Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Suggestions => Topic started by: Moogie on February 23, 2010, 02:18:58 am
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I'd like to suggest an addendum to Bloat165, which reads:
"WALL HANGINGS AND RUGS, (Future): Rugs, tapestries, paintings, etc. This leads to things like paint and pigments. The player's skin could hang in the goblin fortress in the same way. It could even be improved like dwarf items. Requires Core43."
To this I would very much like to see the implementation of other forms of wall decor; one thing I have always wanted to do is line my hallways with torches (or other light-giving fixtures) so that my dwarves can actually see their surroundings. I've always found it a bit odd that underground forts and caves could be navigated so easily, despite having no visible lightsources. I mean, what are we; cats, or dwarves? :)
This could remain limited to a bloat implementation... however, I see great potential for even more added depth and realism if you decide to make light work logically in this way. As an adventurer, you'd be able to navigate around towns and other settlements thanks to their light fixtures, but in caves, you'd have to bring along your own torches. In Dwarf Mode, artificial lights could simply be aesthetic and unecessary; or, perhaps the player would need to really account for visibility when designing, to ensure his dwarves remain alert and attentive to their duties while working (and soldiering) underground.
Besides being more realistic, I think it would generally give indoor environments an additional layer of atmosphere and overall beauty.
Thoughts?
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As the tunnle fills with gases, McDigger gose down into the darkness. As he makes fire to ligth his pathway, the gas ignites and his clothing cathces on fire. The dwarf begin sturdy and able to go without air for some time is able to find a sand pile to put out the fire but on the way he suddenly needs a drink. ...
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I would like to be able to add levers to walls. Heck i would love if we could somehow work torches/sconces, levers into engravings. "This is an engraving of a Dwarf holding up a Hammer, The hammer also functions as a lever."
As far as light sources go. I don't think dwarves should NEED light sources per say... Lets say they could see basic shapes in no light situations. Theres a cow in the hall, i see a chair beside it, there is a dwarf in the chair, looks like Lolor... When a dwarf is making things in no light area he would be limited in the quality of engraving/improving of items. It would be harder to carve a mastercraft elk in a wooden cup with no light but with a light source it becomes much easier for the dwarf.
Just my two cents on the light thing, but yeah, I like your idea for the bloat.
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Dwarves can see in the dark. In fact, they're adapted to it, which is why the sun makes them sick. Too much light entering dialated dwarven pupils, trasmitting too much information to the dwarven brain.
No torches in the tunnels.
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And what if you're building a dungeon for captured elves and tantric dwarves? (hmm, that didn't come out right)
You can't have a dungeon without sputtering torches stinking up the place. Attempting that would probably cause a tear in the fabric of fantasy.
Lighting a fortress at all times would require one helluvalot of fuel / wood and the logistics to refill/replace your combustibles.
I doubt that the game needs a whole new wing of maintainance tasks.
Magical glowstones - or specially bred glowmoss (far more likely!) - are better alternatives.
So farmers plant and harvest glowmoss. It is crafted into shiny glass orbs/lamps and provides maintainance-free illumination.
It's only stretching the glow ability a tiiiiny bit but hey - dwarves see okay without light so some illumination is just perfect for them.
I'd prefer light to have some beneficial effect (other then the item being "value" like yet another chair) but if it's required for workshops to work at the intended efficiency, I'd rather pass. Wouldn't want to calculate the light levels for all parts of all workshops to guarantee peak efficiency everywhere.
Maybe it could speed up item hauling? Dwarves see farther and can navigate road jams quicker. That would be a "nice to have" benefit but not feel like a major loss like workshops that produce inferior quality.
Light could also give a (very small!) extra benefit when seeing luxury items like a water fall or platinum statue garden.
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lighting of various forms should be in, and is in the future dev. i am all for glow torches, but normal torches need to be in as well.
placing levers and presure plates into various items has been discussed hevily in the various mechanincs threads. futher discussion should probably be taken there.
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Ty for the replies. :]
I'd be quite satisfied with torches just being an un-interactive fluff item, until such a time as the lighting systems would be looked at more closely (if they will be). I think, at least initially, they could just be constructed with a log of wood (perhaps 1 log: 5 torches or so?) and access to a furnace or any other source of !!. Then an architect could go fit them to the walls and they'd just burn there forever without needing additional maintenance. Perhaps guards could also carry them around as part of their standard 'uniform'. :D
I don't see any really important reason why they should require additional labours to keep lit, as like Gazz mentioned, this would take up an annoying amount of fuel and time. But simply having them there would be amazing, IMO. I dunno, maybe it's just me; I must admit, I'm really into the whole fortress designing side of DF, and little aesthetic details like this please me greatly. :)
Also, on the point of Dwarves and their light-sensitivity/cave adaptation-- I must admit, I forgot about that for a sec. :) Though, sunlight is very much brighter than simple torches; and I do not think any creature capable of full eyesight can actually see in zero light, and this is where I think it would make sense to have torches (if only aesthetically, and not as an actual gameplay element). Even noctornal animals in the wild rely on the low ambient levels provided by the atmosphere, or reflected by the moon. Animals that live underground, in total darkness, are typically blind or have underdeveloped/vestigal eyes (because, obviously, it's impossible to see anything no matter how amazing your nightvision is).
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Also....there is another possibility for dark sight. When they enter utter blackness, they could have a third type of sensitive cell that is able to take out the wavelengths given off by heat. This likely wouldn't be high detail, but combine that will a full dialation(IE, whole eye socket becomes an iris), and you could have a vision that detects objects based on heat...most objects would give off some light, though it'd deteriorate as temp goes down, but on many objects you could see well enough depending on the sensitivity of the cells. Walk into bright light with your pupils stuck at eye socket size and you'd be in pain though, and you'd also see a lot more range than normal people. This would have similar effects to certain non-lethal weapons that is used in low-no light areas.
