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[jimjulius]

Hey chaps, been a while since I had originally posted this. It's a pity inspiration often arrives at four in the morning. Don't drink and dwarf kids!   

But back to the original topic. The main reason I said pressurised stone / gas / water etc was; I am fairly familiar with deep underground difficulties after having worked in the oil industry for a year in offshore drilling. Some of the things which we really crap ourselves about at work are completely fascinating to me.

Cave-ins and collapses are very realistic at great depths, let me assure you. If you think dwarves aren't digging that deep in the game, then note that they manage to meet molten rock in the depths. Do you know what the pressure underground (from the walls surrounding you in a theoretical "bubble" cave) is around the time you reach molten rock? Neither do I, I'm not at work. But there is a damn good reason we pressure test our containment equipment beyond 5000psi in even simple wells, and hydrocarbon wells are nowhere near that depth.

Collapse and cave-in are also relatively reasonable to implement because the likleyhood of a cavern collapsing is relative to it's depth and width (siplifying it you could say "distance x a support on any particular level causes cave-in, only calculate when new tiles are dug"). The main problem is the caverns. Many of these would naturally collapse with the way DF is now if we went back to the "never more than 6x6 rooms" rule. So although I liked the claustrophobia that rule gave me when trying to expand, I am sad to say that if we wanted that (which I do) we would need some genius to come up with a new computable system.

But I am keen on other nasty stuff getting you if that would be more reasonable. The game already gets more difficult as you get more dwarves, and more colonial responsibility will soon be implemented, which is one thing I see frequently mentioned above. But that should be what drives the impetus to dig down, to expand, to run away from the dangers of the "aboveground".

What about the opposition to that force? We need to fear going too far down as much as we fear staying too exposed. Currently danger is only encountered if you burst into the caverns and then intentionally leave you defenses lacking (which lets not kid ourselves, is a laugh). Or if you fancy taking on that which lies below the red sea... But I want a little uncertainty with every pick strike, rather than a "bugger it, I've done all I can here, let's dig the blue stuff and see what happens"

[Orangebottle]

I think the underground features from 40d need to be added back in, separate from(or combined with) the caverns.
Namely:
Bottomless Pits
Underground Rivers/Lakes
Chasms


Furthermore, there need to be other underground features, so that it's harder to get to the 'endgame' that Hidden Fun Stuff(seriously, clowns/candy/etc is fucking stupid) provides. But it needs to be doable.  That means, nothing that would take up a huge amount of FPS. It also needs to be combatable. High-pressure pockets of water and magma that don't trigger a message can't be fought against.

[Bohandas]

I think the underground features from 40d need to be added back in, separate from(or combined with) the caverns.
Namely:
Bottomless Pits
Underground Rivers/Lakes
Chasms


Furthermore, there need to be other underground features, so that it's harder to get to the 'endgame' that Hidden Fun Stuff(seriously, clowns/candy/etc is fucking stupid) provides. But it needs to be doable.  That means, nothing that would take up a huge amount of FPS. It also needs to be combatable. High-pressure pockets of water and magma that don't trigger a message can't be fought against.

IIRC there are bottomless pits in Hell.

[Orangebottle]

IIRC there are bottomless pits in Hell.

IIRC you have to conquer hell to actually use them.

IIRC the bottomless pits and chasms in 40d were awesome and quite challenging to build a fort around.

[jimjulius]

But it needs to be doable.  That means, nothing that would take up a huge amount of FPS. It also needs to be combatable. High-pressure pockets of water and magma that don't trigger a message can't be fought against.

Absolutely on board with th FPS concerns. I think it may be possible to get past unseen pockets of "boom" if caution began to take over as you went deeper, and maybe you had structures capable of stopping the chaos (e.g. lever triggered shut-down hatch) built above your exploratory mineshaft. That could get frustrating though if you wanted to do something very creative in the depths...

Okay, how should it get harder, then? Because right now, the way it works is that everything is stupidly easy right up until you dig into hell, and then suddenly turns stupidly hard. So tell us: what's the "realistic" way to achieve a satisfying difficulty curve?

Still, I have no problem with that digging into caves increases the chance of forgotten beasts coming into your fortress. Nor the idea that the deeper you go, the more corrupt the caves become. You're approaching HFS after all. And it's probably harder to dig very deep mines than it is to dig shallow ones. So I guess I'm agreeing with everyone.

I think we would all like to see a bit more challenge before we get to the HFS rather than just sliding down the easy path by digging through the walls of the caverns and not the cavern itself, giving little or no no exposure to danger. Because the option is there, we abuse it to our advantage. I used to linger by the left side of the magma river for a decade or so because I knew going deeper meant the unexpected HFS "pits". These weren't END-GAME, but they were definately serious bad news.

