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Author Topic: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !  (Read 7937 times)

teefek

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A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« on: October 03, 2008, 10:16:16 am »

Hey guys,
I'm new on this board and I would like to share a suggestion with you
that I have:

THE WINCH !

 

Oh yeah, it's a winch. Let me explain the concept to you:

There is an object that you would like to see moved on the z-axis. Let's say it's a huge rock that you want to be hanging over your entrance that is supposed to fall down and smash possible invaders.
The construction of the winch should basically work like the construction of a lever: You build the winch, just as you build the lever. Then you attach an object to it, in our example, it's the rock. In order to be able to attach the winch to the rock,  you need three things: a wheel, another wheel and a chain. This works approximately like linking a lever to an object, which you need mechanics for.
When the consctruction is finished, you can tell a dwarf to lift the object via the winch. When it's up there, the winch will be locked automatically.
There are several things that you could do know. One can tell the dwarf to unlock the winch and let the rock fall down, but this wouldn't work for our trap-example. Instead, you build a pressure plate behind the entrance and attach it to the winch. This way, the winch will be unlocked automatically. After the rock has fallen down, you can tell a dwarf to lift it and the trap is ready again.

The trap is of course just an example. You could also use the winch as a lift to move objects or persons. Therefore, you could make use of an option that you can set up: When you select the winch, you can set up how many z-levels the lift is supposed to be moved and wether it should move up or down. A dwarf that is told to use the winch will then move the lift, let's say, three levels down, to your stockpiles. Or three levels up, into your defense tower. Or you could lift a platform with cages six levels down in order to drown a bunch of goblins in a magma stream.

Again: just an example ! The possibilities are AMAZING !

You could also use it to:

-build your custom sized floodgate that can be lifted up/ down to reveal/ 
repress the power of a huge magma/water lake
-lift a piece of floor down in order to transport surprised invaders into your chambers
-use a lift to frequently drown your miasma-spilling reject stockpiles in a sea
of magma, thus burning the trash and cleaning the stockpiles
-build a crematorium
-lift down a massive wall in front of your door to shut it in case of an invasion

Or whatever you like !

I would really like to hear some comments/ideas/suggestions or whatever from you,

teefek

/EDIT: added the winch to the eternal suggestion voting
« Last Edit: October 04, 2008, 02:54:14 pm by teefek »
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Neoskel

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2008, 11:14:54 am »

Maybe just a machine to move items, and possibly dwarves between z-levels.

Of course combining it with a tower to make a crane and moving pre-built constructions into place would be pretty cool too.
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Skid

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2008, 11:36:22 am »

Or have it weight activated...

You order your troops into the lift cage, and they drop several z-levels into the middle of the goblin army.  When they get out, the cage shoots back up out of the goblin's reach, and ready to load the next batch of troops.
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teefek

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #3 on: October 03, 2008, 11:42:11 am »

Or have it weight activated...

You order your troops into the lift cage, and they drop several z-levels into the middle of the goblin army.  When they get out, the cage shoots back up out of the goblin's reach, and ready to load the next batch of troops.

I think that would be a neat way to send soldiers/ monsters into an arena.
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Idiom

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #4 on: October 03, 2008, 05:08:22 pm »

Sounds like a potential elevator.
Rig it up with a cage, and designate it as an elevator?
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krumlink

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #5 on: October 03, 2008, 08:51:27 pm »

Sounds like a potential elevator.
Rig it up with a cage, and designate it as an elevator?

Yeah and you could have a 3x3 elevator and put a ballista on it!
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teefek

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #6 on: October 04, 2008, 07:12:46 am »

Or one could build it on top of a volcano, attach a magma-proof cage trap to it and fish for fire imps. I think that would be fancy.
However, I really like the idea of attaching objects like walls to it. Shutting your entrance with such a wall during a goblin siege would be lots of fun.
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Ter13

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #7 on: October 04, 2008, 07:20:28 am »

Hell, I'd just use it to transport food to my nobles! Dumbwaiter anyone?

(I was actually just going to suggest some method of elevators, but I've been beaten to the punch.)
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Idiom

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #8 on: October 04, 2008, 12:49:12 pm »

How about to lower walls into liquid?
I made a suggestion about seawalls earlier, being able to build walls from the top by sinking them so that you could wall off bodies of water without all the tedious and usually impossible pump contraptions.
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Iden

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #9 on: October 04, 2008, 01:15:33 pm »

Isn't it almost already implied that there is some sort of "winch mechanism" already existing, except for the fact that you don't need to specifically build it, yourself?

A winch is a form of a mechanism, and mechanisms already exist, albeit in basic item form: "Mechanism". Winches, to me, seem to be a sort of advanced form of pulley, intended to make it so you no longer need to simply pull the rope/chain yourself and tie it off, but rather just work the mechanism that just simply requires you to turn it.

How do vertical bars get moved up/down? Of course this only does take place on one Z-level, not across multiple Z-levels, but it is implied that with the mechanisms attached to these things that it was lifted. You'd need some sort of pulley system to raise a portcullis, and how do doors connected [via mechanism] to levers stay open? Some sort of mechanism, of course. Most likely it's already implied that a winch is included in there and is just left out. As in your diagram, "possible lever/touch-plate attachments", it already seems to me that it's implied that these things are already existing as "mechanisms" (as that is what these things are), and all we see are the necessary pieces (lever/bars, etc.).

