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[noodle0117]

So whenever it rains in DF, murky pools fill up, evaporation ceases, and outdoor dwarves start complaining.
But other than in specified, destroyable murky pools, rain water just disappears when it hits the ground.

So I'm just thinking, what would playing DF be like if it took an extra step towards realism and had rainwater actually stay where it lands and form small puddles of 1 water unit deep, which in a prolonged rain could eventually turn into miniature rivers and lakes?

Would it be game breaking?
Or would it only make the game more FUN?

Not a suggestions thread but more of a discussion kind of thread.

[Vattic]

I'd like this if it wasn't for the FPS hit we'd get.

[Trapezohedron]

Since every murky pool tile that gets hit by rain makes a depth 1 puddle, it would easily make a Noah's Ark situation if rainwater affected all tiles that way.

Best start building your arks now, if that happens.

[The Merchant Of Menace]

Doesn't water of any depth disrupt construction? Or is that only 3/7 water.
Because if the latter, this would be pretty nice, especially in areas with heavy rainfall.

[Trapezohedron]

Only stops construction if it's 3/7.

[noodle0117]

Now that I think about it, staying rainwater could get quite troublesome for outdoor dwarf workers.

As to the ark situation, that might be a lot less likely than you think.
Unless you somehow embarked on the bottom of a basin shaped map, chances are the water's going to drain off the map before any epic level flooding appears.

If this were ever implemented, I personally would really like to see players adapt to this by building their forts with dome shaped roofs and the like.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Would evaporation still work as normal?

I think I'd enjoy this. It would be a new way to get water to your fortress. You collect rainwater with a complex system of channels and funnel it into your lake.

[Blue_Dwarf]

Only stops construction if it's 3/7.

My dwarves suspended cunstruction at 1/7 for some reason. I noticed that when I was trying to contain an accidental river or aquifer flood.

[noodle0117]

its possible that the water level just happened to reach 3/7 for a single frame before going down to 1/7, thus suspending the task

[BloodBeard]

Would love it if it didn't kill FPS. Same with snow where instead of a dusting you get actual snow piles you have to dig through. After a big storm you'd have to dig out your entrance, and if you get a warm spell afterwards it all melts into water, flooding your fort if you didn't prepare.

[Sphalerite]

I have been considering the idea of a 'dangerous weather' mod.  It would have to consist of some DFHack-like utility running at the same time as Dwarf Fortress, that monitors the weather in the game and during severe rainstorms would spawn tiles of 1/7 water randomly above the surface of the map.  It would still be possible to survive, you'd just have to design your fortresses with floor hatches or doors protecting the entrances to keep the water from flooding in.  Of course, it would kill your FPS while raining.  Also, I don't know enough about how DFHack works to program it.

[Jelle]

Yikes sounds like you'd have to pick your embark real careful if something like that was implemented, excessive rainfall may cause drastic flooding if water has no easy way to drain off the edge of the map.
While we're at it we could have riverbanks flooding as well, effectively turning some riverside embarks into potential flood areas.

I don't want to know what all that waterflow would do to fps though. If a simple waterfall can drastically reduce fps, what would actual flowing water all over the embark do.

All in all I can imagine more then a dozen ways this could kill your dwarves, wich is great ofcourse but the fps drop you'd likely get, not so much.

[Gizogin]

This would actually be fairly realistic.  Think of all the damage that heavy rainfall can do in real life.  It would also add more challenge, which may or may not be a good thing.  One problem I can see immediately would be the problem of raining on a volcano.  Serious FPS death there.

[darkflagrance]

This would actually be fairly realistic.  Think of all the damage that heavy rainfall can do in real life.  It would also add more challenge, which may or may not be a good thing.  One problem I can see immediately would be the problem of raining on a volcano.  Serious FPS death there.

Actually, currently emptying water-filled buckets onto magma doesn't produce obsidian, but instead evaporates the water (you have to stack the water 2/7 deep to obsidianize). Therefore, 1/7 piles of water would theoretically not create issues.

[Jake]

I know there are plans for soil moisture to be tracked for farming, so it wouldn't be too hard to implement a system where after the soil reaches saturation point, water starts to collect on the surface. This could affect your surface crops if you weren't careful, different plants having different tolerances and minimum requirements and most of them dying if submerged. If gradual slopes were implemented the water would naturally run down towards the lowest points, which would have to be taken into consideration when designing your fort.

Also, somewhat related: Landslides. Soil layers that were saturated with moisture would become unstable and potentially collapse, forcing you to avoid logging on certain slopes or even planting extra trees for reinforcement. I'm sure it could also be weaponised given a bit of Dwarven ingenuity, even if it would only work once.