March 6, 2024: Dwarf Fortress 50.12 has been released.
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It would be interesting to do multi-storied bridges, like the type you see in cities a lot, where road traffic runs on the above deck and there's a train deck in the trusswork beneath. Not that we have trains in DF (yet!) but it would be a good spot for utilities such as aqueducts and hypothetically things like belts and axles for power transmission and mechanisms.
quote:
Originally posted by Istrian:
<STRONG>That would be a nice addition for Adv mode too. When, for instance, you want the player to leave his full plate behind just to enter your fortress and reap the riches inside.Bridge resistance should also be influenced by local temperature. Like when you don't want fire creatures to get inside your fortress, bridges would melt under their feet and send them plummeting straight into a river.</STRONG>
Balsawood bridges come to mind. 
We know it from Sim City and Transport Tycoon - different bridge types have different strengths and weaknesses meaning sometimes you can pick and choose, sometimes there's only one or a few bridge types possible.
In addition, some bridges can only be made out of some materials. There's a reason the Golden Gate bridge wasn't built from stone, for example. Odds are it wouldn't have looked quite as slender if it had been, either.
I imagine weaker bridges (either weak designs or weak materials) would be susceptible to funny little eccentricies such as getting swept away in the spring flood or getting destroyed by cave-ins (even if no falling material hits the bridge, the tremors may damage it) or even collapsing under heavily laden trade carts (perhaps by design! "oops")
quote:
Originally posted by Ryven:
<STRONG>By static he means "doesn't move." Currently, all (indoor) bridges either retract or are drawbridges.
</STRONG>
Indeed. There's always room for misunderstandings, I guess. Except in logic and mathematics.
By static bridges I mean the kind of bridges that are anchored firmly in place, whether suspended by ropes, standing on pillars or whatnot. The kind that doesn't raise, retract, swing, or otherwise move into another position. By design, that is. And excluding such things as swaying in the wind et cetera.
Another feature is that they can be built tremendously higher and longer than a retractable bridge, and that gives me an idea...
In real life, a static (that is, immovable) bridge has several advantages. It's much easier to build, and can be built stronger, and hence bigger. None of these are an issue in Dwarf Fortress as of yet, since a bridge can be erected in seconds by just anyone, but that could always change...
One thing that would make them useful is if you were able to build bridges off of them.
That is, currently a drawbridge needs to be "hinged" on land, but now you could also hinge it off of a static bridge. That would expand your options a bit.
Of course, there'd have to be a game mechanic for what happens when a bridge is destroyed that has other bridges hinged onto it...
quote:
Originally posted by Exasperation:
<STRONG>
Probably still a long way off, but I thought it might be interesting to think about fun ideas for standard recipes.Here's one: we have cave fish and lye, why not have Dwarven Lutefisk?</STRONG>
Huzzah! I love lutefisk! 
I think dwarves should eat porridge. Lots and lots of porridge. I wonder what ingredients of the ones we have might be good for porridge though? Maybe you can mash mushrooms into pulp and make porridge out of it?
It would be really interesting if dwarf porridge, when beaten flat and dried became paper... That'd be a powerful statement about just how hardcore dwarves are!
Anyway, I'm completely out of my depth in this subject, but can't the raytracer be fairly simple? DF isn't a Pixar movie after all. (Personally I think it's a lot more entertaining. )
There are already routines for calculating your line of sight in Adventure mode, the same routine could be used to cast rays for a light source, with the addition of light being diminished for every square. Things like a diffusion might be handled by the diffusing square subtracting a larger value from the light-ray or something. (So you could have open space diminishing light with 1 for every step, and then the diffusing square eats up 10 units instead. Or something like that.)
Or am I just being extremely ignorant?
quote:
Originally posted by Draco18s:
<STRONG>Like all animals? That currently don't require food...</STRONG>
Indeed! And when you need mechanical parts like belts and rods and axes transferring power to wherever you need it (with power being diminished for every step of the way) you'll get a whole new challenge in laying out your fortress.
quote:
Originally posted by puke:
<STRONG>indeed, we could make dwarfen perpetual motion machines by having a waterwheel power a pump that takes water from the base of the wheel to the top of the wheel!</STRONG>
I imagine Toady would code in Newton's laws of physics, though. 
