Bay 12 Games Forum

I've got a system that isn't behaving as expected, so it's causing more maintenance problems than I foresaw.

At the top, two pumps merge into a single flow which channels down twice then rises once.

Side view:
~~~\ \_/ _
    \~~~/
      vThe u-bend has two vents at the bottom (the v symbol), but those empty into a reservoir that fills completely, so the pressure should become constant enough to push past the rise. But there's only a rare 1/7 trickle that evaporates into mud where it should be flowing. Do vertical diagonals also depressure water flow?

Even if that's the case, another downward vent drops directly down a z-level into a circular canal that should generate flow according to floodgates.

Overhead view, in brief:
   |X|
|~~~~~X~~~|
   |~|--|~|
|~~~~|--|~V
   |~|--|~|
|~~~~~X~~~|
   |X|
The V on the right is where the canal fills up, X are floodgates, the left are dead ends awaiting future expansion. To the north and south are actually two more intersections with dead end left and right before continuing to the exit floodgates. With north intake and south drain open, or vice versa, I would expect flow along the center to stabilize after all the dead ends fill in. Yet a row of 4 waterwheels hanging across it aren't doing anything but requiring power. If I disengage the connecting gears from the rest of the system, they only require 53 power, but they aren't contributing any.

Compared to a row of chairs, the time and resource cost per tile would diminish the longer a bench is. The transport time would increase, but the installation time would remain the same. Installed, bench seating is more social than the same row of chairs, and dwarves would have the chance to form impressions about their benchmates, from the nearest to the furthest away, depending on their own mood and inclination toward company or solitude.

If fortress dwarves can do it, why not adventurers? Dwarves and goblins would adapt fastest, elves the most slowly, humans as usual rest in the middle ground. Cave adaptation would give a further range of perception -- you may not read billboards at that distance, but you could tell a shrub from a draltha, if you knew what a draltha looked like.

Give and take piles with the Trade Depot. You could have the Depot preloaded with everything you want to go out, so dwarves don't have to interrupt their usual jobs for a last-minute hustle. The take links could remain active while no traders are present, and could be activated as soon as you dismiss your trader after trading.

With a foreman, you could designate a broad general area for resource extraction, then the miners would attempt to only dig tiles to reach and remove ore and mineral veins. Depending on foreman skill, they may also avoid causing cave-ins, but this would be less certain if more than one z-level were designated.

So how would they know where the veins are? Right now if you designate a vein, the miner follows it flawlessly, without wasted time on neighboring stone. This expertise should come from specialized geological study, or acquired through experience with exposed rock surfaces. Miners would develop a 'feel' for where the goods are likely to be found. The more rock face is exposed in the entire embark area, the better a geologist or prospector will be able to predict where unexposed minerals and ores may be.

Lacking an academic expert for advise, the best foreman would be someone with well-developed prospecting senses. They'd be able to more efficiently direct miners in reaching and cleaning out the veins.

EDIT: Dig profiles. Just like workshop profiles, but for a designated excavation managed by a foreman. You can set the range of miner skill required, or restrict it to particular miners. Like temporary burrows that only include designated tiles, and only exist until the designation is complete.

After progressing the world events to prepare for a new game in a used region, commit it to the save file. If you're not ready to settle on your embark/adventurer generation decisions at that time or, phenomenally unlikely an instance as this no doubt is, something fucks up in the configuration stage, you don't have to sit through the hefty delay again.

Metal gauntlets should make climbing more difficult because of the loss of flexibility and kinesthetic sense in the fingers. The loss is very slight with leather gloves, which also add friction metal surfaces won't have.

Wood gauntlets don't seem ideal for climbing, but if elves make them, would they craft them to optimize tree climbing or sacrifice it?