Any ideas what we could use as a substitute in 3d other than the already mentioned ?

[Orangebottle]

Perhaps instead of immediate HFS beyond the caverns...

There could be sprawling ruins, destroyed cities of a civilization of the past. They'd be full of dangerous traps, hidden traps, but the city would have rooms, doors, structures for you to use. Possibly fresh water. They could also have various 'corrupted' versions of cave creatures, trolls with twisted arms of lead, crundles with steel horns, etc.

"The miners report sightings of ancient engravings in the depths."

There could be entire cities of animal men, gathered around a pillar of gold/platinum/adamantine/shiny they worship as a god, or somesuch. They see your intrusion as sacrilege, and would immediately attack any dwarves they see within the city limits.

"The wall crumbles away, revealing a huge cavern with a pillar of gold at the center. Many animal people surround it, as if they worship it, and they seem offended by your intrusion."

There could be ancient burial grounds, and disturbing them triggers a zombie attack.

"A thick fog covers this small cave. You can barely make out mounds of dirt with slabs rising out of them through the fog."
"Terrifying moans! The dead have risen!"

There could be a temple to an ancient god, and destroying part of it brings a punishment of some sort apon your dwarves. Could vary from a plague, a famine, drought, heat wave, blizzard, etc. The god could still be alive, and make demands of your dwarves like a noble.

"Your miners have discovered a very old structure in the depths. It has many stained glass windows, and you can hear ominous chanting coming from within."

Of course, these are only ideas.

[peskyninja]

The wall crumbles away, revealing a huge cavern with a pillar of gold at the center. Many animal people surround it, as if they worship it, and they seem offended by the miners/dwarfs intrusion.

There's no you in dwarf fortress,the player never takes part in anything.

[jimjulius]

Perhaps instead of immediate HFS beyond the caverns...

There could be sprawling ruins, destroyed cities of a civilization of the past. They'd be full of dangerous traps, hidden traps, but the city would have rooms, doors, structures for you to use. Possibly fresh water. They could also have various 'corrupted' versions of cave creatures, trolls with twisted arms of lead, crundles with steel horns, etc.

"The miners report sightings of ancient engravings in the depths."

There could be entire cities of animal men, gathered around a pillar of gold/platinum/adamantine/shiny they worship as a god, or somesuch. They see your intrusion as sacrilege, and would immediately attack any dwarves they see within the city limits.

"The wall crumbles away, revealing a huge cavern with a pillar of gold at the center. Many animal people surround it, as if they worship it, and they seem offended by your intrusion."

There could be ancient burial grounds, and disturbing them triggers a zombie attack.

"A thick fog covers this small cave. You can barely make out mounds of dirt with slabs rising out of them through the fog."
"Terrifying moans! The dead have risen!"

There could be a temple to an ancient god, and destroying part of it brings a punishment of some sort apon your dwarves. Could vary from a plague, a famine, drought, heat wave, blizzard, etc. The god could still be alive, and make demands of your dwarves like a noble.

"Your miners have discovered a very old structure in the depths. It has many stained glass windows, and you can hear ominous chanting coming from within."

Of course, these are only ideas.

I think some of these are really good ideas, especially because it gets you sudden unexpected aggression which you may not be able to turtle against in time, but won't kill you for certain. I think an "uh-oh, shouldn't have dug that, send the troops!" is just as good as an environmental hazard, if not better. It would also be good to see more "flavour announcements" underground like mentioned above.

[Bricktop]

First of all, in that game you went to the right, not down.

No, you went down. In fortress mode it depicted everything on one layer for ease of viewing but if you explored the fortress in adventure mode it spit into different z-levels, with the further right levels being deeper down.



In terms of the suggestions for pressurised water and pumping air and the like... beyond the programming problems there is also a very important thing to consider - playing difficulty. Whilst those of us who have been playing since the early days might like the idea of complex pumping operations (don't laugh) it is too much to pile onto new players and is likely to put them off. Expecting people to spend hours trawling through the wiki in order to play would be a dickish way for a community to act in the long run.

[harborpirate]

First of all, in that game you went to the right, not down.

No, you went down. In fortress mode it depicted everything on one layer for ease of viewing but if you explored the fortress in adventure mode it spit into different z-levels, with the further right levels being deeper down.



In terms of the suggestions for pressurised water and pumping air and the like... beyond the programming problems there is also a very important thing to consider - playing difficulty. Whilst those of us who have been playing since the early days might like the idea of complex pumping operations (don't laugh) it is too much to pile onto new players and is likely to put them off. Expecting people to spend hours trawling through the wiki in order to play would be a dickish way for a community to act in the long run.

