Bay 12 Games Forum

I think natural gas would be a awesome feature for the game.

Few of the things you can do with natural gas...

#1 (When lighting is implemented) All the torches in your fortress can be linked to a natural gas line. (Otherwise all the torches would have to be refilled all the time, if thats how its planned to be)

#2 (Do dwarfs get cold?) if they do, or if they will at some point in the future, Natural gas would be a great way to heat up rooms.

#3 Flooding your entrance room with natural gas would/could knock out any creatures in that room. Rather then flood the room out and killing all the invading enemy's in there,(also i would think its possible that one of your own dwarfs could get stuck in there when you hit the lever for the flood gate), well then also your dwarf would get knocked out as well, sparing his life.

In fact natural gas could be a fail safe in a way, in case one of your dwarfs get caught in there by accident. You can just gas the room, but also leave in the options for flooding and magma  

Ventilation.

Ventilation shafts would be used to carry natural gas to different areas.

Ventilation shafts should be build able only in walls. The walls don't need to be removed to have a shaft in them.

Valves and other such things can be made which hang off the walls or connect with a wall with a ventilation shaft in it, to control flow.

Ventilation shafts could also be used to carry heat from a furnace or a magma chamber, how ever some sort of "Bellows" which can be hooked up to a powder source would be needed to blow the hot air through the ventilation shafts.

Ventilation shafts should only be build able in a wall next to a dwarf, IE it cant be built 2 tiles away from where the dwarf can reach.

A Ventilation shaft could as well be built from your Refuse room to the outside to air out any miasma that comes about, or the butcher shop as well, which seems to get it once in a while.

I don't know how possible it is that either of these ideas will ever come about in the game, but i think they would be awesome features if they can be added in.

I'm pretty sure from reading AD&D fantasy stuff that dwarfs used natural gas?

Also i'm sure theres plenty of other things which Natural gas and ventilation shafts could be used for, i only started with ideas. I could go on for hours... But i'm not  

Maybe have a different mode where we just start out with a wagon, then we can explorer and find our own fort location.

We start from the mountain dwarf homes... Then we go on from there.

All the same dwarf fortress rules apply, sept everyone stays in the wagon, until the wagon stops and you command them to do a job.

For instance if you want to clear a path of trees / stones, or build a bridge over a canyon.

You can keep exploring with the wagon until you find a good spot, then you settle or some such in that location, then the map reduces too a 3x3 area or whatever you chose, the wagon being in the center.

[ March 03, 2008: Message edited by: The-Moon ]

All i'm reading is that mega beasts cause destruction in the world.

To my knowledge, Mega-Beasts should have a alignment. Bad, Neutral or Good.

Rather then the mega beasts always attacking the people in the world. Maybe they could work together.

Each mega beast could also be set to like one race better then another, or not like a race at all and attack them, but leave other races alone.

I'm not getting into the technical stuff of what they can or can't do. But this is something to think about....

Lets say theres a Giant Spawned with a Alignment of being good. He would rather Help build homes for food in payment, rather then destroying homes and stealing the food. Only stealing food if he is starving to death. Maybe even protect the people he is helping from other Mega Beasts or any monsters that might be harming them.

This should also be available for pets who are bonded with dwarfs already.

At some point is or will air ventilation system be made. As to supply people with fresh air?

Open areas could have a 7/7 fresh air rating. As dwarfs use up air this fresh air rating drops.

The only bad thing to there not being fresh air is that your dwarfs would become unhappy.

It wouldn't be fun if they actually ran out of air and all died.

But then again that could be a good feature.

Think of this, Having a opening to the surface will allow all tiles in your fort to not drop below 1/7 fresh air.

However if you close up your fort, like in a siege, that can then drop to 0/7 which would mean everyone would suffocate if they don't open the doors.

That way you can write notes such as "Front Door", "Magma Control" ect.

Easier not to lose track of what lever does what.

Also it would not hurt to have a way to disconnect things from levers, rather then having to remove the lever and relink everything, to get rid of just one linked object.

Sorry in advance if this was suggested before.

[ February 26, 2008: Message edited by: The-Moon ]