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I would like mechanisms to break down completly random (with init)

I would like mechanisms to break down with maintaince(with init)

I will stop playing df if mechanisms can break down even with an init

I think mechanisms should break down and there should not be an init to chance it

What is a mechanism and why should I care I just want to burn elves!!!

[thijser]

The idea is simple: add a chance that a mechanisms fails based on it's quility.

Now there are 3 ways something can go wrong:
1 The mechanism blocks and doesn't work doesn't need to be repaired and will probably funcion next time.
2 Damaged part: the mechanism gets damaged and will need to be repaired by a mechanic.
3 Destoyed mechanic, the system cannot be repaired and is lost.

It might also be a good idea to make it less likely to break down based on the materials used. I think that in general metals should be better then stone. But it should probably be based on material properties.

I think it's also fair to make ☼masterful☼ never break. That way we can at least have some things that we know will funcion.
What do you think?

[aepurniet]

Nice, an actual gameplay function that I think would work really well. Mabye for cage traps the cage quality could come into play as well (combined with animal size perhaps).  This way a room full of crappy cage traps (with crappy mechanisms) would fail miserably, and lead to lots of Fun.  Mabye some of them could even misfire and catch errand dwarves and CATS!

[clc02]

Considering how someone made a computer in dwarf fortress, the rage would be full and long if it started breaking apart because not all the mechanisms are masterpiece (He used pumps, lots and lots of pumps)

[thijser]

Well I think that if you make that many mechanisms you are going to have all legendary mechanics and you chose the challange yourself. If you want to make a megaproject then you will have to work for it anyway. And this type of computers is beyond the scope of almost all players (maybe make it modable so people who do want to do this easily can "cheat" a little )

[Sunken]

Temporary jamming could also be a failure mode. Especially funny when the dwarfs climb down the shaft to see why the floodgate doesn't open, whereupon it suddenly does.

[NW_Kohaku]

I'm not particularly inclined to agree with this - if this basically means that randomly, your mechanisms fail, then potentially pieces of machinery that your fortress depend upon when you make massive water clocks or other mechanism megaprojects will fail in spectacular ways, potentially without players really knowing it happened until it was too late.

It kind of maybe can be OK if you can have routine maintainance prevent failures, but just suddenly making giant megaprojects explode for some random reason seems like its only game purpose is to punish the makers of megaprojects (who are likely to use tens of thousands of times more mechanisms than anyone else), which is the opposite of the sort of gameplay reinforcement we want to be encouraging.

[Mel_Vixen]

Well stuff failing randomly isnt fun. It hands no explanation to the player nor can the player take precautions. What could be done is to take the physical properties into account and accumulate stress. Heck axles transporting 10K units of power is a bit much especially if said axle is made of balsa wood.

So i say that you could communicate different forms of stresses etc. to the player and based on the stress your cogs and gears can fail.

[thijser]

Well for megaprojects it could be a raw/init option to change it a bit so that megaprojects will have it somewhat easier.
And if you make your fort dependend on a mechanisms you should make shure it's going to function.

Perhaps adding maintaince might also be a good idea. If a mechanic doesn't have anything to do he/she will maintain mechanisms so that they have a lower chance of failing. Perhaps adding a wear system.

It would basically be a system hidden to the player where every so much time a number is added to a "wear meter" every time the mechanism is used a random number gets dwarn and if it's below the wear meter it will fail. Maintaince resets this meter. That way it's very player influenced by the player.

I think that megaprojects are also ment for a ultimate challange for players. It should not be a argument that it makes it more difficult to them. That is like we can't build a base on mars because that would mean mountainclimbers would have to work much harder. Remember that a legendary will produce about 1/4 masterworks. So that maybe a giant computer might be in trouble but that would be parially the choise of whoever decided to do this (I think megaprojects should be addopted to the game not the game adopted to the megaprojects).

[Pilsu]

There's really no justification as to why masterworks wouldn't wear down and break.

[thijser]

There's really no justification as to why masterworks wouldn't wear down and break.

The way I see it masterworks are kind of like those swords that were burried for tousands of years and are still sharp. And it seems like a fair way to make shure you can still base a large part of your fort on a mechanisms (like important floodgates ext.)

[Pilsu]

Mechanisms this simple probably don't just suddenly fail with no warning signs. Maintenance requirement is much more reasonable than making masterful work arbitrarily magically indestructible for what seems no reason at all.

Machinery that can't be accessed for repairs is bound to fail eventually and that's perfectly fine.

[Trekkin]

I'm afraid I too can't see anything but complaints coming from having mechanisms randomly self-destruct, partially because mechanisms are so vaguely defined. How, for example, is a mechanism actually used to construct a linkage from a lever to a floodgate, or placed as a gearbox, or used as a trap component? I could see a rock gear that's been spinning for years wear down into nonfunctionality, but what about a simple lever? a spring catch? It's reasonable to assume that they'd take longer to wear down than most fortresses stay running.

Realism aside, part of the fun of Dwarf Fortress is building huge, elaborate constructions, and not having to constantly repair and refurbish every tiny component is very important to that process. It might also be a problem on the processor level in that having to track every machine component in the fortress to randomly break them would have a lot of timers running simultaneously.

[Pilsu]

Making it an init option is worth considering.

[Silverionmox]

Maintenance requirements would be logical, but be warned that dwarves waste a lot of time by moving around. It could mean that you need to have ten mechanics that are on the move (and that means pathfinding over long distances) nine months out of twelve just to keep your basic defensive traps sharp.

[Sunken]

...because traps are so underpowered.

Anyway, it seems reasonable to me that a fortress with heavy reliance on mechanical contraptions should need a bit of support staff. I think it would be neat to have a bunch of mechanics scurrying about keeping things ship-shape. Dwarfy. That said, I agree that mechanical failure should be essentially preventable, and that the player should feel "oops" rather than "what the q***!" when it happens. Degree of shoddiness should be displayed.

Other considerations aside, I also agree that heavy and continuous use should be more demanding. Failures should be a Poisson process, i.e. as time passes without maintenance, more and more things start to fail, but there's no upper bound on the amount of time to failure. (Ancient traps/mechanisms discovered in working condition = fun)