induction before galvanic cells? If you want to talk about it from an in-universe perspective, maybe the idea of a race that never had to battle magma men developing steel before windmills would be ridiculous to dwarves.

In fact, induction is a more likely power source than chemical reactions (in terms of implementation in this game), since dynamos would be compatible with the existing power system. Which pretty much resolves your amperage objection hard. BurnedToast is absolutely correct.
And really, it'd just be another method of moving power around, with a few added applications. If it can be done in a way that meaningfully contributes to gameplay, it's a good idea.

[Toady One]

Given that anything I add which is both highly controversial and unnecessary will be optional, people can afford to be calm about future additions.

A lot of it comes down to where I devote my energy.  Technological innovations sort of fall into a category with projects like tileset support.  These options would make some people happy and expand the audience, while taking up some of my time that other people want put somewhere else.  As they get further and further away from what we've already got, they are less likely to have time found for them.

For those interested in a specific development timeline for gunpowder, I'll be faced with the question when I make the alchemist's workshop more interesting (assuming that workshop continues to exist).  Handling the workshop itself is a middle-priority matter, since the game elements involved aren't crucial but the the building is languishing in a limbo surrounded by mysterious useless raw entries like golden salve and gnomeblight.  I may or may not add optional gunpowder around that time.  I don't know.

Regarding gunpowder and some basic associated technologies, I can see myself playing either way, really, since I'm not that picky.  If I had to choose between having gunpowder on or off in a release distribution init file, it would be off, because Arnold got shot in Commando not Conan, and the Argonauts didn't get shot by handguns or cannons, and Medusa had a bow not a gun, and stuff.  We grew up with that crap, and our core DF, our myth/fantasy game, mainly hovers around that sort of fluffy nostalgia, but it doesn't need to impact you more than a one line file change.

Electricity is in about the same category for me as steam locomotives, I guess, as far as whether I'd ever find time to work on something like that for this game.  I'd really rather detail the current picture than expand the canvas so much, since there'd likely be a lot of empty space in curious places.  Exploring ideas like that might even be more time-efficient in separate projects without hauling the constraints from DF along, though of course some of the mixing with existing DF elements would lead to amusement.

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by Sukasa:
<STRONG>

Now, did you really write this?  It's the epiphany of smart (no sarcasm here).  I wholeheartedly agree.  Besides, how could you be disadvantaged if you turned off a system?  It's not like the goblins would get to keep it even as you don't </STRONG>

Well what I meant is...if a new system will be added, such like magic, electricity, and someone will turn those off, just because he simply dislikes it, hopefully it wont cause a disadvantage in the gameplay. IE: Magic would be required to construct golems. Now you turned off the magic system because you dislike spells, however, you would like to create golems, thus you will be forced to turn the magic system on. Thats what I meant, and the same is true about electricity. I think you get the point.

[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>Given that anything I add which is both highly controversial and unnecessary will be optional, people can afford to be calm about future additions.

A lot of it comes down to where I devote my energy.  Technological innovations sort of fall into a category with projects like tileset support.  These options would make some people happy and expand the audience, while taking up some of my time that other people want put somewhere else.  As they get further and further away from what we've already got, they are less likely to have time found for them.

For those interested in a specific development timeline for gunpowder, I'll be faced with the question when I make the alchemist's workshop more interesting (assuming that workshop continues to exist).  Handling the workshop itself is a middle-priority matter, since the game elements involved aren't crucial but the the building is languishing in a limbo surrounded by mysterious useless raw entries like golden salve and gnomeblight.  I may or may not add optional gunpowder around that time.  I don't know.

Regarding gunpowder and some basic associated technologies, I can see myself playing either way, really, since I'm not that picky.  If I had to choose between having gunpowder on or off in a release distribution init file, it would be off, because Arnold got shot in Commando not Conan, and the Argonauts didn't get shot by handguns or cannons, and Medusa had a bow not a gun, and stuff.  We grew up with that crap, and our core DF, our myth/fantasy game, mainly hovers around that sort of fluffy nostalgia, but it doesn't need to impact you more than a one line file change.

Electricity is in about the same category for me as steam locomotives, I guess, as far as whether I'd ever find time to work on something like that for this game.  I'd really rather detail the current picture than expand the canvas so much, since there'd likely be a lot of empty space in curious places.  Exploring ideas like that might even be more time-efficient in separate projects without hauling the constraints from DF along, though of course some of the mixing with existing DF elements would lead to amusement.

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Toady One ]</STRONG>

Toady, I think that tileset support shouldnt be in that category. Have you seen Han's tileset what he plans to make when it will be possible to mod all gfx in DF? It simply looks amazing! I think many people would be happy to have that, at least as an option to choose between ascii or tiles.  

[Sukasa]

quote:Originally posted by Tormy:
<STRONG>

Well what I meant is...if a new system will be added, such like magic, electricity, and someone will turn those off, just because he simply dislikes it, hopefully it wont cause a disadvantage in the gameplay. IE: Magic would be required to construct golems. Now you turned off the magic system because you dislike spells, however, you would like to create golems, thus you will be forced to turn the magic system on. Thats what I meant, and the same is true about electricity. I think you get the point.</STRONG>

I think you said it best, that having to have one system on or another to build specific things is stupid.  Now, the idea of no electric floor traps is all right, but golems should be buildable without magic, you're right.  After all, electric golems  

[Ryven]

quote:Originally posted by Tormy:
<STRONG>

Well, as someone has mentioned it...what will happen with this game if things like electricity will be added? Now just tell me that. Do you really think that electricity will be added ONLY to give some power supply for lamps? Do you really think that after that point there wont be more advanced techs being added? Like someone has said we will surely end up with firearms, bombs and hell knows what else. Perhaps 1 year after electricity gonna be added 0.2 versions later they will be constructing a Large Hadron Collider.
Well no thank you.
Either way, if something like this will be added, I can just only hope that we can turn it off in the ini files. Perhaps the same should be true about magic. That should be also optional maybe. I dont know. What I know is that I dont want any sersous technologies in DF.

[ November 04, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]</STRONG>

I can barely imagine the epic levels of awesome that would be generated by accidentally blowing up my fortress because I screwed up while building a Large Hadron Collider.

That would be freaking awesome.

That was probably also not the reaction you were looking for. XD

[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by Ryven:
<STRONG>

That was probably also not the reaction you were looking for. XD</STRONG>

Correct.
 

[JT]

"You know what happened in the Halls of Moria.  You know that, driven by their greed, the dwarves assembled too much, built too powerful, and unleashed the awesome fury of a thousand artificial suns..." --Saruman

Well, he said something else... ;-)