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[Girlinhat]

Perhaps, but it would allow your ship to "fly" without turning off cave-ins.

[Urist Da Vinci]

I've nailed things to the sky with obsidian and/or supports, and it won't work.

Code: [Select]

  I
 _██

will collapse to look like this:

  I
  █


and this:
   █
   I
   █
   ██

will collapse to look like this:
   █
   I
   █
   █


The "magic sky support" doesn't transmit horizontally, only vertically. It also caused my 40d game to crash eventually unless I loaded the seasonal autosave and then reconnected the "skyhook" to the ground.

[Itnetlolor]

Like I stated before, I'll be doing some things differently, but still sticking to the same style of my old project. That means I will actually use proper supports or make a more proper dry-dock with scaffolding to build the airship with, and shut off cave-ins after I dis-assemble it and make the ship entirely independent from the land when I'm finished. They sky-support is against my style and convention of doing things, and just as well, this will be done in 31.xx, so some adjustments will be mandatory to fit the new mold.

It's already hard enough coming up with new design ideas alone.

Post #4 has my ideas so far posted.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Suggestions:

- Use colored cavern fungus wood for decoration. The 40d ship was only brown, now you can have red, blue, purple, yellow, white, and black.

- Ship naming convention is [violent/gore noun][weapon noun]?

- http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=74749.0
Drop troopers? A squad of war giant eagles bats deployed from a hangar bay on the bottom?

- You now need an onboard hospital/sickbay.

- If you want to make a large battleship, you could use a dirigible/blimp design with interior and bottom-mounted rooms. The blimp bag could be made of featherwood, which has the lowest density in the game.

[Itnetlolor]

Suggestions:

- Use colored cavern fungus wood for decoration. The 40d ship was only brown, now you can have red, blue, purple, yellow, white, and black.

- Ship naming convention is [violent/gore noun][weapon noun]?

- http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=74749.0
Drop troopers? A squad of war giant eagles bats deployed from a hangar bay on the bottom?

- You now need an onboard hospital/sickbay.

- If you want to make a large battleship, you could use a dirigible/blimp design with interior and bottom-mounted rooms. The blimp bag could be made of featherwood, which has the lowest density in the game.

1- Considered (see #4)

2- Armok's Gauntlet translated into Bloodfist (Translated into Nazushdur). That's what I meant by names that translate well into dwarven.

3- I dunno. Sounds tricky to pull off. Plus, in the Bloodfist world, these would have to be pre-made outposts. As for the giant creatures and hangar bay; first, my dwarves have a bad history with giant birds, so they have a fear of them. Plus it's semi-considered (again, see #4, sorta).

4- Pre-considered (see #4)

5- It was suggested before with the Bloodfist's original project/planning. A dirigible would be too much work, and make it too big. It would also provide too much unnecessary work for me to do. And again, it would not fit the style of my previous ship. It's a prop-powered airship. Kinda like FFIV's airships.

[adwarf]

Have multiple drawbridges so you can have the ability to " drop troops " into the fighting quickly ( by drop I mean get them on land ) have
as I suggested earlier tons of balista and fortifications for soldier to fight from

[Itnetlolor]

There will definitely be more weapon hardpoints. I say about 1 fixed set per small section, and 2 fixed sets per large section, a set of 3-direction flexible balista, and a rear balista to support, setup in similar style to the original Bloodfist's bottom deck, except plus 1 on the back. Especially seeing as the bottom deck might not be a loading deck anymore. Gotta remember, in case the ship is to crash-land into water, it should still float and/or use the engines as motors to propel the airship now boat.

EDIT:
Oh, right, if you have an idea for a structure of how you want the ship to look, feel free to edit the bloodfist sprite I made in my signature to look more suited to the new design. Of course, this would be a side-view. Enlarge if/where necessary; and the decks should be quite visible as shown in the original sprite. Even a solid-color mockup is welcomed. Just label it in a way I can read it.

[Urist Da Vinci]

More suggestions:

- In 31.xx, unlike 40d, you can now construct stairs down from above. This may simplify your drydock design.

