Dwarf Fortress > DF Suggestions
Lighting and oxygen, or architectural freedom vs botanical realism
SixOfSpades:
As has obviously been mentioned before, caverns (or at least those with life) clearly have oxygen, but I just thought I'd point out that their current game implementation strongly suggests that they have oxygen without any sort of connection to the surface world. Posters trying to make cavern mechanics be more in line with real-world behavior have suggested that oxygen could get into caverns through minute cracks in the stone, or be dissolved into surface streams that then flow underground (or seep in as groundwater), and I don't blame them. But the act of breaching a cavern, which suddenly allows cavern spores to grow in all connected subterranean soil tiles, clearly implies that now there is airflow to the cavern, where previously there wasn't.
As part of the Innovations thread, I had a few thoughts with applications for light & ventilation.
* Bedrooms could have small vent-holes drilled, connecting the room with the hallway. They should be near the ceiling, both to exclude crawling vermin & to discourage peeping toms.
* Augers (temporary buildings giving the ability to drill small holes through multiple tiles in a straight line) could be invented, allowing these vent-holes to connect multiple parts of the fort with each other, or with the surface.
* After Bellows are a thing, some dwarf can think big and invent the Great Bellows, a powered building that fills a 3x3 room with 1 entrance & 1 exit. A huge leather sail fills one entire wall, and sweeps back & forth continuously. Leather flaps in the sail act as valves, allowing air to pass only in one direction, turning the whole room into an air pump.
* Once Windmills are developed, someone can invent their opposite: Fans. Powered large Fans could turn horizontal or vertical shafts into pressurized ducts for continuous airflow.
* Not an Innovation, but glow-worms are a thing. See also: their hunting techniques. Great for controlling airborne vermin, but impractical for 1-story areas with dwarves walking around.
* The previously-mentioned possible phosphorescent plants & fungi, available both as tree-sized "streetlights", and potted-plant "lamps" suitable for illuminating small rooms.
* Magma itself can be a light source, albeit a very dangerous one. Dwarves would have to be shielded from its toxic fumes, and as glass windows would melt, they would have to be made of mica.
* The predictable candles, oil lamps, torches, wood fires, etc.
* Mining Helmets: Helmets with built-in lanterns.
* With magic on the horizon, Gem Lanterns might be a thing: Magical light sources that consume gemstones for fuel. (Presumably, emitting light the same color as the gemstone.)
--- Quote from: Bumber on June 18, 2018, 12:30:36 am ---On the scale of dwarf forts, you would need industrial air pumps. It's not doable with medieval tech.
--- End quote ---
Admittedly, I haven't researched period ventilation techniques, but I think Fans and Great Bellows both seem doable.
KittyTac:
Or magical ventilation.
Starver:
Sub-tile ventilation (like holes drilled in walls) will also make for sub-tile leakage of water/magma flow in instances where it wouldn't currently be expected. No, you'd (probably) not deliberately drill through your cistern wall or into a sometime-drain tunnel adjacent to a room (especially from the drain-control-levers room), but when that Epic Dig Fail or Improper Pump Placement inevitably happens you might currently expect walls to block the result somewhat while you attempt remedial changes.
From a technical POV, you'd probably design some sort of special hole for that situation (say an omega-bend with (water- and/or magma-proof) floats that'd normally sit on vanes but as soon as it gets inundated will float up into a seal and block the overpass in whatever direction the liquid is trying to pass). Or a lining material which expands (inward to constrict flow) upon being directly exposed to wetness or heat. Unless you go for something maybe much too hard sci-fi (gas-permeable/liquid-opaque force fields) or the magical equivalent (some sort of Maxwellian demon sat in there?).
Valves of various designs could be part of the building/digging/equipping strategy, like with minecart track-laying. Or just suck it up and treat them much as per liquid-threatened fortifications already may be (floodgates and/or raising bridges installed to shut them off on command), and strategic draining-grates to remove the threat ASAP.
Right now, I'd prefer hand-waved ventilation (with or without Overseer-specification of what it should feel like, maybe setting up 'flow zones' to encourage circulation and air-mixing, or strategic directional "ceiling fans/wafters" built from a mechanism or three) than the full complexity of having to manually install(/assign to be installed) a whole complex ducting arrangements down to the minutest detailing.
Also:
--- Quote from: https://www.mylearning.org/stories/coal-mining-and-the-victorians/236 ---The Trapper
The trapper was often the youngest member of the family working underground. Their job was simple: to open and close the wooden doors (trap doors) that allowed fresh air to flow through the mine. They would usually sit in total darkness for up to twelve hours at a time, waiting to let the coal tub through the door. It was not hard work but it was boring and could be very dangerous. If they fell asleep, the safety of the whole workings could be affected.
--- End quote ---
...and more relevent elaboration at http://www.dmm.org.uk/educate/mineocc.htm#t
Bumber:
--- Quote from: SixOfSpades on June 19, 2018, 04:52:08 am ---Admittedly, I haven't researched period ventilation techniques, but I think Fans and Great Bellows both seem doable.
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure the bellows are practical. To move the air throughout the whole fort would require a great deal of pressure, which neither the bellow materials nor the piping are really up to.
Fans seem more practical. I don't think they were ever used for ventilation, but the Chinese invented a mechanical fan for personal cooling. You could have large shafts with a bunch of fans connected by a vertical axle. (Would it be going too far to let them be used for geothermal power? It would be kind of hard not to notice the magma forge fans are turning on their own.)
I think period ventilation technique was to have shafts that just used air pressure created by the wind blowing across the surface. I don't think it would get you that deep. DF has oxygenated caverns, of course, but they don't have any wind.
tussock:
Old mines were all ventilated, they had to get the water out, and they couldn't lift water far, so there were drains everywhere. The longest drains dug for mines in the middle ages were cut 20 miles through solid rock over several years of 24/7 labour.
Then, once you have a drain somewhere, the air comes in it, and goes out the top. Any air movement past the entrances generates a pressure difference that's quite capable of circulating air for any mine. They sealed various doors throughout with wet clay to force the air up the working tunnels and shift the damps out the main entrance. Door sealing being a young kid's job, didn't pull mine carts until they were a bit older.
Now, dorfs dig deep, and often on flat land, so they'll have to rely on heating the air against the lower rocks to provide most of the energy for the system, you just need two entrances with one venting higher than the other, that gives you the pressure differential off a good breeze, and the hot air will sustain the circulation so long as it stays reasonably well sealed with no shortcuts to break the inward flow into the depths. Not really suitable for a massive coal mine, but for everyday stuff it would work.
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