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[Othob Rithol]

Nice to see the optimism for the discussion...I'll add some of the suggestions here to the top...

ruins seems a common desire
I really like the trickling aquifers and springs
hell biome is a a bit religion-specific, so I'll spin it a little if that is ok.
Natural gas pockets was the one I had forgotten from way back.
It seems Antmen is the favored example race so I'll try to give them a full write-up with all these ideas.

If I don't immediately push an idea to the OP don't call foul. Put up some references or images, or flesh out the idea a bit and get some feedback.

[Caledonian]

I would really like more-extensive cave systems, with the options previously listed (annual flooding, space around cave rivers, etc.)

Taking a page from the old "Dungeon Keeper" games, I'd like to make the following suggestions involving stone and gems:

1)  Make digging away any substance (soil, rock, whatever) produce chunks of rock that can be used for various things.  Soil could be necessary to build gardens on otherwise-barren stone surfaces, or building earthen walls (very important in real life).

2)  Instead of mining skill affecting the chances of digging producing usable stone, have it affect speed-of-digging only.
2a) Make it take *much* longer to remove substances by digging.

3)  Have very rare gem squares that aren't depleted by digging - they're not removed, but merely produce another gem if sufficient 'digging' effort is expended.  This should take a very long time, even for highly-skilled miners, and should probably be in relatively inaccessible locations.

[Othob Rithol]

After digging through the 4 threads that led to the Top10 list I didn't really find anything not on the list already (except one by me that I changed my mind on: magma rivers....magma flows up, not down)..

but I wanted to copy/paste a post by mechanoid

Voted for underground diversity.
Such a feature could entail things like cave rivers with sedimentary stone walls/floor (with their associated minerals!) and cave rivers that began as an above-ground river. As well, potentially "dry" underground rivers /lakes that have tower caps and underground bushes growing in them, or combinations of natural chasms /rivers /pools and of course, finding some of these on non-mountain tiles, as well.

[Just imagine, hitting a cave river that leads to a underground lake, which has a vortex-like drain going into a chasm below. Hell yes!]

I didn't see a suggestion I could turn into a blurb, but I love the imagery.

@Caledonian: 1 and 2 are game mechanics suggestions, but I will add part of 1 to the list (transportable dirt). 3 kind of breaks the depletion concept in the game, but we could add it in if others really like it. Good effort here, but what we're looking for is ideas on how to fill the underground with interesting features and encounters, not so much on how to interact with it.

[Caledonian]

Make the features more 3D!  As it is, underground features simply stop flat at a particular level, with nothing above them but a normal level of rock/soil.  Make them exist in three-dimensional space.

For example, if there's a pool of water underground, it should exist in a 'bubble'-shaped cavern (possibly very flattened) that may have water existing on multiple Z-levels, and open space on multiple Z-levels.  This open space should grow smaller the farther above the water.

Caves in general should be more three-dimensional.

[Pickerel]

As for the 'living rock' idea, there is something that could be called similar: the masses and masses of barnacles and bivalves that grow on the shore in some places.  I have seen these large masses of intertwined shells used as light-weight, porous building material, perfect for things like stone walls where decoration is important.  The shells are also razor sharp so it hurts to work with (not as bad as Actinolite.  I still have shards of that in my fingers for years ago, that get irritated if I move my hand the wrong way too much.  Nasty stuff.)

[Draco18s]

If the reproduction pattern is programmed with a rule system similar to "Life", you could also make replenishing rock farms, or send patches of living rocks across the map (to stop them somewhere else where you want to build a wall), etc.

I hate that algorithm.  It's a great puzzle, but its not something that has any basis in the real world (nothing dies from having 5/8 neighbors, and certainly doesn't do so instantly) and such a system is really really hard to set up to be self-sustaining AND harvestable.

[Puzzlemaker]

This thread should be stickied, really.  In fact, there should be a stickied thread for every single of the three top tens, and then they should be closed when completed/no longer apply.

Then the main poll is updated and stuff.

