Bay 12 Games Forum

for a regular embark into a not too threatening enviroment it looks somewhat like this:

1 all social skills
2 building designer 5, animal trainer 4, animal caretaker 1
3 mason 5, mechanic 5
4 woodcutter 5, carpenter 5
5 grower 5, cook 2, brewer 3
6 stonecrafter 5, bowyer 5
7 a mix of the smithing skills, usually armor 5, weapon 4, blacksmithing 1

I also take 7 picks and turn on mining for evryone in the beginning. that way you get mostly clean stockpile areas. Later the first two get pulled into full mining duty.

I like the general feel of this, but maybe it should not be 'tricks' learned and taught, but 'aptitudes' wich get discovered as a dwarf tries out things. Aptitudes would be chosen for a dwarf at birth/migration and be hidden until the dwarf uses the skill associated with the aptitude on a material that is featured in the aptitude.

Thus, a dwarf who has an aptitude for working with tower cap could work with oak all year and not discover his aptitude. Same if he does other jobs. Maybe one could get a hint that Job X 'feels right' for a dwarf if said dwarf works in the job and has an aptitude in it. Each dwarf should have between 0 and 5 aptitudes.

As for what they do, I guess aptitudes should increase the quality of an action or product by a bit, they should not be so good that you need them, but a nice to have bonus.

In the same way one could add 'incompetences' that lower the quality of actions/products.

Of course striking oil should be messy, with serious upward force.

Urist McFloaty Cancels Dig: Impacting ceiling due to force of oil strike

I always did wonder why that force exists..is the stuff pressurized underground because of depth?

Of course this would only mean that dwarven engineering is needed.

Well I think oil should be a liquid like water in its normal state, but once it gets in contact with any fire from whatever source, the oil that has empty space next to it should burn up and become heated. This burning should not happen too quickly thou, since it would require empty space (=air) to continue. Burning should consume 1/7 Oil per tile per X moves, dunno how much would be realistic.

Theres a lot still to address here thou:
There is no mixing liquids right now I think, but mixing oil and waterr should create a 4th liquid called oily water or whatever, wich should burn when exposed to fire and be deadly to whoever drinks/swims in it.

Tied in to that is the question what will happen if water is used to put out a oil fire. I think the water should be consumed and be turned into a lot of steam and smoke. I am unsure what magma poured in should do thou besides start a fire. It would make no sense for it to vanish.

Adding oil without the ability to use heat in more ways seems a waste. There should be more stuff, for example heating water for bathes, heating oil for sige defense, sige engine ammo that burns, oil lamps, the works.

One would also realistically need to be able to assign barrels to be for either food use or oil use because even dwarves are unliely to survive drinking or eating food from barrles that used to contain oil.

Oil-related disasters through the fort would be fun, Would you know if the last tile you were about to dig out had an oil reservoir behind it?

Oil could be surrounded by some squares of slick or oily stone/soil to indicate it, I guess. Its kind of neccessary to indicate it somehow. You could also find oil shale near a oil reservoir.

How about adding oil to the game as a underground resource? Oil could have many uses:

-It could be a coal substitute (I am no expert in metalurgy so if thats unrealistic cut it ^^ )
-it could be used in traps that make fires
-flasks of burning oil!
-it could make cloth, items and so forth in alchemy labs
-tar blocks could be created as a byproduct of alchemy, to be used in road-building
-it would create poisoned tiles where it seeped (=evaporated) into soil. Nothing would grow there again.
-add a kind of dirt to creatures that makes them burn faster and hotter
-create lots of smoke while burning to obscure vision
-flames from burning oil could be higher then 1 Z level, making interesting traps possible

The stuff could be transported in barrels or vials and it would be available in pools or pipes (representing small and large oil fields. I am sure there are more possibilities, but I have little time to brainstorm because I am at work ^^

This thread is starting to look like a torrent's comment page.

Then my work here is done *zoom away arms extended making plane sounds*

Jokes aside thou Id rerally llike to play a game on this map, or at least visit in adventure mode.