Bay 12 Games Forum

It's a possibility.

It's alright for mining to be slow once you've got a hole in the ground, but soil layers aren't something you can put off until you've got a decent fort working. They're the opposite. Also, seeing as how minecarts require a fair amount of infrasructure to use, I doubt they'd help that problem.

Having to haul stone out of the tunnels, because it slows movement? Perfectly acceptable. Maybe a similar system for soil. But completely blocking movement? That would stop fortresses right at the start. At best, that's half-speed of mining, plus headaches unless dwarves can intelligently and autonomously haul soil out of the fortress.

Why does a cave-in system need some way of warning you? Well, first off, dwarves should be able to tell how much more they can mine before bringing the fortress in on itself.

More importantly is a reason for which I was considering rejecting the whole "improed cave-in system" idea, period. You don't want to be making a great dining hall only to discover that you made the ceiling too thin, causing your workshops and part of the dormitory/bedroom complex to collapse, ripping a huge hole through your dining hall into the caverns and releasing a few flying FBs. Of course, that's a worst-case scenario, but each part is possible. One wrong tile mined, and your fort will collapse unless you figure it out in time? No thanks. Hence, a system of cave-ins must be simple enough to describe in one, short sentence without the word "realistic," unless you have some way to inform players that removing this tile of rock will cause a cave-in.

Why SHOULDN'T a Dwarf carrying around a tile's worth of stuff around with him block or impede the ability of another person going past them?  I mean they have a tile's worth of stuff carried around with them.  The problem in the definition there isn't whether it should happen or not (because clearly, it should).  The question is: How much is a tile's worth of stuff.

I don't personally think that 1 tile mined out should be 1 tile's worth of stuff, but there is a point at which masses of stuff in a tile should block, slow, or at least discourage movement through it.

I'm recalling a quote from Toady in the future of the Fortress thread. I'll see if I can find it.

Yeah, usually cycolpes aren't that patient.

Dear drake:
That minecart has hit you several times before. As amusing as it is to see you skimming over the plain, I'd appreciate it if you'd stay off the tracks.
Sincerely,
GWG, Ovrsr.

I was doing pretty well. A "siege" of one ferric elf zombie, a mule skeleon, and a cat skeleton had claimed half my military (just some unequipped, use-impaired dwarves) and a couple other unlucky dwarves, but I had sealed off the fort (at the cost of one miner who somehow fell into the moat), so i was all good. A few kobolds had stolen an iron pick and a couple articles of clothing, and one of my other miners went stark raving mad, AND a jewler tantrumed, killing my sleeping expedition leader, but aside from that everything was OK. The siegers dropped dead, so I built a bridge across my moat so I could collect bodies, gear, and so forth. The tantruming jewler went stark raving mad (despite me blaming the crazy miner for murdering the EL--he escaped without punishment, BTW), and so things were looking up.

Then the kobold siege revealed itself.

I couldn't deconstruct the bridge fast enough, and anyways their bowbolds could likely fire into the courtyard at my fleeing dwarves. They...kinda died. Sucks, because it was the only fort I'd made that had (almost) two Starting Sevens.

And most of those are generated on-the-spot. Even if there are only three goblins and their pet troll left in the world according to legends mode, that civ will send huge sieges and big squads of trolls to you endlessly.

-snip-
It's still only happening only when a tile is mined.

And hundreds of tiles at 5ns a tile is not a significant portion of a second.

Alright, let's ignore the fact that calculating stuff based on tensile strength or what-have-you would probably inflate the time taken and assume 5 nanoseconds. Once I get into he later stages of a fort, my master or legendary miners can mine a tile or two a second. I'm probably down by the second or third cavern layer by then, so that's quite possibly over a thousand tiles checked per tile mined--I'd have to do the math, but it might not mean much meaningful due to the whole "caverns and fort in the way" thing. I have at least two or three miners by that point (let's go with two, the number I start with). So...let's say 3 tiles per IRL second, an even thousand tiles checked per tile mined, and 5 nanoseconds per tile checked. That's...15,000 nanoseconds per second. Hm, that's not much, is it? But wait! what about constructions? I usually build big buildings aboveground to tie up my idlers, and usually perform some other task as well, and that would add to the weight of tiles underneath. Hm, wouldn't mining also alter stuff for tiles underneath it?
Alright, so...from mining, if we check in all directions, it probably adds up to a 0.05% increase or so in time taken, and maybe that much from constructions. So, bot too bad...assuming that calculations do, in fact, take a mere 5 nanoseconds per tile. Somehow, that seems low.

Can anyone back up Mir's estimate?