- In 31.xx, you can make custom workshops (see the raw file building_custom.txt). The Soap Maker's Workshop is an example. You could make a custom workshop, that doesn't actually do anything, but looks pretty. You could also make a "console" that has a custom "push buttons" reaction attached, that uses the "mechanic" labor but doesn't actually produce anything.

[Itnetlolor]

Ooh, right. I forgot about those. I haven't put any practice into making any, but if anyone is willing to, I'm welcome to design submissions of custom workshops that would be perfect for an airship (I'm not familiar with custom reactions, so that's where my abilities might put a wrench into the gears of making my own). I'll make sure to include them provided I can find a spot to place them.

The downward from above will definitely ease things for me.

Design concept:

Pilot's seat (facing north) (3x3):
╒O╕
║╥║
ó▄ò
Note: 2x3 version can omit the last 3 tiles on the bottom. 3x3 can be rotatable, seat and levers stay the same, but rotate within their respective positions. That is, if anyone wants to use the same design for their own craft.

Dorf-puter controls (1x3 rotatable):
◄‼►

or

▲
‼
▼
Okay, last draft of it. Promise.

EDIT:
Custom Workshop Workshop helps for making the designs at least. Custom reactions are a bit of a stretch however.

Spoiler: Here's the Pilot's seat so far, at least, as a concept. Also showing the program in this screenshot (click to show/hide)

Gold trim seat with a purple velvet cushion, green HUD with wheel beneath, throttle levers on the left and right.

[Boksi]

That pilot's seat could use a bit less-clashing color scheme. Try making the background color of all the tiles to yellow, it'll look better in my opinion.

Anyway, suggestions:

-What's more lethal than a fist? An axe, of course! It should be called Bloodaxe(Nazushlibash).

-Continuing on that trend, you should have a sharp metal edge on it's keel to drop onto unsuspecting enemies, with along it's sides so you can board whatever you crashed into.

-In order to drop onto enemies, it needs to go high up. I propose it have a special "high altitude" mode, wherein all entrances are sealed and the craft becomes entirely airtight. This is to combat the fact that air pressure gets lower the higher you get.

-The craft should have a greenhouse, made of clear glass. It might be easiest to simply dig down and build the ship around a natural soil layer to do so. That would also make the ship harder to spot while in construction. The greenhouse would need to have a system to cover it when under attack or when in high altitude mode. I suggest building a retracting drawbridge on top of it and floodgates around it.

-In order to need to be airtight, it needs to go very high up. Being able to go that high up is a definite advantage. I know you don't want dirigibles, but hear me out. Make a custom reaction to allow you to make blocks out of thread. Put a few recesses in the side of your ships and make small, deflated balloons with thread block walls, which don't quite fit those recesses. Cover those with drawbridges, floodgates etc. and connect with a source of hot air and a way to get rid of said air. You now have a method of going high up when you need it and stays compact and unnoticeable while you don't need it.

Spoiler: An image I drew for you (click to show/hide)

Hopefully that clears things up rather than confuses you.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Code: [Select]

Put in reaction_other.txt

[REACTION:PILOT_DRIVE]
[NAME:Drive Ship]
[BUILDING:PILOT:CUSTOM_D]
[SKILL:MECHANICS]



Code: [Select]

Put in the dwarf civ entry in entity_default.txt

[PERMITTED_BUILDING:PILOT]
[PERMITTED_REACTION:PILOT_DRIVE]


Also make your custom workshop [BUILDING_WORKSHOP:PILOT]

Then, if you 'q' over the pilot's seat, the only option in the workshop will be "Drive Ship (d)". If you choose that, a dwarf with the mechanics labor will go sit in the pilot's seat for a few seconds.

[Itnetlolor]

For the pilot's seat, is this better?


It should convert well for custom tilesets as well.

And BTW, those notes help out. I'll make note of it when a stable recent release comes out.

That pilot's seat could use a bit less-clashing color scheme. Try making the background color of all the tiles to yellow, it'll look better in my opinion.