There have to be adequate rewards/interest added to the underground as well, or most players will never bother with it once it becomes harder to deal with.

[jimjulius]

Whilst those of us who have been playing since the early days might like the idea of complex pumping operations (don't laugh) it is too much to pile onto new players and is likely to put them off. Expecting people to spend hours trawling through the wiki in order to play would be a dickish way for a community to act in the long run.

That's how I learned . Point taken though, it is hard enough to pick up as it is, and I agree expecting a new player to master thermodynamics and fluid flow before starting is more than a little dickish. But in argument I would say that surprise and unfairness were kinda the charm of the DF experience, and also the hit which I'm chasing after becoming an experienced player. Also what I am talking about would not making digging impossible, just more dicey for the miner involved and those near them.

I wasn't getting at pumping air so much as shutting a standard hatch, then digging around the small revealed pressure pocket that had been discovered. The pressure itself could work like a cave-in cloud does at the moment, and after expanding enough (more than a standard cave in, and vertically too) the pressure would be equalised, and the cloud would stop. Death would not nescessarily be the case, but maybe serious concussive injury and/or heat exposure. The hatch would just minimise the damage by stopping the expanding "cloud" before it went somewhere you didn't want it too. The cloud could then freeze in position if trapped (not equalised), and commence expansion if a neighbouring tile was breached. The pressure wave could be set to fill a max number of squares before equalising.

Not very realistic to operate the hatch manually though, because that pressure would IRL go off like a bomb and equalise near instantly if the source was small. A hatch attached to a pressure plate set to "ultra-high weight" trigger would do the job automatically, but if we wanted to keep it simple for the rookies, could just man-up and take the hit (not fortress destroying, but sore if you liked the dwarf and his mining buddies).

[Di]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Whilst those of us who have been playing since the early days might like the idea of complex pumping operations (don't laugh) it is too much to pile onto new players and is likely to put them off. Expecting people to spend hours trawling through the wiki in order to play would be a dickish way for a community to act in the long run.

That's how I learned . Point taken though, it is hard enough to pick up as it is, and I agree expecting a new player to master thermodynamics and fluid flow before starting is more than a little dickish. But in argument I would say that surprise and unfairness were kinda the charm of the DF experience, and also the hit which I'm chasing after becoming an experienced player. Also what I am talking about would not making digging impossible, just more dicey for the miner involved and those near them.

I wasn't getting at pumping air so much as shutting a standard hatch, then digging around the small revealed pressure pocket that had been discovered. The pressure itself could work like a cave-in cloud does at the moment, and after expanding enough (more than a standard cave in, and vertically too) the pressure would be equalised, and the cloud would stop. Death would not nescessarily be the case, but maybe serious concussive injury and/or heat exposure. The hatch would just minimise the damage by stopping the expanding "cloud" before it went somewhere you didn't want it too. The cloud could then freeze in position if trapped (not equalised), and commence expansion if a neighbouring tile was breached. The pressure wave could be set to fill a max number of squares before equalising.

Not very realistic to operate the hatch manually though, because that pressure would IRL go off like a bomb and equalise near instantly if the source was small. A hatch attached to a pressure plate set to "ultra-high weight" trigger would do the job automatically, but if we wanted to keep it simple for the rookies, could just man-up and take the hit (not fortress destroying, but sore if you liked the dwarf and his mining buddies).

Isn't the spectacular fail leading to a fortress collapse considered FUUUn and thus desired result? You know, we're talking about obstacles at the road to endgame events here. If one can get there in their very first playthrough it wouldn't be good. Besides, player can chill out in a safe zone with goblins until he is confident enough to brave the depth.

Considering the air pumping though, I don't think any computer could withstand a full scale atmosphere simulation. But we could get some simplistic model like this: upon reaching a certain depth below the newbie level (you can even get an announcement, something like: dwarves notice that air becomes difficult to breath down in the mines), tiles become unbreathable causing troubled breath, winding and stuff unless there's air source nearby: connection to a newbie levels or air pump built on a breathable tile. Air pumps should fill with air only a limited amount of tiles starting from closest to them including those already breathable. For higher dwarfiness, pumps may be made to require air sourced only from outside or from other pump as air in lowest newbie levels is quite difficult to breath itself. Alternatively, breathability can be calculated depending on actual distance from outside tiles, with higher path costs at lower levels. These calculations would be carried out in a while like current path map so they shouldn't cause much slowdown, except when your system goes off and everything is shut dowwalln.

