Bay 12 Games Forum

"You've struck Dwarven Syrup Roast! Praise the Cooks!"

I never realized the sedimentary layers had more gold and platinum. Even in the middle of a forest on the coast?

Oh, sorry for the misunderstanding. You probably won't find gold in a sedimentary layer. But granite, gabbro, diorite, and most of the other lower layer rocks can all have native gold. So even in forts that have platinum, I usually end up with way more gold and silver then platinum. As it should be, I suppose.

Looking at wikipedia, it says that gold is 30x more common then platinum. And that it was an "unworkable" metal for most of history. In it's pure state, it was unworkable up until the 20th century. And even now it's usually alloyed with Iridium. Hmm...maybe when metallurgy in DF gets better platinum should require some more advanced techniques to work.

I don't really see why gold would be considered useless. I've found that its a great way to make money, as well as furniture/statues/etc to keep nobles happy. Yeah, platinum is better, but you generally find more gold then platinum overall.

Steel is worth a good deal, but until you get late into a fort you're not likely to have enough steel to want to waste it on anything other then armor and weapons. And by the time your fort is that well established, well, generating wealth is pretty easy.

Stone. Stone is all you need. And a soil layer if you don't have human contact. Use the wood from the wagon to make a single bed to define the barracks, and dwarves will only have a slight problem with sleeping on a smoothed, engraved floor. Injured dwarves are gonna die anyway.

Sand is nice, but only if you have magma. Water is nice, Trees are nice, a chasm can be nice. But all you need is rock.

Actually, I'd argue that at a minimum you need either Stone OR Trees, at a bare minimum. I've had fortresses do fine without any access to stone other then the Dwarven caravans. You just make everything out of wood. The only thing you NEED stone for right now is mechanisms and as fire-safe materials for forges/kilns/etc. Although technically you can use metal for those as well.

Being able to trick the occasional stupid Human merchants with Pyrite crafts, though...that would be hilarious!

Huh. Ok, thanks! I'll get that fixed.

Does that actually get you more moods?

I've always thought that they were sort of a fixed "You get x strange moods per fortress, based on wealth/population/explored area". Just killing them off seems like a waste of an artifact if that's the case...

Had this idea reading the thread about strange moods.

Mechanical constructs like traps, waterwheels, pumps, and whatnot should have a quality to them. Why does every watermill produce 100 power? It seems strange that they are so consistent.

So, here is my thought. Three things should go into the quality of constructs:

1) Design. Anything that requires an architect to design should end up with a quality of the design. This would give us an incentive to have actual trained architects.

2) Materials. Any materials that have quality, like pipes or mechanisms, should be factored into this. Better parts make for a better machine.

3) Skill of those building the item. You can have a great design and good parts, but lousy workmanship can ruin anything. Conversely, I've seen talented people do some impressive stuff with a mediocre design and cheap parts. Again, this would give you an advantage to having a skilled mason or carpenter building things instead of some stupid peasant. They're fine for stacking stone walls, but shouldn't be given tasks that require actual skill.

The end result could be an averaged quality level. So if you started with a -design- (120), +materials+ (140), and basic construction (100) you'd end up with a -watermill- that pumps out 120 power instead of 100. Maybe pumps could use less power if they have a higher quality, traps could jam less or have an accuracy improvement. The power usage for things would probably need to be tweaked upwards to make this work, but I think that pumps use too little power as it is anyway.

Oh, and raising bridges could fling things further! A masterwork bridge with masterwork mechanisms hurling goblins off the screen would be awesome!

Hmm. Some workshops require architecture as well. Maybe those could follow this same pattern? Giving maybe a speed boost to the dwarves working in it? "Efficiency of design" or whatnot? Maybe even a quality boost, if the materials used in the construction were better. Say, stone blocks instead of rough stone. Again, things would probably need to be rebalanced to compensate, but I know workshops have lots of ideas about how to improve them floating around as it is. They would probably also give better thoughts about work. Maybe even allow for decorating buildings to improve good thoughts more? You could get a *<<+mason's workshop+>>* decorated with images of mountains in exceptionally worked Silver or something.

This would allow for some pretty cool strange moods. So let's say your architect goes into a strange mood. He demands that something requiring an architect be designated for building that needs to be designed (assuming one isn't already). He then runs off and spends a while designing it. Maybe even commandeering the appropriate types of materials to keep that aspect in place. He could also go off and grab a dwarf with the appropriate skill to build it, assuming he doesn't have it already. Have him grab the dwarf with the highest skill in the fort, to ensure that the object is made up to his standards. Maybe he fails if no suitable skilled dwarf is available?

And a mason or carpenter who goes into a strange mood may want to build something really impressive. So he demands, say, a workshop to be designed. Maybe grabbing the forts resident architect once it's been designated to actually do the design. He then runs around getting the right materials and gets to work. Imagine getting an Artifact Magma Forge!

Thoughts?


[Edited to add in strange mood effects]

I was thinking: what about concrete and adobe/clay?
If you think about it, concrete would be pretty dang useful, you could fill in a pond with no need for magma or cave-ins. concrete probably would be created from: small bits of rock and pulverized rock. both made either at the mason's workshop, or maybe a new, powered building.(Grinder?) It would also require lye in its production, giving lye a newfound use.(Look it up if you don't know)But, the problem would be figuring out how too use it. Would it act like a liquid? Would a dwarf mix it with water then pour it in with a bucket? Would it be a thing designated via build?

Adobe and clay a rather straightforward.

Hmm...I'd say that the task to make concrete powder would be kind of like the "Collect Sand" task. Then, as long as you had bags of concrete around, it would just show up as a potential building material like everything else.