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DF Suggestions / Off-map mining camps/outposts
« on: February 11, 2009, 08:27:24 am »
As there is only a finite amount of resources on any given map, and sometimes there simply isn't any of a particular resource, allowing the establishment of off-map outposts could add in some nice depth of gameplay.
For example, lets say I've embarked upon a map that has no trees at all. Once I have a decent supply of dwarves, I go and assign some of them to work off map. These dwarves all emigrate from my fortress to settle a new outpost nearby. This outpost can be ordered to produce various items, and will send a trade caravan every year to deliver these items.
Every dwarf has X productivity points. Extracting one resource requires Y amount of productivity points, with of course some items being easier to get than others. If you order your outpost to gather wood and only gather wood, it should produce a great deal of it every year. On the other hand, if you order your outpost to gather adamantine, you might get 1 ore per year. Maybe.
The cost for each resource could simply be linked to the value of the resource in question. Sending more dwarves there will increase the production.
Outpost management could be done via an appointed noble position, similar to the broke, book keeper, or manager. Going to this screen would bring up the outpost management screen. Listed would be all raw materials in the game, and the player could select as many raw materials as he/she wants to. The only catch is that labor is divided up evenly amongst each raw material to be gathered. Also listed would be the current harvest so far this year, and the orders could be changed at any time.
As such, if you're on a map thats missing one vital resource, or you simply need more of a resource, you could set up an outpost and order it to get busy with production, and that production could be anything from lumber to turtles to ore to food.
For a bit of added entertainment, allow the outpost to come under attack once and a while. Perhaps using the same sort of auto-calc number crunching as the world gen battles use? This would mean that a steady supply of soap makers would have to be sent as reinforcements to the outpost if you want to keep the production up to a reasonable level.
The outpost would be abstracted to just a single screen, rather than be a fancy setup where the player has to build another fort at the same time. The rationale behind it could be that the player has established a fishing camp at the nearby river, a mining camp in the mountains, and a lumber mill in the forest, and while there are many small outpost scattered around the area, they all collapse back in to a single entity when the trade caravan shows up, such that simple numbers on a screen, without any need for fortress design and with the auto-calc battle system doing its thing, you get a minimum of micromanagement while providing much needed resources for fortress building.
Including adamantine, even if your particular fortress lacks HFS. You won't get very much per year unless you're sending thousands upon thousands of soap makers to the mines, but it should be enough to satisfy the nobles with the adamantine fetish.
For example, lets say I've embarked upon a map that has no trees at all. Once I have a decent supply of dwarves, I go and assign some of them to work off map. These dwarves all emigrate from my fortress to settle a new outpost nearby. This outpost can be ordered to produce various items, and will send a trade caravan every year to deliver these items.
Every dwarf has X productivity points. Extracting one resource requires Y amount of productivity points, with of course some items being easier to get than others. If you order your outpost to gather wood and only gather wood, it should produce a great deal of it every year. On the other hand, if you order your outpost to gather adamantine, you might get 1 ore per year. Maybe.
The cost for each resource could simply be linked to the value of the resource in question. Sending more dwarves there will increase the production.
Outpost management could be done via an appointed noble position, similar to the broke, book keeper, or manager. Going to this screen would bring up the outpost management screen. Listed would be all raw materials in the game, and the player could select as many raw materials as he/she wants to. The only catch is that labor is divided up evenly amongst each raw material to be gathered. Also listed would be the current harvest so far this year, and the orders could be changed at any time.
As such, if you're on a map thats missing one vital resource, or you simply need more of a resource, you could set up an outpost and order it to get busy with production, and that production could be anything from lumber to turtles to ore to food.
For a bit of added entertainment, allow the outpost to come under attack once and a while. Perhaps using the same sort of auto-calc number crunching as the world gen battles use? This would mean that a steady supply of soap makers would have to be sent as reinforcements to the outpost if you want to keep the production up to a reasonable level.
The outpost would be abstracted to just a single screen, rather than be a fancy setup where the player has to build another fort at the same time. The rationale behind it could be that the player has established a fishing camp at the nearby river, a mining camp in the mountains, and a lumber mill in the forest, and while there are many small outpost scattered around the area, they all collapse back in to a single entity when the trade caravan shows up, such that simple numbers on a screen, without any need for fortress design and with the auto-calc battle system doing its thing, you get a minimum of micromanagement while providing much needed resources for fortress building.
Including adamantine, even if your particular fortress lacks HFS. You won't get very much per year unless you're sending thousands upon thousands of soap makers to the mines, but it should be enough to satisfy the nobles with the adamantine fetish.
