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[katzebar]

Abstraction implies that what is not being done mechanically is being represented somehow, and that is what my suggestion does while trying to maintain adequate performance. According to posts in this thread, it's going to take more than simple hauling improvements if frame rates are still sagging because of large amounts of stone.

As for volume, I noted in my post that the amount of gravel would be stored as an integer in its workshop. I imagine that an implementation of this would have an upper limit to the value that could be stored.

I do agree that it's a less than optimal solution, but I decided to attempt an approach that settles various complaints and/or ideas. Abstraction is a tool that DF has utilized in the past and will continue to use as a way to keep gameplay from getting too cumbersome for the player and the machine, but it's very difficult where to draw the line on such a slippery concept.

[teloft]

I dont like that I can mine and material is somehow "lost".  I like there to be some consistancy to the amount of material there is on a map.  Gravel is a solution to this problem.  so everythings filles with gravel as the hill is dug out.  It dose not need to be stupit or CPU consuming.  But consistent mass is the value for me here.

[Mephansteras]

My biggest objection has always been the ability to somehow 'ruin' metal ore while mining it. Ore is generally crushed as part of the smelting process anyway, how the heck do you lose it just because a novice miner can't mine out a whole chunk?

Regardless of what solution is eventually used, that problem will need to be addressed. Gems I can sort of see, but ore and coal just make no sense at all.

[Draco18s]

I dont like that I can mine and material is somehow "lost".  I like there to be some consistancy to the amount of material there is on a map.  Gravel is a solution to this problem.  so everythings filles with gravel as the hill is dug out.  It dose not need to be stupit or CPU consuming.  But consistent mass is the value for me here.

Pick one.  Consistency or lower CPU usage.  You can't keep track of all material without...well...keeping track of it.

[Silverionmox]

There's a lot of optimizing to be done, though. Stone doesn't really react to much, and almost never fast, so ordinary rocks could get by with less than 10% the checks other items need. The same for binned/stacked items. Improved hauling is on top of the eternal suggestion list for a good reason.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I dont like that I can mine and material is somehow "lost".  I like there to be some consistancy to the amount of material there is on a map.  Gravel is a solution to this problem.  so everythings filles with gravel as the hill is dug out.  It dose not need to be stupit or CPU consuming.  But consistent mass is the value for me here.

Pick one.  Consistency or lower CPU usage.  You can't keep track of all material without...well...keeping track of it.

No its not "Keeping track of things" that eats cycles, it's ITERATING them that uses cycles, simply having more objects present consumes more memory but dose not use cycles in and of itself.  DF currently iterates over EVERY single item in the game EVERY single frame, that is the problem.  A better implementation would iterate or update objects in a more discriminating manor, very dynamic objects like dwarfs and animals get constant updates, objects that can rot or decay a bit less and inert objects virtually none (at most once a year to grow moss perhaps). 

[teloft]

I dont like that I can mine and material is somehow "lost".  I like there to be some consistancy to the amount of material there is on a map.  Gravel is a solution to this problem.  so everythings filles with gravel as the hill is dug out.  It dose not need to be stupit or CPU consuming.  But consistent mass is the value for me here.

Pick one.  Consistency or lower CPU usage.  You can't keep track of all material without...well...keeping track of it.

No its not "Keeping track of things" that eats cycles, it's ITERATING them that uses cycles, simply having more objects present consumes more memory but dose not use cycles in and of itself.  DF currently iterates over EVERY single item in the game EVERY single frame, that is the problem.  A better implementation would iterate or update objects in a more discriminating manor, very dynamic objects like dwarfs and animals get constant updates, objects that can rot or decay a bit less and inert objects virtually none (at most once a year to grow moss perhaps). 

yes, this is it.

[praguepride]

My biggest objection has always been the ability to somehow 'ruin' metal ore while mining it. Ore is generally crushed as part of the smelting process anyway, how the heck do you lose it just because a novice miner can't mine out a whole chunk?

Regardless of what solution is eventually used, that problem will need to be addressed. Gems I can sort of see, but ore and coal just make no sense at all.

Look at it another way. You, the omniscient player knows there's ore there. But your rookie miner hacks away at it and throws it away in the "invisible gravel dump". Experienced miners know how to cut rocks to be usable as well as realizing that this isn't just garbage, but is really valuable iron or gold ore.

Her'es my thoughts on improved mining:

1) Make mining time a factor of z-level. Deeper mining is harder then surface mining. Right now there's a definite difference in speed between mining soil vs. rock, so couldn't you also make it more difficult to mine the further you go down? You can jsutify this in your head in a variety of ways (properly bracing tunnels, checking for stability, lighting, gas pockets) but I don't think you need to actually implement those. You don't have to micromange anything else to that extent. You don't have to tell your woodcutters to drop tress the right way or to check to make sure the wood is usable. It just happens. We don't need to micromanage mining, especially consdiering how much of it you have to do in the game. I'm fine with just assuming that miners do all the necessary precautions to do their job well, which is why rookies take longer then veterans. Anyway, so every z-level below surface should add to the time it takes to mine. So close to the surface speeds would be pretty unchanged. Once you get to about the middle z-levels (5-15) you'll notice a difference. Even legendary miners would have a slow down. And on the deep levels (15+) it would make even legendary miners break stone like novices.

