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[Ravenplucker]

I was setting a couple of guard dogs at my entrance, and thought of the possibility of longer chains! I'm pretty bad at phrasing suggestions, but just thought that it would be cool if you could designate the number of 'standard chain lengths' (what we have now) to make multi-tile constraints. More material required to make longer chains, and maybe even add an option to lengthen or shorten a chain which requires the blacksmith labor.

Thoughts?

[Dae]

Perhaps when you build a chain, you could be able to use N number of chains, instead of one, thus defining the maximum distance the chained critter can go.

[Battlecat]

Good idea.  I like the idea of chained animals having a few more tiles to roam. 

Longer chains would also be a reasonable precursor to more realistic drawbridges.  Also, perhaps the longer chains could be necessary for wells that are more than 1 tile deep. 

[Hyndis]

Chains already have a nearly unlimited length when used on a Z level.

Build a well over a 100 Z level drop. So long as there is water down at the bottom, no matter how far down it is, the single chain making up the well is long enough to drop the bucket into the water and haul the bucket back up for a drink.

[NW_Kohaku]

Actually, I'd like shorter chains, for the purpose of preventing all pathing by an animal (FPS savings) without having to worry about letting them out of cages occasionally if I wanted them to breed.

[Phreak]

Yes having an option to pick how long the chain is would be good especialy when covering more then one corridor but with intersecting corridors and pathways. So the well can use water no matter how far below it is? Hmmm this calls for a hundred lvls testing heh. Maybe if you have water then(going down) ground then lava if you build the well then drain the water and channel the tile below the well you could draw up lava?? Well I'm just guessing here but you have to admit that if Urist Mcinjured has example broken bones and missing an arm then theroreticly Urist Mcnormal could get a bucket of "water" (that's why the water was there when the well was made) and give it to the injured dwarf ending in Possible Fun or it could crash the game. Off topic much?

[fanatic]

Yes having an option to pick how long the chain is would be good

Seconded.

[Hyndis]

I have a well with about a 15 level drop to reach water in my current fortress. Much longer than that and the time spent to lower and raise the bucket becomes so long that its not worth it.

There's no limit I've seen to how far a bucket can be lowered or raised for a well. On some of the really deep maps you could probably build a well at the peak of a mountain and have it access water from the 3rd cavern right above the magma sea, and it would draw up the water.

Eventually.

Hope you're not too thirsty! There's going to be a line. 

[Pilsu]

Being able to build the chain building into a wall would be nice too. It'd allow setups where the attached critter can't move in any direction.

[Phreak]

So the deeper down the water is the longer it takes to get water?

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

I'd love to be able to designate chains to be various lengths, even better though, I'd enjoy having winches which could have variable lengths.
that way, I could hook the winch up a pressure plate and drag a prisoner into a hole to hang them there. (although I know they just fall, its nice for flavour)

[Soralin]

Longer chains do have the problem that you may have to worry about obstacles.  Say for example, your guard dog running in a circle around a tree and getting itself stuck there.

[MaDeR Levap]

Nice suggestion. I prefer creating custom rope with desired length in loom (yay, another use of underutilized workshop) that of course can be broken back to normal single rope units. It would require implementing concept of composite items (imagine custom rope created from three different ropes from different material and quality). There are issues with it (for example, how to clearly and shortly name composite item etc).

I see two main cases for custom ropes:

• Chains: just use desired custom rope in chaining. Note that it means default normal rope will force animal/prisoner to stay exactly in one spot.
• Wells: should require custom rope of minimum needed length (5-z channed to water). Should allow longer ropes in case, say, lowering water level. To reduce amount of micromanagement, should allow automatically create needed custom rope job in loom after designating well.

[Vyckeil]

hmmm... maybe add a "Set Length" command with the "q - Set Building Tasks/Prefs" that follows the "Make Bedroom/Dining Room/Study" algorithm. Should be easy to implement. Since ropes have infinite length in wells, we could set them that way.

I think it's a much better implementation than "more lenght = more rope" that need to be micromanaged. I have enough micromanaging in DF as it is.

Edit: Could be very usefull in arena mode... although I've never played around in it. (Imagine a roman colosseum-styled fight with lions chained all around the perimeter)

[Rowanas]

Edit: Could be very usefull in arena mode... although I've never played around in it. (Imagine a roman colosseum-styled fight with lions chained all around the perimeter)

NO! No Roman arenas. I'm pretty sure we all know about the baboons...