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[Tamren]

*edit: DOH!   meant to edit. too late now -_-

What i mean by that more specifically. Is that with new ideas come benefits, and also problems.

The bike for example, in its first incarnation had NO brakes. A little while later, brakes were added, adressing the problem of stopping the bike. You now have a bike that works! and bikes are awesome!

It might be comforting to stick with the simple systems we have now, but with a little effort we can do so much more.

[ August 11, 2007: Message edited by: Tamren ]

[praguepride]

A bit of a rez but this thread was the closest to what I was thinking about for updating trees.


Tree Age & Type
I like the idea of tracking wood based on type of tree. I don't like the tree outputs (1 big log, X little logs etc.) as I think wood should just be tracked as wood. Once a gravel system is implemented for rocks, we can start tracking branches vs. trunk etc. but for now let's try and at least keep the UI simple. Wood is wood. As for tree profiles, having "this type of wood produces X logs" is one thing, but I think tracking "light levels" for growing rates is crossing the line into ridiculous-ville.


Tree Size:
I was thinking that saplings should be saplings, regular trees should be regular trees. However, especially in elven forests there should be a new terrain that is basically a "gargantuan tree". This would be represented by having "minable trees". Basically a mini mountain with vertical sides and outgrowths. The eventual goal would be to enable elves to build their homes on top of these trees (in the similar way that you can build on top of mountains now) or carve out the insides of the tree.

So maybe a tree might be 20 z-levels of a 10x10 trunk with branches extending near the top. You can build stairs inside or outside of the trunk and then build platforms etc. on top of the branches.

I think at a basic level you don't need to worry about killing the tree, but you could have a "core" that if dug into would "kill" the tree. It would have no impact on the tree in the game (no rotting or stuff falling off) but elves would consider this a HUGELy punishable offence, and would declare war immediately. If playing as elves, it should be treated as impassable "The elven miner refuses to breach the heartwood of this magnificant tree".

Anyway, you would mine it like rock, except using axes instead of picks and each square would drop wood instead of stone.

3Ripping trees with strength
Interesting concept, wouldn't be opposed to it at all. In the far future when you can have multiple races in an embark, having a giant "tree cutter' might be highly effecitve.

Fallen trees:
Once the tree is out, the wood cutter should just queue up a job item of "chop up fallen tree". Whether by axe or by hand, the "fallen tree" object is converted into X wood objects (X depending on tree type & age). As shared labor isn't implemented nor does it look to be done anytime soon, it's hard to predict how you'd have teams of dwarves haul back trees, so why not just have it done on the spot. That's how it used to work, they'd saw up the tree where it lay. Now they have cranes that can load up the timber into trucks, but back then with a full-sized tree you'd need a crap ton of dwarves just to move it...why even bother when you can chop it up on the ground and haul "dwarf-sized" pieces of wood back at your leisure?

Outputs:
Tracking planks vs. rounds seems trivially micro. I like how you can have rough wood and smooth wood. So the rough cut wood is hauled to whatever wood stockpile you have. You can either use it as is in a carpenter shop or you can bring it to a sawmill shop (or maybe even carpenter shop does both, think of the jeweler cutting AND encrusting in the same shop). There you can have wood smoothed. It will result in nicer outputs from carpenter, craft, and bowyer shops (wood burners don't care), but at the added expense of time.

Workshop profiles could be set up to say "only use rough/smooth wood".

The system proposed above is nicely thought of, but seems horrendously complicated as a whole. It can be hard enough to track stuff for the more complicated mechanisms as is, but adding this kind of micromanagement to simple stuff like beds and barrels is horribly tedious. I don't want to have to keep track of 5 different stockpile items to create a simple bed or barrel. Keeping it to smooth/rough wood is deep enough without crossing the tedium threshold.

I think a better solution would be to just increase the log requirements as appropriate and assume the "carving" is done on site. So if you build a barrel out of "rounds" then you just get a single smooth plank, call it retroactively "a round" and go from there. Instead of needing a beam, it just takes 3 planks that are retroactively considered "part" of each other.