Anyway, suggestions:

-What's more lethal than a fist? An axe, of course! It should be called Bloodaxe(Nazushlibash).

-Continuing on that trend, you should have a sharp metal edge on it's keel to drop onto unsuspecting enemies, with along it's sides so you can board whatever you crashed into.

-In order to drop onto enemies, it needs to go high up. I propose it have a special "high altitude" mode, wherein all entrances are sealed and the craft becomes entirely airtight. This is to combat the fact that air pressure gets lower the higher you get.

-The craft should have a greenhouse, made of clear glass. It might be easiest to simply dig down and build the ship around a natural soil layer to do so. That would also make the ship harder to spot while in construction. The greenhouse would need to have a system to cover it when under attack or when in high altitude mode. I suggest building a retracting drawbridge on top of it and floodgates around it.

-In order to need to be airtight, it needs to go very high up. Being able to go that high up is a definite advantage. I know you don't want dirigibles, but hear me out. Make a custom reaction to allow you to make blocks out of thread. Put a few recesses in the side of your ships and make small, deflated balloons with thread block walls, which don't quite fit those recesses. Cover those with drawbridges, floodgates etc. and connect with a source of hot air and a way to get rid of said air. You now have a method of going high up when you need it and stays compact and unnoticeable while you don't need it.

Spoiler: An image I drew for you (click to show/hide)

Hopefully that clears things up rather than confuses you.

1- I was thinking maybe a weapon can top a gauntlet, since a gauntlet is a utility (and the Bloodfist is customizable, like a hand/glove), and the next edition will be a war machine, or primarily an offensive weapon, yet still an elegant ship suitable for a noble captain.

2/3- I may try to see if I can do that, but I'd have to design it in a way that it'll be structurally sensible, as well as not weigh the frontside down too much as well as affect the bridge on impact. Plus, floodgates are usually used  for exterior passageways (metal while at it), along with airlocks of sorts, anyway. Bloodfist was designed with high altitudes in mind, as will this follow similar in it's design. And BTW, according to that blade modification, with the ladders, it'll be too easy to jump aboard as an invader, and also, it'll be even easier to invade since it wouldn't be able to take off, the blade's so damn big and heavy. If it were the bloodfist with that mod, it would need 6 boilers at least to match the 2 boiler model in speeds (dirigibles included).

4. The greenhouse is a good way to combat the effects of high altitudes for the garden, but may limit it only to the noble captain and/or his/her cohorts. This may cause some unrest among the crew, depending on the type of captain that takes control. I still say the alternative of using a tile editor a modder may have made and updated would be a more suitable option (I'll dig out the amount of dirt/loam/sand applied into the ship). BTW, I don't want to scar the land just to make room for the ship (remember, it will be a minimum of 1.5 local region tiles long. That's alot of area to dig. It would also break my original means of building the ship as well (skeleton first).) When I'm done, it won't look convincing as something flying like the flyby videos I posted when I finished Bloodfist.

5. That sounds like more complicated and complex machinery and coding to include. I don't know how I would even get a linkup of piping made in-game outside making another custom reaction, and that'll just make me waste some copper materials, space, and maybe even time to get it properly setup and making sense design/engineering-wise. Plus, you can't forget how oddball things will look when walls contact each other, it'll look like the thread blocks are quantum-stitched to the wooden walls. Plus, what if a succession/community fort is to be played that calls for them being used? Not going to be the easiest trick to reproduce accurately all the time. Plus, I might use a tileset when I make the new ship like I did with the Bloodfist, for familiarity reasons.

[Boksi]

Well, they're just suggestions, not mandates. I'm glad you're using some of them, at least.

Maybe boarding should be conducted through horizontal drawbridges instead? I think the Romans had something like that, or maybe it was the Greeks. Also, if you do decide to put a blade on the ship, the actual metal bit doesn't need to be too big. The rest of the blade could be made from steel-reinforced wood, since it's only the edge that needs to be sharp. Oh yeah, and another idea I'm sure was suggested for the Bloodfist: Sails. If I could figure out how to make it work well in DF I'd suggest it, but as is it's merely a neat idea. Those sails would preferably be on the sides, and possibly retractable.

