Bay 12 Games Forum

I know this has been suggested a million times, and is on the eternal suggestions thread, but Toady said he was going to look into quality of life changes soon.

So, the starting wagon position.  Even if we can't get control of it, can the damned thing NOT choose to park over a frozen river/in the middle of a frozen lake? Its not like the game starts in early spring- which is when most temperate climates thaw out for winter, or anything...

I would love the ability to place the starting wagon (on top of that hill/mountain, choose which side of the river, or just wherever I want to start digging), but I'd settle for a little less stupidity.  Seriously, wagons starting on thin ice is just beyond derptastic of the starting 7.  At this point, unless I am in a cold/freezing biome, I just restart if I see its over some ice. I'll abandon the cold one too if I have a large amount of items I brought along (like 100 coal). 

Just like the title suggests! Toady already talked about coding new multi-material instruments (he mentioned various textile strings on a wood/metal frame).  For years we've been talking about making beds out of other materials.  Some have even mentioned carving them out of the stone when mining out rooms! However, I've always favored frame+padding+fabric/leather.  Since we will be able to generate wood instruments with jute strings, why not a stone bed with feather padding covered in silk? Not only would this give a purpose to some rather useless objects in game, but it just makes more bloody since and prevents the whole "no wood, no beds" issue.  We can use stone/metal beds and then make mattresses out of the chicken feathers, (unprocessed) wool, and animal-hair as stuffing.  Currently, you tend to produce far more animal-hair thread than your hospital can use... especially considering your sneaky doctors tend to grab your masterfully dyed GCS thread for suturing... bastards.  Straw and various leaves (palm fronds namely) have historically been used as beds too.  On that note, straw could be a useful by-product of harvesting/processing grains.  Not only could it be used as mattress stuffing, but could be burnt as a fuel or woven into hats, but that is an entirely different topic!

Hell, the ancient Persians even had water beds XD.

Early on, we can just make simple beds that are little more than a slab/wooden block as we have them now.  We can also make cots that exist as frame+sheet really (leather or unit of cloth).  Then there would be the deluxe bed as we know them now... frame+mattress+sheets.  This could even be a noble requirement! Other than decorations, do you really think your good-fer-nothing noble wants to sleep on the same bed as MERE PEASANTS!? No! He wants a candy-frame (pimped with diamonds), roc-feather filled bed covered in GCS silk dyed as black as the lump of coal he has for a heart. 

Frames would be made by whoever the hell handles the material.  Carpenters would naturally make wooden beds and blacksmiths metal ones.  I suppose potters could make clay frames?  We can then place that bed as we normally do for basic sleeping.  Later, we can go to a clothesmakers shop/leatherworks (or just a craftdorfs shop) to make the mattress.  We'd select "cloth/leather mattress" and then select the bedding material as a sub menu.  I imagine using a similar setup to making gem windows for placing the full bed.  First we'd select a frame then select a mattress.  Mattresses could also be thrown on the ground to count as "cloth" beds, but only mattress+frame would count as a "full" bed.  To differentiate between the two, we could rename the bare frame to just "cot" and save "bed" for the mattress+cot.

For practical purposes, better beds would not only increase happiness but let dorfs rest better.  They could get a "well-rested" buff that gives them a buff to their energy (fatigue slower).  Sleeping in the dirt could also give a penalty- this would also incentive building early beds.  As it stands, they only grumble a bit until they see a couple of statues or a "well built" bridge.  The main point of this is to alleviate the "wood crunch" on low-wood maps.  Sure, we can breach the caverns... but giant cave crocs and trolls live there too.  Generally, we'll need wood to build traps before breaching the caverns to gain the wood for said traps (plus beds).  Wood is often needed as a fuel source for metal smithing as well (for metal cages/weapons).  The other points would be added realism as mattress date as far back as the neolithic (that we know of) and virtually ever civilization has their own version of them.  From throwing padding on the floor to straw mats to hammocks to elaborate canopy beds (speaking of hammocks, rope+couple of clothe units would count as a bed).  The final reason is trying to find a bloody use for animal hair and feathers >.> I just hate accumulating so much useless stuff.  Its especially glaring with feathers.  Its not like any civilization has ever tried to decorate clothes, weapons, and/or furniture with THOSE. *sigh*

