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Author Topic: Blood, mud and vomit (oh my)  (Read 856 times)

palin88

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Blood, mud and vomit (oh my)
« on: November 14, 2007, 11:48:00 pm »

I have a feeling that there's a more permanent solution being worked on to the whole cleaning and mud creep problem. In the mean time I was brainstorming on how to deal with my above-ground fortress that's now mostly covered in blood, from a single kobold kill a few seasons back.

Anyhow, the idea goes as follows, rate the blood/mud/vomit the same way water depth is handled, some sort of ranking from 1-3 say. A 3/3 tile, say a "pool" of blood can be be spread to surrounding tiles as a 2/3 depth say a "splash" of blood. Then if someone walks on the 2/3 tile they can spread it as a 1/3 "smear" of blood.

At the least, this will prevent a single corpse from causing an entire fortress to be painted red. I mean, at this point that kobold probably had a dozen gallons of blood in him to be able to cause this much scarlet spread.

Having a multiple strength rating for "mess intensity" could allow dwarves to clean up small messes quickly, and pools of filth will require a bit more work. Then maybe expand it so that mud will progressively dry out from 3/3 to 1/3, which will mean you'll need to replenish it using irrigation systems, something that many people I think have complained about. It was a bit frustrating making an elaborate flood gate system, only to realize that it only has to be used once.

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Empty

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Re: Blood, mud and vomit (oh my)
« Reply #1 on: November 15, 2007, 04:02:00 am »

Why not just make a "Clean" designation?
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Tyrion

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Re: Blood, mud and vomit (oh my)
« Reply #2 on: November 15, 2007, 04:13:00 am »

Or just distinguish between active sources of mud or blood (soil tiles, farm plots, dead bodies) and surfaces that are only muddy or bloody.

Passing through an active source should give an X% chance to spread the coating to the next tile.

Passing through a coated surface should give even chances to spread it to the next tile or remove the coating altogether.  That way, only areas near sources of filth would reliably stay filthy.

And yes, dwarves armed with rags, buckets of water, and soap should be able to clean their fortress, their animals (except cats?!) and themselves.

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Stromko

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Re: Blood, mud and vomit (oh my)
« Reply #3 on: November 15, 2007, 04:49:00 am »

quote:
Originally posted by palin88:
<STRONG>It was a bit frustrating making an elaborate flood gate system, only to realize that it only has to be used once.</STRONG>

Non-permanent mud is all well and good for a fortress that has a river or large lake, but on many maps a single flood is all they can get. Especially on hot maps where pools will disappear and never come back. Farms that require irrigation every year might be more realistic, but it'd make many maps unplayable right now.

This might be a good idea once water/ice replenishment is in the game.

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Tyrion

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Re: Blood, mud and vomit (oh my)
« Reply #4 on: November 15, 2007, 05:27:00 am »

All this is assuming we want to keep the current system whereby flooding a bare rock floor with water from a flowing mountain stream leaves it covered in enough dirt to grow mushrooms in.

A more realistic underground farming model would let you haul in soil dug from outside, or to help soilless maps, slowly create soil on refuse dumps in proportion to your number of dwarves and tame animals, if you get my drift.

Irrigation is a separate problem, but I'm not sure that all maps should be playable.  In the Old West if you sent settlers to a site without water, they were going to die out, and rightly so.  Maps should be scoutable in more detail, yes -- give more warnings along the line of the aquifer warning, or let us peek at the site map, as a settling party would naturally do anyway.  There's a reason why water dowsing was such an in-demand "skill" in the old days.

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