DF Suggestions / Waste Management
« on: November 04, 2007, 11:09:00 pm »Aim: to create a more common use for the new flow-manipulating tools such as pumps and machinery now that farming is simplified, along with other neat things that come with the complexities of a new fluid.
Suggestion: dwarves poop. This can have an impact on efficiency and hygiene if the player does not manage it.
What follows are *our ideas* for how such a system would work. I volunteered to post this here, and I'd be lax if I didn't include at least the neater stuff. I guess I'll err on the side of detail.
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To begin with, dwarves generate waste once a month or so. When this occurs they'll run off outside or to a designated activity zone and create a 1-deep puddle of a 'sewage' fluid.
The sewage fluid itself is nasty stuff, capable of drowning your dwarves like water if it gets deep enough, and attracting a whole lot of flies, possibly even the occasional miasma. If it's 1-deep, it'll dry out and turn into a mud-equivalent tile eventually. This can take a long time in the dark, or relatively little time in a lit square.
Now, running off to the surface is fine when you only have a small number of dwarves who haven't dug all that far in yet. Later on, when you have dozens of dwarves trying to poop simultaneously, it's going to be a serious bottlenecking and efficiency issue. Plus, they'll probably all be disgusted by the area they arrive at since there's more likely to be fresh surface-sewage if it's constantly being replanished. Plus, if they don't make it in time they'll do what must be done where they stand, which is bad if one of your deep miners took a shortcut through a noble's dining room.
So the player must eventually build a waste management system. The basic building of this system is the 'latrine', which is basically a block with a hole in the middle. Similar to a well, it must be placed on a z-level above a tunnel, and leaves a hole in the floor behind when removed (you could probably just designate a poopin' zone around a hole, but slipping and falling in is a possibility). When dwarves use the latrine their sewage is generated in the tunnel beneath.
Everything is peachy at this point, but if the fluid beneath a latrine reaches 7-deep, it becomes backed up and further use creates sewage on and around the latrine, which is bad because it takes a long time to dry in the dark
So the player has two basic options:
A) remove the latrine, refloor the tile is was on, and dig a new cesspit elsewhere.
B) dig a sewer system!
The basic idea is that your waste management system will link all your latrines with tunnels, using pumps etcetera if necessary, and do something with it. It could all flow to a huge central cesspit, or be piped & pumped to the surface where it can dry out in the sun. Maybe you could dump it in a river or pond (at the expense of killing them, like overfishing), or a magma vent. If you're lucky enough to have an overhang above magma your latrines can empty out into air, possibly knocking the odd imp unconscious.
Advanced behaviour: A possible implementation of your waste management system is flash-fertilising of your fields, very similar to the floodgate method of farming we're all used to. The upside is that even though irrigation systems are no longer strictly necessary for farming, you could still build one to boost efficiency provided your population is large enough to keep the pressure flowing. The downside is that indoor farming becomes a nastier job. (Although it opens up the possibility of building lever-linked skylights [bridges?] above your farms. You could lock the doors, flood them with 1-deep sewage, then open the skylight to dry it all out before letting your dwarves in. Maybe this could have a secondary benefit if there are crops that need an indoor+lit environment that only grow in certain seasons [for lit/unlit crop rotation].)
Flammability. With some sort of ignition source, you could flood a room with sewage and while your invaders are too busy vomiting to escape, toss a match in. Sort of a poor-man's Magma Trap Classic. You could also deal with your waste this way, by periodically purging your sewer system with fire. Just make sure you lock the doors first and that your latrines are built from flameproof material.
Finally, there's always a chance some disgusting critters might find your sewers a perfect habitat, so making sure you have bars or grates securing any tunnels leading outdoors would be sensible if you don't want to see your little pals grabbed by the anatomy and dragged down a dark hole.