Same for cave-ins, their likeness could be a function of depth and ceiling material. Like: sand is unsafe for anything wider than a pair of tiles, first stone layers unlimited and the deeper ones 2-3 tiles again.  Or, the likeness of a tile above to collapse can be defined by distance between the tile bellow and closest wall (this could allow using multi-level wide rooms at the bottom). When cave-in happens, it would move wall one level down, non-stone floors (sand, soil, etc) could simply mudify area below or something (the point is they should be simply a remainder for a player that shit happens). Probably, if there are many levels of undisturbed stone above, a caved-in wall could be formed out of thin air, leaving stone above undisturbed.

[jimjulius]

Considering the air pumping though, I don't think any computer could withstand a full scale atmosphere simulation. But we could get some simplistic model like this: upon reaching a certain depth below the newbie level (you can even get an announcement, something like: dwarves notice that air becomes difficult to breath down in the mines), tiles become unbreathable causing troubled breath, winding and stuff unless there's air source nearby: connection to a newbie levels or air pump built on a breathable tile. Air pumps should fill with air only a limited amount of tiles starting from closest to them including those already breathable. For higher dwarfiness, pumps may be made to require air sourced only from outside or from other pump as air in lowest newbie levels is quite difficult to breath itself. Alternatively, breathability can be calculated depending on actual distance from outside tiles, with higher path costs at lower levels. These calculations would be carried out in a while like current path map so they shouldn't cause much slowdown, except when your system goes off and everything is shut dowwalln.

Same for cave-ins, their likeness could be a function of depth and ceiling material. Like: sand is unsafe for anything wider than a pair of tiles, first stone layers unlimited and the deeper ones 2-3 tiles again.  Or, the likeness of a tile above to collapse can be defined by distance between the tile bellow and closest wall (this could allow using multi-level wide rooms at the bottom). When cave-in happens, it would move wall one level down, non-stone floors (sand, soil, etc) could simply mudify area below or something (the point is they should be simply a remainder for a player that shit happens). Probably, if there are many levels of undisturbed stone above, a caved-in wall could be formed out of thin air, leaving stone above undisturbed.

The unbreathable air is kinda cool, but a lot of folk may take issue with it if it happens all the time when you dig down rather than in rare instances. I'd like to see it rarely though  .

The collapse formula again falls down because of the exponential calculations required to check every tile to see if it has something above it and what it is though, would be a nightmare for FPS. Needs to be simpler!

[Di]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Considering the air pumping though, I don't think any computer could withstand a full scale atmosphere simulation. But we could get some simplistic model like this: upon reaching a certain depth below the newbie level (you can even get an announcement, something like: dwarves notice that air becomes difficult to breath down in the mines), tiles become unbreathable causing troubled breath, winding and stuff unless there's air source nearby: connection to a newbie levels or air pump built on a breathable tile. Air pumps should fill with air only a limited amount of tiles starting from closest to them including those already breathable. For higher dwarfiness, pumps may be made to require air sourced only from outside or from other pump as air in lowest newbie levels is quite difficult to breath itself. Alternatively, breathability can be calculated depending on actual distance from outside tiles, with higher path costs at lower levels. These calculations would be carried out in a while like current path map so they shouldn't cause much slowdown, except when your system goes off and everything is shut dowwalln.

Same for cave-ins, their likeness could be a function of depth and ceiling material. Like: sand is unsafe for anything wider than a pair of tiles, first stone layers unlimited and the deeper ones 2-3 tiles again.  Or, the likeness of a tile above to collapse can be defined by distance between the tile bellow and closest wall (this could allow using multi-level wide rooms at the bottom). When cave-in happens, it would move wall one level down, non-stone floors (sand, soil, etc) could simply mudify area below or something (the point is they should be simply a remainder for a player that shit happens). Probably, if there are many levels of undisturbed stone above, a caved-in wall could be formed out of thin air, leaving stone above undisturbed.

The unbreathable air is kinda cool, but a lot of folk may take issue with it if it happens all the time when you dig down rather than in rare instances. I'd like to see it rarely though  .

The point of this thread is making issues preventing from easily going down and down and down and ...
Actually I don't know how realistic it would be, I had noticed words 'air pumping' up there in a thread and was struck by an idea of complicated ventilation systems. I imagine huge amount of fun if say FB destroys an axle powering ventilation system of  dwarven Zeon located near magma sea or when turning air sources off in tunnels with goblins but honestly I don't know if I could bear it for every fortress

The collapse formula again falls down because of the exponential calculations required to check every tile to see if it has something above it and what it is though, would be a nightmare for FPS. Needs to be simpler!

It needn't to check that every tick, game could create stability map (or stability graph) upon load and then update it when another tile is dug out. With some optimization of algorithm that wouldn't be much of a calculation.