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Author Topic: Combining items into a pile & other ideas  (Read 826 times)

eerr

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Combining items into a pile & other ideas
« on: February 25, 2021, 01:17:41 pm »

My suggestion, is that if the player can fill a stockpile with 25 or more items, he should be able to 'combine' the items into a 'pile'.
A pile would be a single tile that contains many goods.
stone- rock pile
wood- log pile
tools- tool pile

A pile would hold 25+ items, and only expose the top item for the purposes of building/designating/dwarf use-age.
Possibly, A dwarf cannot walk on a pile, but can take the top item from it while adjacent.

The pile is essentially quantum stockpiles personified. AKA it's an acknowledgement that the game has serious issues with extreme numbers of items, allowing the player a simple solution.

I feel like this could open the door for a few new things.

Yes we have quantum stockpiles, but as an official game feature, people won't feel like they are cheating.
As well, there might be some unconventional things you can do with a stockpile of goods. If the pile only contained building goods, one could designate the whole pile to be used in constructing walls and floors.

Just don't think about the physics of stuffing that many boulders into a single tile.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2021, 01:25:22 pm by eerr »
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Starver

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Re: Combining items into a pile & other ideas
« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2021, 02:26:08 pm »

A "virtual container", I think you're aiming at? (Like a Bin/Sack/Barrel/Barrel-of-Sacks for things that can't be put in a bin, sack or (as dry goods) barrel.)

There's been a problem getting previously stacked items (coins, bolts) to restack. I think the main problem is that "Stack of X Foo" as a unit knows that each Foo is identical, but reassembling a split stack might feature differently qualitied Foos from different original stacks (so needs to know "Stack of X Masterwork Glumprong Foo Plus Y Standard Featherwood Foo", or likely far more complicated) which demands more complex handling.

Either the virtual-container can solve the ammo problem (still have old 'stacks' but restack into a "pile"-like VC, which you can make Last In First Out under most circumstances, perhaps special jobs can sort through to redistribute/remix varied stacks back into homogeneous ones again?) or the ammo problem reveals a data issue that would also cause pile-problems too. This side of a rewrite.


Additionally, I think bulk goods that can't be Bin-stored/etc might be intended to be non-stackable, as a 'reality' element. One unit of logs/rocks[1]  can fill a tile. Somehow, possibly (re)constructed as a flat/box/3d-cross structure that works to stop even liquids in all orthagonal directions. QSPs might be the reluctant exception[2], and easy (unmodded) log-store compression might not be desired from a game POV.


First thoughts only. I'm sure there's (related) suggestions around this from the past, but I'm just making sure you get at least one reply, as you piqued my interest.  (And I have absolutely no authority over this issue, nor the encyclopedic knowledge others may have about it!)


[1] Or one unit of blocks, which can be ¼ of the original in the case of stone; but then these are also binnable, to confuse the actual intent. ;)

[2] Wasn't there something in the recent DFTalk about piles of material, perhaps acting more like heaps?
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Orange-of-Cthulhu

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Re: Combining items into a pile & other ideas
« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2021, 07:41:00 pm »

Honestly, you can stuff a lot of logs or rocks in a pile. If a log fits in 1 square, it isn't unrealistic to get 25 of them in a square.

I'd like if you could designate a number of items to be piled, so you could choose. The same way you can make a box and dump everything inside it, it would be cool to make a box and then the dwarves would pile everything within the box.
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betaking

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Re: Combining items into a pile & other ideas
« Reply #3 on: March 09, 2021, 04:38:33 pm »

A "virtual container", I think you're aiming at? (Like a Bin/Sack/Barrel/Barrel-of-Sacks for things that can't be put in a bin, sack or (as dry goods) barrel.)

There's been a problem getting previously stacked items (coins, bolts) to restack. I think the main problem is that "Stack of X Foo" as a unit knows that each Foo is identical, but reassembling a split stack might feature differently qualitied Foos from different original stacks (so needs to know "Stack of X Masterwork Glumprong Foo Plus Y Standard Featherwood Foo", or likely far more complicated) which demands more complex handling.

Either the virtual-container can solve the ammo problem (still have old 'stacks' but restack into a "pile"-like VC, which you can make Last In First Out under most circumstances, perhaps special jobs can sort through to redistribute/remix varied stacks back into homogeneous ones again?) or the ammo problem reveals a data issue that would also cause pile-problems too. This side of a rewrite.


Additionally, I think bulk goods that can't be Bin-stored/etc might be intended to be non-stackable, as a 'reality' element. One unit of logs/rocks[1]  can fill a tile. Somehow, possibly (re)constructed as a flat/box/3d-cross structure that works to stop even liquids in all orthagonal directions. QSPs might be the reluctant exception[2], and easy (unmodded) log-store compression might not be desired from a game POV.


First thoughts only. I'm sure there's (related) suggestions around this from the past, but I'm just making sure you get at least one reply, as you piqued my interest.  (And I have absolutely no authority over this issue, nor the encyclopedic knowledge others may have about it!)


[1] Or one unit of blocks, which can be ¼ of the original in the case of stone; but then these are also binnable, to confuse the actual intent. ;)

[2] Wasn't there something in the recent DFTalk about piles of material, perhaps acting more like heaps?

Idea I had was having a variety of systems for piles;
essentially you have a pile of "similar" items, this pile is treated as a semi-unique object, "unique" items (which might not be even presented as such to the player unless they've got some kind of identify or omnipotent magic.) will randomly exist within this pile, as will variants.

so if you combine "silver coin; 1544 x40" and "silver coin; 1546x35" and "silver coin; 1550 x25".. you get "silver coin; x100", with a varying ratio for every coin variant in said pile

would help if there was a way to "cut off" the amount of detail that might be paid to stuff like coins.. like "if it's not cursed, engraved/defaced,  r covered in [dust/fluid/etc.] it can be combined back into the pile without provoking additional tracking"..

because if after all you've got a pile of "232 silver coins from bilearch the solid pillow", and then one coin that is exactly the same, you could easily give the game away that the single coin is "special" and thus limit the potential "fun" that picking up a cursed coin could provoke...

also if coins aren't going to have any more depth (you know "fun stuff" like "weight specification, purity, etc.") you should be able to disable civ-specific coins.
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