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[Kurouma]

Yeah, each 'raindrop' and each melted snow tile should make 1/7 water on that tile. Of course in a wet place that would kill you pretty quickly you could really simply model some drainage by having only the top layer interact with rainfall; each soil type could hold a certain amount of water in it.
Sand could absorb a full 7/7 of water before rain started appearing as puddles on top of it, loam maybe 3/7 or 4/7 and clay 2/7 or 1/7, and rock of course doesn't drain, so 0/7, puddles form immediately.

Then you have surface tiles holding a certain amount of water inside them that would slowly evaporate, like a 1/7 unit a season or whatever. You could really easily make it so plants use up water from the surrounding tiles each season too, and different plants requiring different amounts (and dying if they don't get it), so then vegetation would actually be determined by weather.

[Farthing]

I think there's a pretty large agreement that river/brook mechanics could be vastly improved by causing "brook" width water sources to have ramps instead of the awkward "brook tile", and giving rivers ramped banks. I'm inclined to agree, but do we know why the river system is set up the way it currently is?

[Audioworm333]

Holy crap. I like every single one. Except, an issue with trenches in the ocean and bottomless lakes: Seeing as they're bottomless, the water could drain into them. Although, maybe Toady One could sort that out.

[Mel_Vixen]

Actually you its pretty easy to fix that. He needs to take the Bottemless pit code/class and adds a line or two for blocking water movement (or even just sets a flag). As long monsters can enter/leave the met through this "Map-edge" its fine.

[Farthing]

Its difficult to say. Sometimes things aren't as easy as flipping a switch in a program. Thus far in game, I can't think of anything that allows everything BUT water to pass through. Vice Versa sure. Then again, maybe it is, since magma pipes exist, maybe they can use similar mechanics.

[Max White]

I think the idea of "One drop of water makes for 1/7 deep" would fail in both realisem and feasibilty. That much water over your map would cause terminal lag every time it rained.

I think, rather, a more important step is to first cause rivers to channel more effectivly. Right now they just sort of cut there way through the landscape untill they form a large waterfall, and keep going, leading to a lot of strange chasems. If this were fixed so that water was counted as part of the formarion of the initial landscape, rather then run after it, then we would see river banks building up, and flood planes forming.

This leads to what would be the first realistic implementation of a flooding system. Rain, the climate, and the season would determin the water level of running rivers and brooks. Because rivers are formed more realisticly, instead raising and causing the next z level up to become a massive flood plain, it would appear to just raise and lower between river banks that go up several Z levels. Extream cases would, however, include rivers drying up and flooding over the landscape.

[Kurouma]

You're right, it would be a fps killer if it appeared as a puddle. But if none of it actually appeared and the game just counted how much rain fell and how much snow melted over each season, then there could still be a measure of 'how much water is there/how wet is the ground?' for your map, and with the flow of any local watercourses adjusted accordingly there would be an accurate flood/drought model for a fraction of the processor cost. That would cover monsoons, meltwater, dry seasons; all that.
I still like my idea of each type of plant dying if they don't get enough of water, because then climate would actually determine biome. That could be done super cheaply too if there were a single number for how wet the map is, each plant just taking off their seasonal requirements.

I agree about the worldgen of rivers. Actually one thing that bugs me is that rivers are perfectly flat for tiles and tiles until they suddenly jump down 10, 20 z levels in a single waterfall. While real life rivers do erode gullies, they don't do it that perfectly. They cut through soil easily until they hit bedrock, then the going is much slower, resulting in slopes.
I guess what I'm saying is that rivers should run down hills, not slice through them like an adamantine sword.

[Farthing]

Updated the first post to reflect the desire for more realistic runoff, river sources, and docks. Keep the ideas flowing. There aren't any fps problems one the forums =].

[ChairmanPoo]

I really want ships and docks, but for worldgen and other civs rather than dwarf mode. In particular, I want to be able to start a game in a small island without being isolated from everything

[Weirdsound]

The Cranberry is an interesting plant that when domesticated spends part of its life submerged. Although not quite the same I guess it could be lumped into the 'submerged plant' category with rice. The wikipedia article mentions that they can be harvested dry as well (albeit with more labor for a smaller yield) which means you wont be SOL should your field dry up.

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranberry#Cultivation

(PS longtime lurker, almost a non existent poster --until now)

[Farthing]

  Woah, never expected to run into cranberries here. While cranberries are native to swampy land, they actually grow best in a sandy environment. The plant doesn't NEED to be flooded over, but it usually is for convenience. Water serves as an insulator from frost during colder months. Flooding hasn't been shown to produce a greater yield outside of the plant being less damaged from frost. Holding the water over the plant during normal growing months will actually cause it to rot, or fry in the sunlight, since the bogs don't typically have water circulation when flooded.
 The methods used to make wet harvesting convenient, revolve around a simple set of pumps which could presumably be implemented in dwarf fortress in spite of being a very moder harvest method, but it would also require fruit to be able to float in water, or at the very least be pushed around by it.
  I'll check the main post to see if aquatic crops have been suggested. Thank you for posting =]

[Sunken]

there should be mansoons.

It's raining men
Hallelujah, it's raining men
Amen!


...time to go to bed now

[SirHoneyBadger]

I don't understand the whole 1/7 ratio either.

I wish more games (and more things in general) would use something sensible, like a base 12 system.

Sure, humans are very proud of their 10 fingers, and their ability to easily count with them, but having everything be divisible by 12, in a complex system, since it's divisible by a lot more numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, and 6), is a lot easier to understand and work with, in the long run, than 10, 7, or any other random pick.

[Sunken]

Base 8 (which is what 0-7 is) is pretty efficient for computers. Not quite as much so as base 16 but certainly better than 12.

[The_Kakaze]

I'd like to see fresh water dolphins and whales, at least in the largest of lakes and rivers.