Bay 12 Games Forum

Often when i play in Tunra areas i notice that very few of them have the "lethal" temperature... But so far, there's no way to distinguish between the areas where only water freezes, and where your dwarves would freeze.

So, i suggest that like the ~~~~ for aquifers, the exact temperature also be indicated in these temperature-dangerous areas, with blue #### for lethal freezing, and red **** for areas where water will evaporate from pools.
[Edit - And when disease is put in, areas which can cause diseases should have four yellow superscript 2's to show that your dwarves will become ill much more easilly.]

[ January 08, 2008: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]

A small thought; what if there was a Noble or a job who's objective is to maintain the happyness of the other dwarves? A dwarf with this job enabled, or simply the noble in charge of these dwarves, would run around the fortress, attempting to make the saddest dwarf in the fortress happy. Sort of like a morale (morale as in happyness; not lawfulness) officer or counselor.

Primarilly, this dwarf would attempt to calm tanrumming dwarves, and would attempt to raise the happyness level of the dwarves in the fortress to the lowest possible "happy" level of emotion.

IMO, i think it'd make more sense for this dwarf to be a noble, just as the Sheriff /Captain of the Gaurd is in charge of maintaining dwarven law, so too would the Counselor /Morale Officer be in charge of keeping everyone as happy as possible. It'd also give a reason as to why the dwarf would need a office and cabinets; to do and store paperwork and emotional profiles. Being a noble also allows for their arrival to be predetermined, once X dwarves are in the fort, and to give the player extra abilities so long as that noble is alive -- like giving the player an overview of Dwarven Happyness :: Just as the Sheriff /Captain gives an overview of Dwarven Justice.

Once there's >75 dwarves, the job would be too much for one dwarf to handle, so like the Captain of the Gaurd, the Counselor /Morale Officer could mandate that he have X number of assistants; which would really just be an additional number of Fortress Gaurd soldiers.

Like obsidian around the magma vent, limestone surrounding the area where water flows in the cave river would be awsome.

A suggestion with a huge impact, if and when chemicals are introduced into dwarf fortress (Alchemy workshop uses, wink wink nudge nudge, eh?) they should give the player a huge amount of new options.

For example, i've been reading about limestone on Wikipedia, and apparently it reacts violently to acidic compounds. So, it could be possible to destroy limestone objects if acids are ever made and/or sold in fortress and/or adventure mode. The same goes for rubbing /dumping basic compounds on acidic objects /liquids.

Now, it doesn't need to be complex and have Zinc combine with Hydrochloric acid and result in zinc chloride and hydrogen fumes... It could be as strait-forward as a PH system, where 7 is neutral (pure water) and the extremes of the scale (was it 0-14... 15?) are basic /acidic. If the difference is too extreme between objects, they destroy eachother, or just the more neutral one and damage the stronger one.

The outside /underground river could also have PH levels, which could influence farming -- if the mud from the river is too extreme in PH nothing will grow; so using the other water source would be necessary. Maybe if the underground river is acidic, there could be no limestone lining at all, and if it's super-corrosive, dwarves wouldn't swim -- they'd dissolve!     ]

[ December 27, 2006: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]

May have been mentioned before, but it's worth mentioning:

When a farmer wants to plant in a field, he should take the entire bag with him when he goes seeding. Granted, fewer farmers would be able to plant one type of plant in the begining, but i think this negative aspect would be outweighed by the ability of the farmer to plant more seeds at once. With drastically increased efficency by not traveling back and forth from farm to stockpile, planting the initial # of seeds would become a "BOOM! Done. Now go worry about those traps and river monsters"
... Which is generally what farming is. Plant everything you have in one go, all at once, and worry about something else while the crops mature.

Well apparently if you leave the fortress while the ice is melted, and attempt to "Reclaim" the fort, all the food and mining picks your dwarves have will be thrown far to the north of your original starting position. Of course, this is a sort of "collateral damage" sort of issue, since it's caused by the melted ice.

Just thought i'd mention it, all the same.

Something just hit me a few days ago:

What if a miner could use his gem cutting skill to improve the chance of having a gem drop from a gem-laiden wall? The same could also be true for metal smiths, allowing for faster mining of metal ores. The same would go for encrusting objects with ores, bones, and gems.

Basically, any skill that could possibly overlay with another should be possible to enhance that other skill. The only drawback is that mining ores doesn't make you a better metal smith, for example.

[If this were implemented, it may spur players to create their initial dwarves with [more then just] secondary abilities; you wouldn't make your first dwarf just a miner, you'd also give him some gem cutting and metalurgical skills as well.]

[ August 16, 2006: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]

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