Fun!

[Othob Rithol]

The living rock idea has potential, but I'm just trying to get my head around how it'd fit into the game... we don't really need more rock, do we? And would it be able to fight/be fought by dwarves? Some sort of accretion organism (coral, barnacles etc) might fit, and would tie in with the endolithic biome.

Crystal formations were mentioned (which I didn't put up since I couldn't differentiate it from a gem pocket) but I was thinking about the possibility of some sort of shard formations that were impenetrable. You would have to dig around them.

And what of burrowing creatures? If we go there, it is a can of worms for game balance issues, and certainly something Toady has thought about.

[Mephansteras]

Personally, I love the idea of various "burrowing" creatures.

Maybe a summary of what was discussed in the Endolithic biome thread? I know there were tons of good ideas in there about how various types of burrowing creatures would effect the game, and some ideas on how to balance it all.

[Belteshazzar]

Air-coral!!!
No seriously I stole it from the Deathgate Cycle for my tabletop world. I play it as an engineered organism (Old-Ones.) for use in airship construction. Looks somewhat like opalescent pumice, likes moisture, grows, and when it's detached from a surface (larva fall to the ground and attach there) the whole mass simply starts drifting along (assuming you don't pile too much on it) and continues to grow.

Now this may not that great without the ability to freely move around in fortress mode ,but even as is it could lead to some interesting constructions. Besides I would imagine that exporting the stuff would be hillarious. (A way to sell negative weight! Watch as the caravan takes the 'scenic' route home.)

[The-Moon]

What i would like to see as a improvement to the underground.

Is making it so that picks can be worn down and made not use able after a lot of use.

And that each different type of ore you mine, requires you to have enough skill and proper picks to extract it.

Roots would be a great improvement. Also not just one tile below the tree containing roots. Roots would spread out all over the place. This would make digging through the top soil much harder, since a axe would be needed to remove roots. New job for the carpenter

Also maybe dug out tiles which still have roots in place next to them. You can make it so that you can "Smooth / Engrave" the roots also.

Wouldn't also hurt to improve trees and make them grow bigger as time goes on in which they do not get chopped down. Also expanding the roots.

Giant Ants + Giant Ant complexes.

Line of Sight, If a dwarf cant see it, then you cant. Mainly this would be important so that you can dig out a ore vein, then wall it up, and not have too look at the Mined out Vein. Or maybe just a way to hide those tiles.

Maybe if there was a castle in a location which turned to ruins, spawn a dungeon underneath the location of the castle. The castle wouldn't be there, but there would be a dungeon left behind.

[Pickerel]

The problem with line of site is that, if a dwarf can't see it, it's going to be a b*tch to try to center on it, select it, and rct.  You won;t be able to do diddilysquat with piles until a dwarf is nearby, and you won;t have any clue what dwarves are going toward because you won;t see what they are heading for.  "Why are you trying to collect webs that way?  Oh, the giant spider web.  With the giant spider.  I'de have stoped you but now it's time to save you."

And the roots thing: I don't think it would work because I have dug out areas under trees RL, and I can say that they only provide a moderate problem, and it WAS with a pickaxe that I took them out.  Then again, dwarves just have regular picks.  But Anyway, if the dwarves can do what they do to sheer walls of stone, a few subterranean cellulose veins are nothing to them.

[Christes]

I would just be happy if cave creatures had a way of repawning.

[Pickerel]

I agree.  Respawning chasm, cave, magma, and underground river creatures would be nice.

[Belteshazzar]

The problem with line of site is that, if a dwarf can't see it, it's going to be a b*tch to try to center on it, select it, and rct.  You won;t be able to do diddilysquat with piles until a dwarf is nearby, and you won;t have any clue what dwarves are going toward because you won;t see what they are heading for. 

I think that landscapes, monsters, and items would just be assumed to be in the same area they were last see in and the fog of war would render it as such (try Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup as an example.) The fog of war and the need to discover units before they join the units list would help add some mystry to the chasms and cave rivers.