Bay 12 Games Forum

Indeed, these things I've been bringing up lately are all little, nitpicky; they don't actually interfere with anything(haven't had the glowcap problem since I started a new fortress, for instance; maybe it was just the irregular plot). With so much changing come the new version, that's probably an ideal time to overhaul those little things.

I'm still not seeing any reason to HAVE these ramps sitting on their own.

To what purpose? ...looking pretty for visualizations? The dwarves certainly wouldn't get any use out of it.

And that seems an awfully narrow reason to throw in an extra layer of complexity to an already-complex game. For general use of ramps, I still don't see any reason that simplifying and clarifying them wouldn't be the way to go.

I could see using constructed ramps as dragon's teeth if mobile siege engines enter the game, but I also don't see why constructed walls or fortifications wouldn't do the job just as well. Or even something that can be rigged to a mechanism, to pop up at need and retract during peaceful times to let wagons in.

The problem looks to be in the INSECT body, actually. So I think this one can get blamed on Toady - unless you spliced that into the middle yourself.

Crab is even worse off in that regard. I think. I'm not sure what a crab's body parts are properly called, anymore...

It's not (just) a question of difficulty, but one of nuisance. A large part of the problem with a large fortress is the micromanagement required to keep it running at all smoothly. Introducing MORE micromanagement is not something that should be done casually.

Deciding which way a bridge raises is a significant tactical decision for a significant construction. There's not necessarily "one right way" to make a bridge - compare the difference between a drawbridge and a retracting bridge, for starters. If you have a drawbridge that blocks an entry corridor when raised, do you want to pull it up into the corridor, giving some room for murder holes? (Possibly with a short drawbridge to lock them into that corridor - possibly combined with water pumps.) Or at the corridor's mouth, so the attackers can't get out of sight of your outside crossbow towers? Which way that decision goes dictates a big difference in strategy.

Dwarves should, on the other hand, be smart enough to build ramps in a way that makes sense, and shift material around so that it connects reasonably smoothly as they build new things around those ramps. A ramp is supposed to connect Z-levels. Some indication of which way it works and doesn't - say, shading the "solid" side of the ramp darker / doing something to the "empty space" side of the ramp on the upper level - might be possible to keep it straightforward, but so long as the functionality of ramps themselves is made plainer, I don't see why players need to be involved in every niggling detail. It also would add a new layer of complication to the very feature people are already saying there's trouble learning. Do you honestly think making this change would eliminate the forum posts from people stuck on ramps? I think it more likely that accidentally building ramps the wrong way would cause at least as many problems, maybe more.

Dwarven autonomy is a large part of the game's charm, too. It makes sense to order the general things we want done, but, well, would you be terribly happy if you were told not just to connect this floor to that, but which way the low end of the ramp should face? I don't think even the most inbred dwarven noble is supposed to be THAT stupid.

Re: Untelligent - the reason I(and likely others, though I can't be sure) am arguing for ramps to pick directions intelligently is because others are arguing they shouldn't. Nothing more.

Perhaps a ramp with no proper supporting wall(existing or planned) could light up an error saying "Unsupported" or similar, when you're trying to place it. Whether you can place it anyway or not is a matter for further debate.

Re: digging ramps - being able to designate from both sides - and automatically designating the corresponding tile on the other Z-level - might help make the initial digging clear. More feedback on them could be nice, though, indeed.

I look forward to it. R202 was... frustratingly close, for me, but the way it fails on my machine is just not worth it unless I have some specific direction for trying to fix it. It looks like a reasonable system, I just couldn't really get into it to try it out properly.

Someone already raised a very valid point: Making ramps that finicky would add greatly to the difficulty of using them, and its contribution to the game is debatable.

Clarifying how ramps work - fine. Making it a bit more obvious how you can dig ramps from above - fine. (A "Dig downward ramp" designation would be useful, as would the game automatically flagging the matching tile for the flipside in both up and down ramps.) MAYBE having rules for which way a ramp is usable(though some rules still plainly apply), or making more strict rules for ramps that aren't properly supported.

(Digression: Imagine this setup.

^^^
^W^
^^^

This, or something close, can be found naturally often enough. Natural ramps will collapse if their supporting structure vanishes. Constructed ones won't - perhaps they should.)

However, making it so ramps are built to only work in one direction, and require manual rebuilding should the local structures change(even if the dwarves intelligently pick the direction), would take away from dwarven autonomy and put excessive micromanagement upon the player.

Clarify and tighten how ramps work, but let the dwarves do the math, and let the dwarves do any required reshaping. If a ramp can't be made in a sensible manner, just don't let a ramp be built there until there IS a sensible solution. And doing so with respect to planned construction would be ideal. (Same goes for other constructions. You can build a 3x6 "bridge" of constructed floors to cross the chasm, but you can't currently plant one section of it, then another which would be supported by the first. This is aggravating if you have to deal with awkward shapes.) A highlight for load-bearing structures could be handy - flash a warning if designated digging/deconstruction is going to cause an obvious collapse, either a cave-in as they are now, or a deconstruction of constructed tiles. This would also apply to ramps that would be left without support, though the only consequence there would be the lack of that path; nothing else would collapse with them(unless you also knock out a wall that's bearing something else).

tl; dr version:

The game UI doesn't need to be any more complicated. Make ramps more intuitive, sure, but let the dwarves do the work of actually orienting them - both initially and with any subsequent constructions.

The salt in the ocean can affect the (freshwater) ice, though. Just as salting icy roads can thaw them unless it's super-cold.

So it'd make just as much sense for ice hitting the ocean to melt and mix with the salt water.

Interesting to try and see, though...

Keeping a mill operation running is more difficult than constructing a dining room anyway. Shuffling bags around, especially if you're also trying to get a glass industry running, can be a significant headache... not to mention the plethora of hauling tasks the seeds spawn.

With that in mind, why not produce coloured stone with that milled dye? Put it in as value 1 and there'll be no particular incentive to use it, and in fact you'll be losing the value of the milled stuff. Even if it's value 2, you're probably not getting much for free.

The problem, I suppose, is in getting that milled stuff to be a reagent. Isn't there a problem with stuff in containers? Or is that only in producing it?