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Author Topic: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls  (Read 3338 times)

PatrikLundell

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #15 on: May 15, 2019, 04:40:30 pm »

DF is a single player sandbox game, so the only person you can cheat is yourself (unless you're going to try to brag about your deeds). If the focus of a fortress is to decorate a huge obsidian cube, you might not want to go through the effort to create it using the normal means. Likewise, if your focus is a peaceful community living on the surface of a calm embark, you might not want to deal with the mess a dragon will cause.
However, it's easy to over use tools so that you cheat yourself out of the accomplishments of handling unanticipated challenges to the point that things get boring.
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Schmaven

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #16 on: May 15, 2019, 04:52:35 pm »

DF is a single player sandbox game, so the only person you can cheat is yourself (unless you're going to try to brag about your deeds). If the focus of a fortress is to decorate a huge obsidian cube, you might not want to go through the effort to create it using the normal means. Likewise, if your focus is a peaceful community living on the surface of a calm embark, you might not want to deal with the mess a dragon will cause.
However, it's easy to over use tools so that you cheat yourself out of the accomplishments of handling unanticipated challenges to the point that things get boring.

Well said
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Superdorf

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #17 on: May 15, 2019, 05:20:07 pm »

I had that problem with savescumming. It was nice to keep a fortress running and focused on whatever project I had in mind... until I started using it for every little thing and the game lost all life for me. I don't savescum anymore, and I don't use DFHack either-- I don't trust myself to have fun (or Fun) with those tools.
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Schmaven

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #18 on: May 15, 2019, 08:04:38 pm »

I had that problem with savescumming. It was nice to keep a fortress running and focused on whatever project I had in mind... until I started using it for every little thing and the game lost all life for me. I don't savescum anymore, and I don't use DFHack either-- I don't trust myself to have fun (or Fun) with those tools.

It's the disastrous interruptions (player caused or not) that give the large projects their depth of character.  Otherwise it's not that different from concept art.
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doublestrafe

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #19 on: May 15, 2019, 10:30:39 pm »

the latter soudns liek cheating - the first involves building constructions, which we want to not do.
If you want to minimize construction you could always dig a big hole and fill it with obsidian instead.
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Pvt. Pirate

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #20 on: May 16, 2019, 02:38:49 am »

the latter soudns liek cheating - the first involves building constructions, which we want to not do.
If you want to minimize construction you could always dig a big hole and fill it with obsidian instead.
doesnt help when building a tower.
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daggaz

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #21 on: May 16, 2019, 03:24:03 am »

You're not thinking outside the box.  If your tower is too short, clearly the surrounding landscape is too high.
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Pvt. Pirate

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #22 on: May 16, 2019, 03:43:19 am »

You're not thinking outside the box.  If your tower is too short, clearly the surrounding landscape is too high.
but the embark site is a box.
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doublestrafe

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #23 on: May 16, 2019, 06:10:19 am »

Wonder how far you could get by making a central pump stack that runs hot and cold, and then just applying FLOOD THE WORLD tactics in alternating flavors. It'd take some patience.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #24 on: May 16, 2019, 08:42:42 am »

You can't flood even the embark, as evaporation eventually results in a balance between the fluid pumped out and the one evaporating (well, I guess you could with a lot of pump stacks [and an FPS reported as 0]).
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anewaname

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #25 on: May 16, 2019, 06:50:48 pm »

The size of the embark would matter a lot, and the most difficult part would occur when you hit the "top of the sky" z, where the cold output from the pumps would no longer be able to flow freely over fresh obsidian to fall onto the hot output. That part would be excruciating.
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Dozebôm Lolumzalìs

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #26 on: May 24, 2019, 02:02:30 pm »

the latter soudns liek cheating - the first involves building constructions, which we want to not do.
This thread isn't about how building constructions is lengthy and clunky (which is true), it's about how you can't build constructions on floors. That problem is thoroughly solved by obsidian casting. (And I think building a cast and digging it out takes less time than building normally, while giving you valuable stone and smoothable/carvable floors and walls at the same time.)
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Pvt. Pirate

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Re: On walls, and floors, and why floors aren't more like walls
« Reply #27 on: May 24, 2019, 03:04:25 pm »

the latter soudns liek cheating - the first involves building constructions, which we want to not do.
This thread isn't about how building constructions is lengthy and clunky (which is true), it's about how you can't build constructions on floors. That problem is thoroughly solved by obsidian casting. (And I think building a cast and digging it out takes less time than building normally, while giving you valuable stone and smoothable/carvable floors and walls at the same time.)
well, it also includes making a temporary fort before even casting.
including pumpstacks and magma, which is bound to be ‼FUN‼
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