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[hostergaard]

I think that when it comes to water-sand interaction, the water would mix with the sand and create wet sand (damp wall?) but wet sand would not create wet sand when in contact with sand.

i.e. water-wet sand-sand

Sand would displace water but become wet sand when in direct contact with water.

Wet sand could then perhaps be molded.

[Draco18s]

Wet sand could then perhaps be molded.

Reminds me that there is a sand-like material out there that can only be sculpted underwater.  Above water it loses inter-particle cohesion and falls apart (like dry sand).  But unfortunately I was too young at the time I had some to know what it was called and have since been unable to locate it.

Edit:
Freaking hell.  Seriously?  The last twelve times I tried to find this stuff I didn't get a relevant result.  Now it's hit #1.

[Sfon]

x/3 for sand? I disagree, here is why:

I'd like to see this implemented as a general system for all fluid interactivity. Why code sand and water to work together in a way that is limited to only those two? Fluids could then have a few traits like is_walkable and fluidity. Fluidity would determine how easily/quickly it flows, of which sand would be low and water would be high. Also gravity, to determine what will be at the top and what will be at the bottom when they meet.

That way one system could be used for all fluids and fluid interactions.

[Beeskee]

Quicksand is more than just sand mixed with water, or else the concept of "going to the beach" would be slightly more dangerous than it is today.

Yes, quicksand is a colloid hydrogel blah blah blah.. I have wikipedia too.

Edit: I know enough about quicksand to know that Mythbusters failed to make it correctly.

With flowing sand like this there could still be quicksand.

[Malsqueek]

So, a few thoughts here.

Since apparently Sand has a slip face of neighboring tile -2 (7,5,3,1), perhaps the water percolation should be neighboring sand tile should be sand+water to a tile height of 7/7 (all "wet sand"), then the neighboring tiles are 3/7 and 1/7 water respectively. exception being aquifers, of course.

For the sand packing, I would suggest that any sand with 1/7 water in it behaves as sand does now, with the option to treat it with gypsum plaster to create a "Frescoed" wall which counts as smoothed.

[truckman1]

We should be able to use sand to make concrete and cement out of sand! (and other stuff like water or something). and before anyone says "14th century" the ancient romans and even the EGYPTIANS used concrete, and I'd say our manipulation of pipes and magma pressure is about equal to if not surpassing roman tech. (Not that I know any details about their tech  ) 


Also: Sandworms and/or Antlions.

[Draco18s]

Antlions.

Only if you mean these tiny insects.

[Dvergar]

even the EGYPTIANS used concrete

The Egyptians were so awesome they didn't use concrete for their large public works  (I am pretty sure that lime-cement IS Roman innovation though)

Can we really disregard adding a new fluid out of hand before actually seeing a plausable algorithem?  In desert biomes there would be little calculations involving water-flows and an ocean isn't (afaik) as resource intensive as a river w/waterfall or even a river w/o waterfall.

[pubby]

Just have water not treat sand as anything - letting a tile have water and sand on it at same time. Then just display tile as a different color.

Have magma and sand equal magma.

IMO, jut simplify to 3 levels. Would help memory and CPU. 0,1,2 which could be displayed as 0,3,7 ingame for clarity. Because you would also have a 4th bit due to memory, just make that determine if the sand should be shown (so you would only see the top of sand on embark)

Also, it might be wise to keey sand chunky. Perhaps only change the level when a 2(7) is next to a 0:
2200
would turn to
2110

This also means that any 1 block would be considred a ramp. Hell, the game could just display 1's as ramps and 2's as solid walls.

[Josephus]

Antlions.

Only if you mean these tiny insects.

We could always make them gigantor.

