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Stone mechanisms are grate, I have no complaints with stone mechanisms. However, it would be fantastic if we could also make mechanisms out of metal, or at least out of the strong metals.
It would make playing on an aquifer much more reasonable if you could get your powered mechanisms up and running without needing raw stone first. Oddly enough, metal is easier to get than raw stone. Heck, if one is willing to wait a year you can even order metal (or metal items) from a caravan, but the only way to get raw stone is to dig it up yourself. (That makes sense from the caravan's point of view, raw stone would be too heavy to be worth hauling for the price they could reasonably charge for a big rock.) If I'm desperate enough for mechanisms that I'm willing to melt down some forges, I should be able to turn that iron into a mechanism.
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It would also be useful if the dwarven caravan was willing to sell mechanisms. I can see them not selling raw stone, that stuff is heavy and is only worth a few monies. But mechanisms might be a plausible trade good.
Even the ability to buy mechanisms or raw stone from the pre-embarkation menu would help.
[ November 11, 2007: Message edited by: Angela Christine ]
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Heh, I'd think it weird, were I a dwarf, seeing a pack of dwarves go off to make a fortress, and hauling raw rock with them... I think wooden mechanisms are a very good alternative to metal, at least for this particular purpose. Metal mechanisms are still needed, at least for magma floodgates. As for the "mechanics workshop versus the forge" problem, the ultimate solution would be the custom workshops idea suggested waaay back, so that you could build individual mini-buildings for individual tasks, and then form them into a workshop the same way you do with bedrooms, adding a furnace to a mechanics's shop, a magma boiler to a still, or practically anything else.
Just imagine the kind of workshops you'd be able to make... a powered magma still! With mechanical plant grinders and magma boilers, resulting in the still operator training mechanics instead of brewing...
Kinda like "plants.. *load*, this lever.. *pull* [grinder] MUCNHMUNCHMUNCHPFfff... , now this lever... *pull* [boiler] GuRGlegURgLeGUrglEguRgle..., barrel here.. *shove*, now this lever.. *pull* *wait*.. DING!, barrel outta here *shove*, ok more plants..." :) :)
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Also, you need a steel mechanism for attaching to a steel floodgate to hold back magma. As it is, a rock mechanism will melt, destroying the floodgate.
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I was totally against your modular workshop idea... until you described the powered magma still.
I must have one!