Hmmm, maybe I'll make my own little airship. I need a goal for my new fortress, after all.

[Itnetlolor]

Regarding boarding, the Bloodfist had means to from above. The retractable planks also doubled as a means of boarding other ships or unreachable settlements, as well as provide a means of allowing trade or hauling to occur in a more secure manner than from the more vulnerable bottom deck. Plus, what if ground-level cargo transfer is not allowable (terrain or a law, or how a settlement/keep/dock is built)? Well, the mid-upper deck's planks are still a means, and reaches far enough that the wings/props won't collide with the nearby building/tower it would have to dock with.

Regarding a landing gear, in case asked or advised, it was implied that front legs were retractable on the frontside along with retractable wedges and/or wheels like you see on a catapult that are on strong reinforced hardpoints on the bottom-most deck. It would also be implied that the bottom-most deck would have (a series of) metal paneling to minimize friction from slowly to violently shearing off the bottom deck of the ship when landing or taking off. It would also reinforce the flooring of the bottom deck as well to make it not as scary as the ship ages (after all, wet storage tends to be placed in there, as well as plenty of heavy wagon and personell traffic going through there). It applies to both the Bloodfist and it's descendants.

EDIT: (31.19 related)
I'm acquainting myself with .19 right now, and I'm trying to get used to how things work again (been awhile since I last played any DF). Also, this is the first time I've dug deep to find magma. Found water so far (-41z from top shaft floor -1z from gateway floor), and a fungrest. My finding of the cave system appeared over water, and I capped the stairway ASAP, seeing as a cave croc was right below. Who knows what else would be waiting for me? A security checkpoint has been made with only 1 access point into the watery caves (should be more than enough, and a floodgate will provide protection or buy time to build a wall, just in case). Another shaft will be made near the checkpoint, and have a similar build when I find magma (hoping for less z-level separation for the next stage, and hopefully, minimal fiend activity). This makes good practice for when I eventually get around to the project. I'm also attempting to make heads and tails with the whole pottery and clay feature, and find a way to keep the clay (loam) separate from the rest of the rocks, outside bookkeeping, dump clay stock, reclaim post-dump at a designated pile. I'm hoping for a fix for that; the other features like proper livestock and such, nests, hatcheries, I'm slowly learning as well with some help from the wiki to make full (proper) use of them.

EDIT EDIT: (ditto above)
dug far deeper for another 100z minimum to find another similar cave system, but found adamantine, which led to both a magma sea and an adamantine pipe that goes through. I think I made it to my limit for now in exploring first hand. Now I gotta establish a fort that'll last at least a few years (supply and etc.) before I can have any confidence at all to get around to splitting work, setting jobs and so on. I'm waiting for a lazy newb pack, or at least the tools I used last time that helped the most with management to be updated to .19 (or whatever later editions get released) so managing at least the work should be easier to work with. Borrows seem more temperamental than I expected it to be. If I get enough of the ship done and a good hang of it, I might set a burrow exclusively ship-side, for both security and construction reasons, and the hauler class should keep them supplied. Provided I wrap my head around the burrows thing. It can really help with dedicated construction portions when building the ship.

[Itnetlolor]

According to Toady's recent post I came across, it looks like the copper shortage won't be as much an issue to worry about when the time comes for getting around to construction (by next release; though not certain which version I'll start working will be). Provided the other metals are in the same boat as that, I should also be able to harvest other ores and etc to try and add more bells and whistles to the ship (metal-wise) as I work on the ship; including the mighty blade that would go along the broadside head. So yes, with the more flexible worldgen options to allow for more/less frequent metal deposits, it should work with the play style I use for making an airship. Although I will eventually get the newer trade systems down to get more supplies (food, booze, gems, and metals) as they release, it should mean that this project won't become too impossibly difficult to make progress on, and no fun. So, that's always good news.