Now, this wouldn't have a huge impact on most people's gameplay. People that normally have shallow forts will be unaffected, and people (like me) who like to dig really deep forts would learn instead to go horizontal rather then vertical. However, it would slow down "mass-mining" quite a bit. And considering HFS and other specials are usually located lower, it would slow down the mid-to-end game mining progression. Once you've minded out the surface levels, you'll have to take the speed hits to go deeper for resources.

This could also be balanced by increased ores & gems the deeper you go, but I think it works kind of like that as is, depending on the ore.

2)Making mining always drop stone, but attach quality levels to stone. So a rookie miner will hack away and result in a poor quality stone. This would then cap the maximum quality of anything produced by that stone. So if a rookie miner pops out a low quality stone, even a legendary stonecrafter can't make anything better then 1 or 2 grades up from that. This would make experienced miners very important, especially for people wanting to maximize their wealth. It will also increase the time before people can start pumping out exceptional level gear. I think Artifacts would bypass that considering their rarity, but maybe masterpieces can only be accomplished with high level starting goods. So masterpieces will be much rarer as you have to wait until you have legendary miners pumping out legendary stones before your legendary mason can make a legendary wall with it

3)Ores: if a rookie miner hacks away at ore, it should drop as the base stone and not an ore. Your'e right, it doesn't make sense that you can hack a wall and nothign comes out, but it is believable that a novice would mark iron ore as "just gabbro" or whatever the base stone for iron is and never look back. So you could have diamonds embedded inside a stone, but nobody knows it because the miner was a rookie.

[Mephansteras]

My biggest objection has always been the ability to somehow 'ruin' metal ore while mining it. Ore is generally crushed as part of the smelting process anyway, how the heck do you lose it just because a novice miner can't mine out a whole chunk?

Regardless of what solution is eventually used, that problem will need to be addressed. Gems I can sort of see, but ore and coal just make no sense at all.

Look at it another way. You, the omniscient player knows there's ore there. But your rookie miner hacks away at it and throws it away in the "invisible gravel dump". Experienced miners know how to cut rocks to be usable as well as realizing that this isn't just garbage, but is really valuable iron or gold ore.

I'd buy that argument if it didn't happen with Legendary Miners standing right next to them. I just can't see dwarves letting the rookie 'throw out' gold ore by mistake.

[praguepride]

My biggest objection has always been the ability to somehow 'ruin' metal ore while mining it. Ore is generally crushed as part of the smelting process anyway, how the heck do you lose it just because a novice miner can't mine out a whole chunk?

Regardless of what solution is eventually used, that problem will need to be addressed. Gems I can sort of see, but ore and coal just make no sense at all.

Look at it another way. You, the omniscient player knows there's ore there. But your rookie miner hacks away at it and throws it away in the "invisible gravel dump". Experienced miners know how to cut rocks to be usable as well as realizing that this isn't just garbage, but is really valuable iron or gold ore.

I'd buy that argument if it didn't happen with Legendary Miners standing right next to them. I just can't see dwarves letting the rookie 'throw out' gold ore by mistake.

Just because the legendary miner is next to him doesn't mean he's looking over the guy's shoulder. If he's not good enough to be doing the job, he shouldn't be assigned to mine out gold.

Also, keep in mind that although you see it as a huge golden nugget, in reality ores are not nearly as distinct. There's a reason you have to grind up the rocks to uncover the ore...

[Mephansteras]

I realize that. It's just that any sensible mining operation would cart out ALL of the rock mined as part of a vein and either sort it or crush/roast/smelt it. You just don't risk gold like that. It's positively undwarvenly!

There was some talk of settings that determine the minumum skill level allowed to mine ore/gems, which would work as well (though still not be realistic). Micromanaging my mining operations is a pain.

[praguepride]

I pointed out in #2 that you could have poor quality stones. So maybe mining gold ore always produces a gold nugget, but if youre rookie does it, it's of poor quality compared to your legendary.

So poor quality 1/2's the base value of the ore and anything made from it. That's fine if you're just looking to fill a mandate of gold request, bad if you're trying to produce high quality items.

[Mephansteras]

That makes even less sense. Why would it matter who digs out the ore? It's just going to be melted down anyway. I can see having 'rich' and 'poor' pockets of metal, but who digs it out shouldn't matter. Not for stuff you're going to crush and melt anyway, at least. I could see that for stone quarries where you're going to be using the stone itself for something.

[lucusLoC]

@praguepride

i don't like the idea of rock quality at all. basic rock does not have a quality, it has a size. that is why i like the idea of having gravel, stone and blocks be a mining designation. you want blocks? don't use an inexperienced miner, since he will likely give you grave. that gravel can of course still be used in any quality of jewelery or decorations, but you will not be able to make mugs or a table out of it.

as to item storage, i think packing it back into map data and throwing out the item would help with the problem, as would Impaler[WrG]'s suggestion of just not checking those items every cycle.

[Mephansteras]

While I can see not giving rocks a quality for game reasons, rock really DOES have quality. This can range from attractive colors and patterns adding to the value to cracks and crumbling reducing the value.