Those suck btw...
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Well, anything with heat is technically emitting light, so such dark vision is concievable and actually occurs IRL!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared#Heat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_sensing_in_snakes
Anyway, I'm all for sconces. I've always wanted to be able to ensconce something. What a great word. Ensconce.
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Perhaps they "see" like bats, sending an audio signal end hearing it bounce of the rock, thusly they also hear what rock type this is automatically. ;)
Perhaps they even have a mystical connection with stone and metal, sensing where it is at all times in the fiber of there senses.
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Perhaps they "see" like bats, sending an audio signal end hearing it bounce of the rock, thusly they also hear what rock type this is automatically. ;)
Perhaps they even have a mystical connection with stone and metal, sensing where it is at all times in the fiber of there senses.
dwarves can use supersonic??? maybe this is why they become so confused on the rare occasion it hits something
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Wall-mounted levers would make noble/gremlin disposal a cinch. Pull the lever while standing on the trap[door]!
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OR perhaps dwarves have a rhodopsin analogue that can undergo the appropriate conformational change when exposed to infra red radiation... It wouldn't be that simple, though, I think.
Whatever... I think they should need visible spectrum light to see, and, therefore, sconces and torches and stuff should be in and necessary for a smooth running fort.
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How about fuel, the fortress needs fuel for all the lighting.
We could have options of using oil lamps or gas lamps... even to use fireflies that can be in aquariums, that would otherwise bother the dwarfs a lot.
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Well, anything with heat is technically emitting light, so such dark vision is concievable and actually occurs IRL!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared#Heat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_sensing_in_snakes
Yes, but the organism sensing the heat has to be cooler than the object or creature emitting the heat - which is why heatvision is something only cold-blooded creatures have.
I'd always considered Dwarves to be warm-blooded creatures. Admittedly, there isn't enough evidence to really reach any conclusion, given the nature of DF, but presumably they're mammals. So they could only 'see' things whose (body) temperature was higher than their own. And there aren't likely to be many such things in an underground environment for any organism, much less a warm-blooded one.
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And good luck spotting a wall with heatvision. Although I suppose the beard might give you a split second warning if it were bushy enough.
Perhaps the lumps of stone or furniture that are "accidentally" left around the fortress by distracted dwarves act as temporary waypoints, or landmarks?
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Perhaps the lumps of stone or furniture that are "accidentally" left around the fortress by distracted dwarves act as temporary waypoints, or landmarks?
This is perhaps part of a cool solution to the path finding problem.
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Too bad that's getting fixed next version. However, the contaminants system will allow them to track vomit around the fortress, which could serve as some sort of pheromone type system.
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Actually, if the third set of cells were of a non-earth development chain that was able to detect outside the spectrum of "visible light" to...not sure how much farther up, but even walls would become visible. It wouldn't be perfect sight, but seeing the radiating energy from heat(if it's above absolute zero, it has heat), would allow for dark vision, though admittedly stone would not be the clearest object. However, this does open interesting possibilities, since in more crowded fortresses temp would go up to make it easier to see, and cave adaptation could be the adaptation to where their irises are fully expanded and the "heat sensitive" cells are becoming dominant and strong. Walking into a world filled with warm sunlight would send the other cells reeling, and the heat seekers too.
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Stone Walls would be completely impossible to percieve with heat vision, you'd just see an undifferentiated mass everywhere you looked, with the occasional brighter patch indicating a fire, or a living creature, since they'd all be the same temperature.
I doubt any other electromagnetic radiation would penetrate to the depths of a mine. There are theories of the possibility of neutrinos and dark matter being detectable down there, since they can pass through The Earth's crust with ease, but The Amber Spyglass aside, good luck trying to evolve to detect objects by reflected dark matter.
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Like I said, anything above absolute zero technically has energy. Yes, it would be a blob, but better a discernible blob than a nothingness. Also, dark matter and neutrinos wouldn't reflect to well.
This also raises the question of rather or not the DF world is a natural evolution world or supernatural. If it's evolution...it's "possible" to develop the heat vision of this strength, but highly unlikely. If it's supernatural...then intelligent design could make dwarves with the right cells easily.
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Like I said, anything above absolute zero technically has energy. Yes, it would be a blob, but better a discernible blob than a nothingness.
But it's not discernible at all. The walls, the air, the floor, a door are all going to be the same temperature. There's no shading to define edges. If you looked with a thermal imaging camera, it'd just be a continuous smear of the same colour. Your own breath would be a lot hotter than the ambient temperature so you'd probably be surrounded by a bright haze anyway. Imagine being in a room where every object emits the exact same level and colour of light.
It's not a question of being able to percieve the energy there, it's just that it would be largely useless information. You'd only be aware that you were inside a rock at a constant ambient temperature. You'd be able to see faint footprints, and the occasional heat signature in a busy area, but it wouldn't stop you blundering into walls again, and again. Animals that hunt using heat sensors are looking for prey that lives in easily shoved aside leaf litter and puts out a lot of heat, plus they have their eyes to back them up. They're not crawling through a maze where every surface and space looks identical, trying to find a equally identical looking sock.
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I like the "bat" theory. Where the dwarfs make a Clicking sound as they walk in the darkness, there keen sense of hearing allows them to hear the sound bounce off the wall.
With the heat radiation, a curved surface will give off different intensity of energy. And the different materials would give off different heat signature. We can see the different radiation signatures as colors in reality. So how should the heat vision be any different. Also, the heat from some object would reflect from other objects based on there signature (color)...
Perhaps they have an inbuilt radar to "feel" the walls