Now, I recently came across this little gem of a thread: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=post;topic=107079.30;last_msg=3184367

It explains how to use legends viewer to find kobold sites for shiggles.  I immediately thought about embarking near such a site with 4 military dwarves, an armor/weaponsmith, and enough materials to outfit them all in steel.  Kobold sites are littered in their swag.  I had a vision of camping on their doorstep, suiting up, and then kicking in their door screaming THIS IS MY HOUSE! With a squad of steel-clad axe lords intent on taking their swag.  However... while searching for kobold sites I realized that I could use this to find dragon (or roc) sites as well, then settle atop them! A few minutes later I embark on top of a dragon lair.  It didn't show up on the world map, but I immediatley got a message about finding a lair.  Sure enough, the unit's screen included a dragon (listed as "current resident" XD).

I actually expected the dragon to go into immediate attack mode.  The plan was to furiously dig a small hole in the ground (using a diagonal tunnel to block line of sight) and wall it off before the dragon torched my starting 7.  Then, I'd build a couple cage traps in a somewhat winding hallway (to keep the dragon from breathing fire) and deconstruct the plug.  The dragon would then wander in and be captured so I could start training her (I brought a skilled animal trainer with me) in the first season or two.  However, the dragon was content to just chill in his cave.  Hilariously, I was able to just build a floor over his lair entrance ramp and seal HER in >D.  It never ceases to amuse me that a simple wooden floor is all that it takes to imprison a ginormous fire breathing lizard rippling with muscle.  I then did a few exploratory channels to create a back entrance into his lair.  This is where he kept his swag (several hundred coins from various nearby civ's) and a pair of dragon eggs.  Feeling cocky, I set up a coin stockpile and unforbid the coins.  My dwarves just walked right into the dragon's lair and walked out with all his coins! Now, the back of his cave wasn't in line of sight of the dragon herself, but I assumed he'd sense intruders into his site and go a-rampaging. 

The annoying bit... I unforbid the eggs as well and set up an egg-only food stockpile near the back entrance.  Nothing happened.  I checked the stockpile settings, and sure enough "dragon eggs" were enabled.  I actually disabled everything but them next.  Still nothing.  Then I set up a dump and marked the eggs for dumping.  STILL nothing.  Wondering if the ownership flag of the site was causing an issue, I channeled out the ground beneath the eggs, dropping them down a z-level.  By this time the eggs had turned rotten and my dwarves were still infuriatingly ignoring them >(

Does anyone have any ideas why my dorf's refused to touch the dragon eggs? They robbed everything else from the lair...

Now, I know I'm not the first person to suggest adding compost to the game, but bear with me.  With DF 2014 we now have "growths" on plants that more or less serve no purpose: "leaves," and "flowers."  My point, is that leaves are an -excellent- stock for fertilizer! Urist McFarmer can rake/gather up fallen leaves and dump them in a compost bin/compost zone.  Bin's are more realistic (and can be made of wood/stone/metal/clay) and a proper compost heap does need to be managed (add water/toss clumps around), but this is mostly to speed up the process.  Rotten food, vermin corpses, and inedible butcher leavings (nervous tissue, connective tissue) can be mixed in as well.  (Urine and feces make fine additions as well, but lets not get into that :S) Ideally bins would be used, and after one is filled up it'll produce compost within a month or two.  This compost would ofc serve as a secondary source of fertilizer. 

The other half of my suggestion would be part of a farming overhaul.  As it stands, there is no such thing as soil degradation.  Deep in the bowels of the earth we can mine out a vein of ore in a pit of stone that has never seen the light of day nor any living creature before our dwarves, splash some water on said barren stone, and then reap an infinite harvest of crops without any additional nutrients added.  Having to worry about soil depletion as it stands would mean burning vast amounts of wood (that you need for beds, other furniture, as fuel, etc) for the fertilizer to replenish our farmland.  However, adding compost made from waste products and worthless leaves would be a much more manageable option.  Another option is to be able to mow down dense grass and use that as compost material.  This is particular useful for those that live in more barren biomes (tundra, glacier, desert, rocky wasteland, badlands, etc).   In these cases, you'll have to bring extra food and a starter batch of compost while you hunt/fish (if able) for food and breach the caverns to grow/harvest cavern moss to add to a compost heap.  Crop rotation and leaving farm plots fallow could also help, but fields left fallow would need to be replowed to churn the grass/weeds back into the soil. 