Even if planks vs. beams vs. rounds are tracked, you definitely should never track halfsies as that just gets into tedium. Notice how you don't track "half" stones or "half" bars. It's assumed that anything not used in construction can be used to help "assist" other constructions or just disappeared as waste.


Waste/Byproducts
On that note, please oh god no sawdust. Please don't make my dwarves haul around one unit of saw dust every time I want to make a bed, or worse yet use up valuable storage devices like bins/barrels/bags for sawdust.

I actually like how tedious stuff isn't tracked, like biowaste and waste byproducts from reactions (like gravel, smoke, sawdust). Sure it's not quite as realistic, but neither is the abstracted system of eating, sleeping, and drinking. Right now critters eat what, twice a year? Abstraction is NECESSARY to make the game playable.

For those of you "realism is king", just realize that the "scrap" is saved to help fill in gaps later. So when a dwarf accidentally screws up a joint, he can get some scrap wood from a bin. At least in all my carpentry projects, I always need scrap wood here or a bit of sawdust there. Actually tracking it in a game would be tedious, as it's usually used for ad hoc reasons (oh, the chair is a little wobbly, here tack this on the bottom to even it out). Again, a level of abstraction is necessary to keep the game from collapsing under it's own weight.


I am comfortable with sawmills generating "maisma" during the smoothing process. Dwarves don't like sawdust flying in the air so I do like the idea of "encouraging" some kind of ventalation system. Maybe it could be done with forges & wood burners too, but I believe that dwarves don't mind smoke at all which is why it's not tracked as "maisma".

Tower Caps
Should be treated like any other tree, except they have the [UNDERGROUND] tag on them (or whatever) so they go underground instead of on land. Otherwise, they should be identical to trees. Just like you dont' eat saplings, you don't eat small tower caps.

FruitTrees
This would be neat. Have "some" regular trees produce fruit. They'd be restricted to appropriate climates (apples = temperate, oranges & bananas = tropical etc.).They should be visually distinguishable so that players wouldn't accidentally cut them down, but you should be able to cut them down.

Perhaps when designating trees to cut you can select "All trees" (default) or "Non-fruit Trees" to avoid accidentally cutting down your apple orchid.

[Andeerz]

I LOVE the minable tree sorta idea for gargantuan trees!!!  But it wouldn't be the "core" (heartwood) that would be keeping the tree alive.  In fact, that would be the mine-able part !  The part of the tree trunk that would be vital for its survival is the outer layer of wood, or sapwood.  If you mine most of that out on a single z level, it would kill the tree. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood#Heartwood_and_sapwood

This would be interesting, trying to mine into a such a large tree...  I can imagine it: mining into the tree from the outside would require breaching the bark and then mining through the sapwood.  Torrents of sticky sap would start coming out, creating quite a hazard.

It also brings visions of Avatar...

Also, about smoke:  http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Smoke

Dorfs do get unhappy thoughts from it and do mind it.

[beekay]

I have to be honest, almost all of this looks like pointless complexity to me. How would adding in 15 different forms of wood make the game more fun? I could imagine it making things irritating, or fiddly, or hard to keep track of... I'm not seeing how it helps anything else.

What I do like is the different sizes of trees (which we'd need an easy way to represent graphically - like an adult tree being 4 square tile, and an elder one being 9 squares) and the more dangerous, gradual operation of woodcutting. If embarking in heavy forest meant you'd have to spend 10 days clearing the ground before getting any work done, that would actually give you a real reason not to embark in a heavy forest!

After that, though, I'd be in favour of just smoothing it all down to "adult tree gives 6 logs, elder gives 8, etc" and having these logs be processed into planks, or left whole for ballista bolts. Most of that complexity can be abstracted away without actually sacrificing much.

Edit: this was from 2007? Damn you, zombie threads!

[praguepride]

I needed someplace to dump my "minable trees" idea.

[darkrider2]

I'm loving the idea about trees that live for 600+ years. Finally! A place for elves to live. I also like that larger trees yield more wood.

I also like the seed spreading and I really like the possible ability for dwarves to bring tree seeds with them.

The one thing that I don't like is the massive amount of different pieces of the tree you can get. Since DF only has three different categories; constructions, furniture, and items, you'd only need 3 different sizes/types.

