No, not the electrical modern day ones, but those buckets-on-a-chain you lower people/goods down into pits with.
Real life mines have a lot more vertical shafts than Dwarf Fortress ones, and of course back in the day, they had mechanisms to bring people and things through them. Something similar in Dwarf Fortress would be nifty and allow more fort styles, and since hauling is getting overhauled right now, seems a good time to suggest it.
A few ways I can imagine implementing them:
- Making them tools ala minecarts, that can be simply raised and lowered with goods inside. It would look much like a well does.
- Making them actual floors, similar to bridges, that can be raised and lowered with dwarves/items on them. With this method I foresee headache if their use is going to be at all automated, though (would dwarves use them for pathing?).
- Integrate them with minecarts. A cart could be pushed on to the elevator tile, then raised/lowered to a certain floor. Assuming I'm understanding what the new hauling nodes for minecarts do, this sounds easier to automate, as the elevator would just be another one of those.
Since I get all my knowledge about the world from cartoons, I must note that this is how it worked in that one episode of Batman where he lost his memory and became a hobo who got kidnapped for slave labor in an Arizona desert mine. Yeah, it was a weird one; Alfred saved him with the bat airplane.In every case, it should probably require a power source. A dwarf at the top pulling the chain, or perhaps a hauling animal walking in circles to do the same. Windmill/waterwheel power
might be too close to steampunk, though.
As for what it would actually add to the game:
- Less tedious than spiral ramps for minecarts
- If you don't see the potential for moving goods (and maybe dwarves) to otherwise unpathable areas
without micromanaging the dump command, well, you must be new here.
- Flavor's always tasty
Also with all the talk of making amusement rides out of minecarts, elevators would be awesome for recreating those rides that drop you really fast. Only these wouldn't stop gently, ehehehe~
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Topic: Elevators (Read 1901 times)