Bay 12 Games Forum

Okay I've finally mined around enough to find my first cavern, and it's 42 Z-levels. How dead am I? I'm in a serene area, but I haven't prepared my military yet so seriously, what are my chances? Should I be flooding the place, collapsing my tunnel or what?

What link? This is well known. Toady refuses to implement anything past the middle ages (with a few exceptions), as he dislikes steampunk dwarves and so forth.

So the first electrostatic generator was made in the 1660's, but steel was first commercially produced in the 1800's. Avoiding the Baghdad battery issue right now, let's discuss that the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Arabs knew of electricity and its conductivity through metals before 0AD. The Greeks were using shocks from electric fish to try and cure headaches and gout.

Magnetism was a well known effect, in the beginning of the iron age. Why? Because non-quenched iron becomes magnetic along its length.

Please, if you're going to try and put something down at least provide the F-ing link to a quote by Toady explicitly refusing to implement electricity and not BS us with a claim that he refuses to implement anything beyond the middle ages. Besides the fact that there's steel, perpetual motion, adamantium, etc that makes no sense in a 'middle age' setting.

We're discussing a material property here. Even if he doesn't want to provide a use for electricity in the game it should still be in the game for a simple lightning system. Rain provides no danger in the game, when it should be accompanied by lightning and Dwarves being ground-dwelling creatures should be at risk if they're not properly building their caves. Above-ground Dwarves should be at risk of their wooden forts being struck with lightning and burning to the ground. You know the real risks medieval societies faced.

Modders could work with the rest so long as the base implementation is included. Toady obviously wants people to mod this game to their own liking, it's the only way to get good feedback, development and bug finding, so simply implementing the base system would allow us to mod it to our own liking and make everyone happy.

Like I said, Electricity can easily be a deniable aspect of the game. I've built forts without using waterwheels. I've had dwarves fill a reservoir at Z+20 from ground level by bucket because I didn't want to build the pumpstack and be using perpetual motion, and I didn't feel like making a massive windfarm in an area producing 20 power as I'd lose it all through gear mechanisms.

The Power element as is is completely deniable in game. You can build a wooden fort in a serene area and live off of above ground farming and survive off of leather and crossbows. Or you can ignore the entire wood economy by digging deep and finding magma. A single Dwarf can move Magma up a pumpstack if you take the time and you could ignore perpetual motion in the same.

I want this to be a discussion about how to make Electricity fit into DF, you obviously don't intend to help and you're not even making the effort to shoot me down properly. So either contribute or shut up because you blatantly have no valuable input so far. If you want this shot down, get Toady to say a simple "No", it's not going to be that hard if he's as vehemently against it like you claim.

I know electricity has been discussed elsewhere, but I was wondering if there's anyone is up for electricity in DF.

First it would be a nice requirement that Aluminum can only be processed in an Electric Forge. It could be used like a magma-furnace.

Electricity would be produced by a generator, which would require blocks, copper (aluminum/silver/gold) wire, mechanisms, etc. It would have to be connected up to a waterwheel or windmill (or a gear/axle) and would take all its power and turn it into amps (for simplicity). Too many amps in a single conductive line would cause the wires to melt, which would set things on fire or melt them until it's cooled or quenched. If it's kept connected (IE in a magma safe conduit) it will hit its boiling point and melt anything that has a lower melting point than its boiling point, beyond this the gas should be like magma-mist and be an insta-kill until it cools.

Electricity could be used in traps, either by causing something to melt and hitting a enemy with boiling metal, or be used to electrocute something (providing it has thin skin, or a heart to fibrillate for that matter). It could also be used as a power source for forges, but would require a lot of electricity to keep running.

An alternate source of power could be the creation of large galvanic batteries; insulated rooms with dissimilar metals and the room flooded with salt water, or if necessary Dwarven Wine. These batteries would slowly degrade the metals inside and would have to be drained and remade to continue providing power. Too much draw on the battery would cause the liquid inside to boil and produce poisonous gas (chlorine gas for example).

It would also pave way for lightning, which could strike and kill dwarves when it's raining, but could also randomly produce raw-glass if it hits sand, or could electrify an object (or body of water).

The risks of electricity would be: overloading your wiring and melting your base. Not insulating your wiring and electrifying a steel wall, floor or something. Not insulating your wiring and electrifying your water source (wouldn't damage your wells, unless they're made conductive, but would paralyze any dwarves drinking within the electrocuted area). Similarly conductive ground could be a danger. Building your base in an area with conductive soil could mean random electrocutions. You'd have to be careful laying exposed wires as a trail of ores like magnetite/electronium and other metallic ores could lead a path to either water, or a structure.

Finally electricity could be used in any religious plans in the future. Make a gold-plated statue and connect it to a weak electrical source (a generator run off of a low-wind windmill or an overloaded waterwheel, or a weak battery) and use it to make your dwarves feel the 'touch of god'.

I'm sure others around here could think of good uses for electricity in the game that wouldn't be unsuitable considering the presence of Adamantine, Magma casting, etc. If you choose to ignore electricity in your game, you would only have minor side effects (such as the random lightning strike) from the change. It would also enable a new attack type in our enemies.

For the very last I reference you to Frankenstein, and say good day at the possibilities of Monster Crafting!

I've had four messages now saying Zon Altoth. Two were positive and two were negatives. I believe one was a baby being born, because she's suddenly acquired a child... although so many of my parent dwarves have drown lately, it's not like she couldn't have kidnapped it.

Is this another text character glitch in my announcements, much like the Vab issue.

I got Vab in one of my first few Fortresses when I was still getting into the game, I didn't understand that he was unique. I'm glad someone else got Vab, he must have been lonely because I know he didn't get into Valhalla, being drowned in your dining room isn't exactly the hero's death that is required.

I currently have Stinth though (who again was one of my original dwarfs, I've had him twice though so he's not as cool as Vab).

I'm currently running a few tests for when I eventually go full scale on an uber-fort. I'm currently building an aqueduct that spans the entire map, mostly for kicks, but also for irrigation systems and water supplies in my air-fortress.

I'm also working on constructing the aforementioned air-fortress that I plan to make into a self-sustaining biome and strip-mine a huge moat around the outside of the central pillar (used for access in the beginning). This moat will then be filled with magma when necessary to prevent invasion and allow my men to live in boozehalla free from threat.

I have a bad feeling about my aqueduct, in that my water-diverting plans always end in disaster. Thankfully my base is several Z-levels up from the ocean tiles, so flooding won't be immediate, but I have a bad feeling that I may be creating an uncontrollable pump stack that will flood everything up to 2 z-levels past my base given that I'm taking the source water from the ocean. It will, however, provide an immense waterwheel construct if I desired, however I doubt I'd have use for the ten-thousands power it would be producing. Until there's something more useful than powering a mill, I think I'm being a bit excessive in the power production department.