Regarding the sawmill.

only a few tasks:

Process Fallen Tree - dwarves cut up the tree into the biggest chunks first, then the next biggest, then the next biggest, until all of the tree is used up.

Cut Wood - This is so if you have a bunch of big chunks and you want some small chunks for crafting, you can cut the big ones up.

Production Profile - Go into this menu to choose what chunks to produce. So if you don't need massive pieces for construction, the sawmill won't produce any, just a whole lot more of the next biggest piece.

Think of a sawmill like a butchers shop... chops things up into their byproducts. Although I think wood production could be simplified, some of the byproducts could be useful for DF, like making paper.

[Fearless Son]

I will have to agree with Darkrider2.  We do not want the system to get too complex, but it could do with a few more steps as it is.  Making a tree drop more "logs" based on its age is a good idea, I think.  A woodcutter can fell the tree, then spend some time cutting it into logs, with the time spent depending on how old the tree is.  It would mean that initial cutting in a region would result in a lot of logs from a few trees, but eventually wood production would drop down since the saplings that grow in their place will never get as much wood during a playable period as some trees that have been there since worldgen.  It would encourage players to worry about more sustainable harvesting in the long run.  Maybe it pisses off elves more if you cut down ancient trees than if you cut down fresher ones? 

I like the sawmill too, as it would finally give some other things to do with those giant serrated disks, and would be good for hooking up to extra mechanical power.  And yes, waterwheel-powered spinning sawblades have been in use since medieval times.  However, dedicated sawmills should not be the only thing you can use to turn rough logs into useable boards.  That should be an option at a carpenter's shop as well, and works the same way that a jeweler's shop might cut rough gems into smooth ones.  Early on, you might have one carpenter's shop dedicated to cutting logs into boards, while another shop works the boards into other objects.  Later on, once you get the necessary mechanical infrastructure in place, you could set up a sawmill to process the logs much more quickly than could be done at a carpenter's shop and with less labor.  I can also see sawdust being produced as a powder-type byproduct, though I am not sure what gameplay use it would have.  Cleaning vomit off of surfaces, maybe? 

Boards themselves would likely be much more stackable than logs, probably requiring a bin.  Most jobs that require wood would use boards than logs, which would also allow us to introduce some granularity into their material requirements.  For example, a bed or bin require different amounts of boards than a wooden craft or a wooden wall.  I feel like this kind of system would tie in pretty naturally to the existing wood industry, and the layer of complexity it adds is pretty modest and not anything we have not seen before in other industries. 

[Darbuk.Ubildolush]

First let me say the amount of attention you paid to detail here is amazing, and I'm quite impressed with all you've done.

Second, let me say that the complexity presented is delightful, and I would revel in using this in my fortress and games.  I absolutely think this level of complexity adds to the game and makes it rather delicious all around.  But then I feed on game complexity.  I really don't see there being any need for simplifying the process as presented.

Now, onto suggested additions to the concept as presented:


Uses for sawdust:
I've always felt that beds need to be updated a little, with 'filling' and 'bedding', with 'pillows' as a separate item.  Sawdust can be used to stuff the beds as a basic component, as well as the pillows, though it would be considered a low quality stuffing.  (Unless it happen to be one of your dwarves preferences "Darbuk Ubildulosh likes sawdust for it's fragrant smell", this could be extended to even having specific preferences "cedar sawdust" or just "cedar for it's fragrant smell")

Sawdust could of course be burned down to ash/potash (certainly not charcoal) as a base for incense (if we're ever to see that), lining for, certain animal pens and as mentioned earlier as a component in gardening/farming.

Other things not considered:
Certain trees, specifically Cedar, has fibers between the bark and wood that can be harvested to use for many things, including clothes, bags, fishing nets, and rope.  This would definitely be a worthwhile investment, and would add to the Elves 'realism' as it can also be harvested without killing the tree (The Pacific NW Native American tribes did this all the time).

Considering the fibrous nature of mushrooms, and therefor mushroom trees, they could absolutely be processed into fiber, spun, woven, and used for any purpose cloth could be used for.  They would definitely produce more usable material than a cedar tree would.  So one could have a mushroom tree forest with the distinct purpose of harvesting them to be processed into clothing.

