Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: Elevators  (Read 2252 times)

kaijyuu

  • Bay Watcher
  • Hrm...
    • View Profile
Elevators
« on: April 06, 2012, 07:16:10 am »

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. :P
- 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~
Logged
Quote from: Chesterton
For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

kaijyuu

  • Bay Watcher
  • Hrm...
    • View Profile
Re: Elevators
« Reply #2 on: April 06, 2012, 09:55:03 am »

Man I don't envy your job.
Logged
Quote from: Chesterton
For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

NW_Kohaku

  • Bay Watcher
  • [ETHIC:SCIENCE_FOR_FUN: REQUIRED]
    • View Profile
Re: Elevators
« Reply #3 on: April 06, 2012, 10:34:40 am »

More to the point, "lifts" is already on the "Improved Mechanics" section of the devpages, as a part of "moving fortress pieces". 
Logged
Personally, I like [DF] because after climbing the damned learning cliff, I'm too elitist to consider not liking it.
"And no Frankenstein-esque body part stitching?"
"Not yet"

Improved Farming
Class Warfare