[Fourdots]

I have to say that I really prefer treating it as x/7, with both a slip face (determining what sort of ramps it forms), and a separate setting for what difference can be walked over. Why? Because it would make it really easy to add further fluids like this to the raws. For example, sand could be described as something like:

[SEMILIQUID] No pressure
[INTERACTION:WATER:DISPLACES_UPWARD]
[INTERACTION:MAGMA:MELTS]
[SLIP:2] Sand will move towards sides with a difference of 2/7, and will not slip past this point
[RAMP:2] When the difference between levels is two or less, it is walkable between those levels and is treated as a ramp
[PREVENTS_MOTION:4] If a creature is under at least 4/7 sand, it won't be able to move and will have to dig itself out.
[DROWNS][CRUSHES]
[FREEZES:NONE] Sand doesn't really freeze
[BOILS:12000] Boils at the temperature of magma
[TEMPERATURE:BY_ENVIRONMENT]

Water, alternatively, would be:
[LIQUID] Pressure is transmitted
[INTERACTION:MAGMA:BOILS]
[INTERACTION:SAND:DISPLACED_DOWNWARDS]
[SLIP:0]
[DROWNS]
[FREEZES:10000]
[BOILS:10180] Numbers based on the wiki, but don't seem right to me.

Magma would be:
[SEMILIQUID] No pressure transmitted
[INTERACTION:WATER:SOLIDIFIES]
[INTERACTION:SAND:MIXES]
[SLIP:0]
[DROWNS][BURNS]
[FREEZES:11000] Just a random number, in case the magma cools down
[BOILS:NONE] Magma won't boil.
[TEMPERATURE_INHERENT:12000]

Not really complete, but gives the basis for a system to mod in new materials. Some bits of it would have to be improved, of course, and I wouldn't expect this syntax to be used, but it gets the point across, right? Would require some setting to treat fluids like rock or soil, for the purposes of map generation, as well, which would allow for underground deposits of fluid or gases. The interactions would also have to be greatly improved; too much interconnectedness. Maybe a general setting, and then some for special cases?

Also, I'm not familiar with the raws. At all. Though I plan on starting to mod soon. So please don't tell me that the syntax I've used is entirely wrong; attack the idea, not how I'm getting it across.

[Draco18s]

The problem is here:

[INTERACTION:MAGMA:BOILS]

For every liquid you add you need to create more and more [INTERACTION] tags for each previous liquid.  Not to mention that when you start adding in too many you get reactions.

Imagine for a minute:

Nitric acid:
[LIQUID]
[INTERACTION:MAGMA:BOILS]
...
[INTERACTION:HYDROCHLORIC-ACID:REACTS:AQUA-REGIA]
[SLIP:0]
[DROWNS]
[FREEZES:10000]
[BOILS:10180]

So now you have two liquids that when they come together form a third liquid, which has unique properties: it dissolves nearly freaking everything.

[INTERACTION:STONEWALL:DISSOLVES]

[Fourdots]

Yep, I realize that. It would be far, far better to specify specific interactions where relevant (as in what you've given), then general reactions for a set of liquids (even if it's just mixing, but allows for more complex things), and then what it does if it drops below a certain temperature, or above it - magma and water resulting in the magma dropping below the temperature it needs to stay liquid, and hence solidifying into rock, and the water increasing above the temperature it boils at, and becoming steam. Acids, bases, and so forth would have to have additional stuff added to handle them, of course.

Setting categories is the key here. One should be able to say of an acid that it melts everything except gold and glass, and that it reduces itself by x for every item it melts (allowing for a super-acid which is not reduced - or increases for everything it dissolves - and hence melts down towards the bottom of the map as soon as it's produced. And someone would try to drown the HFS with it). Which still isn't perfect, because of the abstraction, but it's better. Substances would then have to be sorted into categories, but that's a bit easier. Alternatively would be adding a vulnerability to acids/bases to all materials - rock, wood, glass, gems, skin, and so forth. Immunities could still be specified, though - making gold immune to either everything in the acid category or only to specific things, for example.

This still probably isn't the best way to go about it, but I don't think that I'll be able to come up with something better.

[Draco18s]

Setting categories is the key here. One should be able to say of an acid that it melts everything except gold and glass

Aqua Regia dissolves gold. However, tantalum, iridium, osmium, titanium, rhodium and a few other metals are capable of withstanding chemical attack from it.

Anyway...

This still probably isn't the best way to go about it, but I don't think that I'll be able to come up with something better.

That's why we don't have more liquids yet.  We need a way for the game to know how they interact without having to specify it.

[Mel_Vixen]

And iirc toady said he wanted the liquid-system to be reworked too so it becomes faster.