Additional uses for trees beyond fruits, leaves, and nuts.
Producing maple syrup from trees by application of buckets and taps (the former created by carpenters, the latter by carpenters, stone, or metalsmiths).  Dwarves would set these up, and then retrieve them a week or so later when they were full.  This process could only be done in Spring.  The result would be 'raw maple syrup' which would be processed in a kitchen into 'processed maple syrup'.

Resin could be collected and processed into Turpentine, which is a common medication for both humans and animals, can be processed with beeswax or other waxes to create a furniture wax in the alchemists lab. (I could see this being a task available from the alchemists lab or carpentry lab as a form of 'encrusting with jewels' for wood, only called "treat wood") it would be created from sap/resin in an alchemists shop into vials, and the furniture wax would be processed into 'jars' made from any number of materials.

Just my initial thoughts.

[NW_Kohaku]

A "bit" of a rez?  It's August 2007, and this whole place has only been around since what, 2006?

Anyway, I was actually thinking of something like this, thanks to the way we are using density in the upcoming version.

I was hoping that density and stacking could work together, such as by making it if, instead of having just plain "iron bars" that weigh 1570 units, we could have all the iron stack togher as "10 kg of iron bars" or "20 kg of iron bars".

It then led me to the thought that trees should continue growing on an annual basis, so that logs were measured in variable amounts of mass, as well.  Trees could grow in size based on, among other things, just plain time or the amount of rainfall that occured in the previous season.  This way, a tree would keep growing "fatter" as time goes on.

If we have units of density and raw mass, it therefore leaves only volume as another variable.  We could simply determine the amount of mass a tree would have to grow into until its density would demand more space.  This way, we wouldn't have a strict age = size formula.

I wonder if we should have root systems, as well?  Roots that eventually eat through stone, and crush them to soil types?

A sawmill type device might be necessary, though, for turning raw lumber into usable planks of wood that should be of uniform size for ease-of-interface.  Planks would be certain volumes of wood, so that you would have to round down to the nearest integer value of planks from the wood that you chop down, which, admittedly, seems a little less than ideal, as it means that size doesn't matter until it hits the next integer value to give you two planks of wood.  Unless, of course, the integer values were made small, and we just started making multiple planks of wood be required for different tasks in the lumber industry.  (Provided stacking is properly implimented, this shouldn't be too much strain on the system, the way that huge quantities of stone are now, as this wouldn't make multiple discrete items as much as make a stack that had one object of wood which has a stack multiplier.)

----

Talking about what other people have posted, however...

I like the idea of avoiding the sapwood, but living in the tree...  You could theoretically mine up from inside the root system, and make it an effective tower.  (Then you could make fortifications out of little holes carved in the surface of the tree, and spit arrows out at invaders, heehee!)

Miasma would only be OK if we reworked the way it works a little, like with the way that we were talking about in that chimneys thread.  If it means I literally have to make my fortress open-air, and let fliers down the chimneys whenever they want?  No.  If I can set up waste gas ventilation systems that involve grates?  Very well.

Towercaps that were somehow encouraged to grow huge would be quite funny.  You could theoretically give your dwarves mushroom houses, like in Morrowind.

Fruit Trees is something really for the Improved Farming thread, though.  Also, keep in mind that plant names were changed to protect the innocent in Dwarf Fortress.  (There are innocents in Dwarf Fortress?)  That means there are no apples or oranges.

I like the idea that we can get paper out of scraps from making planks, though.  Otherwise, however, I think sawdust is probably going to need something like an off-map landfill option, or plenty of atom-smashing abuse to deal with.

----

Something I have to address, though, is that a fortress that makes it 10-15 years is considered "old" for the people who play this game.  Let's be honest with ourselves - unless these things existed beforehand, we are unlikely to see trees in an area even remotely close to embark points survive longer than 3 years.  Unless we have special tree-growing tools given to our dwarves to help fertilize trees and make them grow quickly and remain healthy, we aren't going to see giant trees...

And that kind of *shudder* tree nurturing *shudder* sounds awfully elven to me.