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[TolyK]

+1 to this thread!
i would rather sand-water interaction be like this though:

• Water+Sand=Water+1/7 wet sand+Sand
• Water gets displaced by sand

For example:

Code: [Select]

_
_
WW
WWWW__SS
WWW$$SSS
WWW$SSSS
WWW$SSSS
(W=water, S=sand, $=wet sand)

NOTE: one symbol here vertically means 1/7, while horizontally means 1 tile

(I wanted to make a table but got struck by wtfisthat syndrome)

[Trouserman]

I like this mechanic.  Unfortunately, a simple 1-byte count of the amount of sand in a space will not do, as there are several different kinds of sand in the game.  If a patch of yellow sand is adjacent to a patch of black sand, one might be induced to flow onto the other.  Logically, this should result in something like a 1/7 layer of yellow sand over black sand.  Otherwise, sand will potentially change colors as it moves around, which would be a notable flaw in the model.

[iceball3]

I like this mechanic.  Unfortunately, a simple 1-byte count of the amount of sand in a space will not do, as there are several different kinds of sand in the game.  If a patch of yellow sand is adjacent to a patch of black sand, one might be induced to flow onto the other.  Logically, this should result in something like a 1/7 layer of yellow sand over black sand.  Otherwise, sand will potentially change colors as it moves around, which would be a notable flaw in the model.

Maybe there should be a piece of code added that blends colors. This might make dyes more interesting to if implemented.

[Max White]

A very intrestging little model you have build for yourself! A model that could turn out to be a VERY fun little toy. I'll support this.

CPU eating? Maybe, but Toady is a good programmer and scripter, I'm sure he can mke a working solution.

[vadia]

I don't think anybody mentioned the difficulty of a sand ramp (5) with water 6 drowning dwarves [epecially problematic if the 5 sand dune is pathable and they walk in; can't swim and drown). . . or similar levels being a clear path that almost always pushes creatures into deep water.

This is not a criticism, merely a heads up to make sure that it doesn't happen were this to be implemented.

This also should not be implimented in 31.etc.,
Imagine all of us opening up a new game with our old fort and drowning everydwarf in sand -- from the cieling.

[Dante]

This is a fantastic idea.

One of the problems which doesn't seem to have been mentioned: at the moment we have black sand, red sand, yellow sand, etc. However, we only have one type of magma, and possibly two types of water (I don't know if the game uses some sort of flag to indicate whether it is saltwater). How feasible is it to have all sorts of different sands in a proposed system like this, and what happens when they mix?

I seem to remember Toady saying in one of the dwarfcasts that one solution is to have a generic 'slurry' produced when more than, say, two liquids combine. Would we then have a default 'mixed sand'?

As an aside,

This sand-model is pretty good and could be used to model SNOW and sludge

I am suddenly excited for snow, too.

[Footkerchief]

They don't. A flyer cannot get anywhere a dwarf couldn't reach, they can just reach connected areas more rapidly. I use this regularly to explore & traverse the underground without losing dwarves to the flying creatures down there.

Overdue reply, but flying creatures actually do get some extra pathfinding:

It won't try an A* path if the connected components don't match up, which is where some problems arise (as with flight-modded dwarves in fort mode and so on).  Regular flying creatures use something more like short-range flood fills to combat this, if I remember, but they can't use arbitrary A* if they don't have a component check or else the processor will die on pathing failures.

[Osmosis Jones]

Ahhh may be overdue, but it's still good to know. It also explains a fair bit, cheers Foot.

[vadia]

how should taking sand for glassmaking effect things?  should it decrease 1; continue having no effect or reduce a whole tile?  If it reduces a whole tile would that mean that a fractional tile does nothing, something, or everything in regard to filling a bag.

[The Merchant Of Menace]

I believe the OP suggested that each bagfull of sand would reduce the sand by '1'

[TolyK]

yes, and that's resonable
when water comes out of a well after several times it lowers by 1/7... glass would take it up faster.

[Evil Knievel]

Hi!

I love this forum, and I love this topic. The original post is brilliant, so I read all pages of it. However, I'll have to make some point that realism will really only be reachable in a very limited way, so live with it:

Sand should have crudely 15% of porosity, meaning that approx. the amount of 1/7 water is enough to wet 7/7 sand, and 7 + 1 = 7. In fact, the water goes through the sand, so for a proper treatment, nested volumes would be necessary: 7/7 sand can take 1/7 water which can be filled itself by 1 - 7.

While the difference in how the 2 materials move is the slope the fluid is going for eventually (sand 2/7 per tile, water 0/7 per tile) water flowing through sand actually gets a slope.

And even worse does it get when less water goes through the sand bottleneck it has to do this SLOWER instead of FASTER to be physically accurate...

Another thing on using up the sand: How much glass can you make from 0.5 x 1 x 1 m? We don't know the dimensions, maybe that's 1/7 or 7/7, doesn't matter, in reality it is ~ 1 metric ton of sand, meaning 20 sand bags that are heavy enough not to want to haul them around anymore. So never mind using up any kind of deposit.
Exhaustion of big deposits only occures since mankind industrially exploits them at rates that are meant to exhaust them within 30-40 years as that's most optimal regarding interest rates and such. We do that now at at least 20 times the rate we did that before 1850.

[Aspgren]

Wait.

If this was implemented on snow .. doesn't that mean that when it snows you get tiles of 7/7 snow ... and, perhaps, on top of those .. more 7/7 snow? This would be awesome in so many ways. Imagine!
 After a particularily bad snow storm in a freezing biome, you end up with thick layers of snow blocking the entrances. Ruining caravan access, disturbing construction work, burying traps, filling moats, creating ways to path over your walls ... it would be absolute FPS-murdering chaos!

 I SUPPORT THIS.

[truckman1]

It could be like that episode of The Simpsons where the school gets snowed in. IIRC, Bart was making a really high quality tunnel to the surface using a ladle as a shovel, which he said he planned to reinforce with buttresses. Even Willy admitted it was a high quality tunnel before Skinners made him collapse it.

[Aspgren]

It could be like that episode of The Simpsons where the school gets snowed in. IIRC, Bart was making a really high quality tunnel to the surface using a ladle as a shovel, which he said he planned to reinforce with buttresses. Even Willy admitted it was a high quality tunnel before Skinners made him collapse it.

Simpsons is always related to everything, ever.

Anyway I guess it isn't exclusive to snow. Sand storms in the desert would have the same effect .. I guess? If a sand storm hits then sand blows away as well as comes over. You'd get shifting dunes.. while snow just piles up.
 In both cases you need some creative above-ground constructions to avoid the sand/snow to pile up and ruin everything. Be it a dune in the living room or five layers of snow in front of the door.