Raising and lowering things multiple Z-levels, however, would be a great idea, and i'd be surprised if Toady didn't already intend to do this. It should, however, require additional mechanisms being added to it for it to work properly.
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SolarShado

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #10 on: October 04, 2008, 02:45:14 pm »

Cool idea. Hope you don't mind if I elaborate with some ideas of my own:
 * each wheel/pulley is a seperate construction
 * chains can be routed through any number of pulleys in any order, provided there's line of sight between them
 * possibly require multiple chains for long stretches
 * the winch itself is an endpoint for the chain and requires either power or a dwarf to work (like a screw pump)
 * a bracket of some sort for the other endpoint, not sure how we'd designate how much was connected to it

This would open up a whole new world of possibilities for traps. ;D
(Aw. No evil smilie?)
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Glacies

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #11 on: October 08, 2008, 03:06:12 am »

I think this is a great idea, honestly. Of course, just one elevator wouldn't do for a main fortress area. You'd need, maybe four different elevators? And perhaps much later, they could decay if you use cheap rope and become falling traps.

And having a tower with an elevator to the top wuold be pretty cool. The fishing for fire imps thingy sounds..er...problematic.

Footkerchief

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #12 on: October 08, 2008, 02:51:05 pm »

Cool idea. Hope you don't mind if I elaborate with some ideas of my own:
 * each wheel/pulley is a seperate construction
 * chains can be routed through any number of pulleys in any order, provided there's line of sight between them
 * possibly require multiple chains for long stretches
 * the winch itself is an endpoint for the chain and requires either power or a dwarf to work (like a screw pump)
 * a bracket of some sort for the other endpoint, not sure how we'd designate how much was connected to it

This would open up a whole new world of possibilities for traps. ;D
(Aw. No evil smilie?)

This is an EXCELLENT start.  Seriously, I'm impressed by how well you thought this out.  I'd like to add on, sorry if it gets too long.  I'm going to call the non-winch end of the rope the "hook," for brevity.

Pulleys and winches probably shouldn't accept more than one rope, and ropes shouldn't be allowed to loop back to the same pulley.  It could potentially get very confusing.

The winch should have these jobs:
* Attach rope -- only allowed when no rope already attached.  The interface should be similar to other mechanical attachments.  User first picks a rope, then picks from a list of pulleys with line-of-sight to the winch, and can keep choosing unused pulleys with proper LOS.  You could also not select any pulleys, and let the rope hang directly from the winch.
* Winch in -- retracts rope by one tile, as long as the hook extends past the final pulley.  The hook shouldn't retract through a pulley.
* Winch out -- extends rope by one tile, as long as the hook isn't already touching a floor.  Should be as easy as pulling a lever, i.e. quick and effortless.
* Winch in completely
* Winch out completely
* Release rope -- rope disconnects and falls straight down from the hook's current position, allowing a new rope to be connected

The hook hangs from the final pulley, but it can't hang straight down through the same tile, since the pulley has to be built on a floor tile.  It would have to hang down through an adjacent empty tile instead.  So maybe when you're attaching a rope to a winch, after selecting pulleys, you would choose a "hang direction" for the final pulley (N, S, E, W).  Or, maybe you could rotate the pulley at any time like a ballista.  This applies to winches too, in case the rope is hanging directly from the winch.

For simplicity, winches probably shouldn't drag things horizontally.  The hook should hang vertically and only move up and down.  It would get way too complicated to have ropes draping across the ground, etc.

Attaching objects to the hook -- lots to think about here.  Certain item types could attach directly, like bins and cages.  You'd probably have to use a trade depot-style interface (accessed from winch building) to select the items.  The dwarf attaching the item stands next to the hook, wherever it's hanging.

Diagonal ropes shouldn't be too hard -- the game already knows how to approximate diagonals for LOS, patrol waypoints, etc.  ASCII slashes could be used for displaying them, like for diagonally flying projectiles.

Should ropes block movement or not?  I don't think axles do, so maybe not.

Elevators would be cool but making dwarves use them intelligently would be a fucking nightmare.  In fact, most of the OP's ideas -- moving big sections of wall, etc. -- would be extremely difficult, probably ten times as hard as the relatively simple stuff I'm suggesting.  Still, it's a great basic idea and dwarfy as hell.
« Last Edit: October 09, 2008, 12:47:48 pm by Footkerchief »
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SolarShado

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2008, 10:11:24 pm »

Nice expansion. But what'd you have in mind as to usefull things to attach?

I have to agree about the difficulty of connecting large sections of wall and/or an elevator, just from an interface perspective. But what does that leave, other that item hauling?

Also, I notice you used "ropes" instead of "chains". That got me thinking about possibility of requiring chains for heavier loads.
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MagicJuggler

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Re: A WINCH to lift whatever you want !
« Reply #14 on: October 09, 2008, 11:19:02 am »

Cages for one. If the end of the winch was a claw-hand, pressing a lever to open the hand would drop the cage. E.g. you could execute prisoners by dropping them from a large distance (or into the lake of spikes, etc).
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