These suggestions are twofold- a feasible way to repurpose generally useless items (leaves, flowers, corpses, butcher leavings, grass) and to add a touch of realism into the game.  It really does irk me that muddied stone is just as (infinitely) fertile as riverside grasslands.  Compost would also be equivalent to fertilizer in game, and would share a charcoal/coke relationship where the two are functionally interchangeable (or compost bins could simply produce fertilizer directly).  The bins shouldn't immediately produce compost- like beer and liquor they should realistically have to sit and ferment for some time before use.  I am not sure how the game would code it.  Part of why I want bins is that could the code be set so that once a bin is full and "set", so many ticks in game code count down before it reopens and produces compost?  Proper compost does take management, so the farming skill of a the dwarf that fills it should matter.  However, I don't want the dwarf to be tied to the compost heap for a month, and coming back several times in that frame would be troublesome.  Could the farmer fill up the bin, prime it to "cook," have his farming skill affect the time/quantity of the compost, then come back a month+ later to open it WITHOUT having to stand there the whole time? Not so sure if the code would allow that. 

Its just plain silly to think that a dwarf would make 5 separate trips down a 50+ Z levels to snag up 5 gems lying next to each other (mined from the same cluster).  The things are light as a feather! While holding 5+ small items at once is tricky, bags and backpacks already exist in the game! They can even hold things! So instead of trudging up/down that mining shaft 5 times to pick up 5 gems lying right next to each other, Urist McLazybutt grabs ONE bag and makes ONE trip to pick up those five ADJACENT gems! That wasted time is time he could have spent getting drunk in your legendary dining room! Or having FUN with goblins! This would also be huge for plant gathering.  Why travel 50+ squares one way to drop off a single sunberry only to trudge right back and harvest from the bush directly next to it? Urist McHippy would be bettery off equipping his backpack and harvesting all bushes in a zone/filling up his backpack before dropping them off.  Those good-fer-nothing fisher dwarves could even -gasp- carry their entire haul back the fishery instead of leaving them to rot by the river!  Legendary Cheesmakers could spend one afternoon combing a battlefield for reclaimable bolts, isntead of spending the entire season bringing them back one at a time.  The possibilities are endless!

Its not like dwarves can't grasp the concept of using containers to carry things- they already haul entire bins of useless fodder.. er "finely crafted mudstone trinkets" to the trading depot, and hauling dwarves already carry around containers... but the poor things just have it all backwards.  The dwarves will drag an entire barrel through the swamp and up that steep hill just to pick up one whip vine before repeating that whole process again... after returning hte barrel and picking the bush next to the first for some prickle berries.  They don't even store multiple items next to each other after lugging hte barrel/bin all the way to the middle of nowhere!

The backpacks could even be considered required equipment for certain labors (or at least preferred if available/configurable).  Item hauling, food hauling, fishing, etc could all require a backpack to pick up multiple small things.  Bags could fill this role as well.  Each time the dwarf picks up an item, he could check near him for another (unclaimed item) and pick that up too.  Once hes filled his backpack/nothing left to pick up, he'll return to base and drop off the contents in the appropriate stockpile.   Weight already affects carrying speed based on strength, so dwarves would only pick up enough small objects that they could comfortably carry, or only so much that would slow them down to half speed.  Containers already have size limits as well, as you can make roasts too large to fit in barrels/only so many trinkets/bars go into a single bin, etc.  The only problem I foresee, is when a dwarf picks up more items than will fit into a stockpile- especially if many dwarves try to haul for the same stockpile.  In that case, whatever can fit will be dropped into the stockpile.  The remainder can stay in the bag and dropped on the nearest open tile.  This would ideally generate an announcement proclaiming that the stockpile was full/items dumped.