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23-06-2015, 01:56 AM
(This post was last modified: 23-06-2015, 09:12 AM by Sebt.)
When playing Dwelvers I have noticed that it can be way to easy to get your hand on resources, it is just to dig straight down so that you don't encounter enemies.
To make it a little bit harder for the player to do so and to force him to dig outwards a bit as well I would like to introduce cave ins. The game mechanics behind these will be that the map will have "empty areas" in it hidden by the rock, and the deeper down it is, the more frequent it will be with "empty areas". When the player dig into one of these empty areas so that it gets visible from the outside, then the "empty area" will collaps and all the rock above it will fall down. Any creatures that fall with the cavein will get hurt, and with the cave in I will probably make it so that some creatures will spawn as well.
What do you think?
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That would sure add some careful planning to the mix. A bit of danger and surprise to digging every so often. Makes me wonder what would have a chance to spawn...
Intriguing in the very least. 
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This feature would definitely add more danger and challenge to the field. A few questions come to mind, I will probably think of more later on. xD
If there are creatures in those hidden areas and cave-ins can injure our creatures, what prevents the creatures spawned in there from being injured?
If we have a room nearby and a cave-in occurs which damages/affects the room itself, what happens then?
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I was thinking that we could have creatures in there that can live underground. Something worm-like perhaps. About the room, I think it would be coolest if the room just sunk down with the cave in.
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Worm-like... Reminds me of Tremors... The movie trilogy. Or even Dune. So many references if it is. But at least would make sense to be something that moves around in the rock/dirt. Simple is best in this case.
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23-06-2015, 07:31 PM
(This post was last modified: 23-06-2015, 07:32 PM by Mello Tonin.)
Yeah, I think it's high time we see the Rockworm in one form or another. That was a really cool idea from Palandus, which really fits the conversation.
As far as cave-ins, this is really a good idea and really just makes sense. You can't dig underground without making bracers to prevent cave-ins, and it should be the same in the game world. It seems almost instinctive to build 3x3 and 5x5 rooms so that would make a good 2D limit preventing a cave-in. Then a limit would need to be set for digging down. So let's say you've dug a 3x3 area, and since the pressures that would cause a cave-in are less than a 5x5 area, perhaps in this case you could dig down 5 blocks instead of 3 blocks for a 5x5 area.
The thing is if we have to brace the ceiling to dig deeper, we will need some way to do that. This also will create issues in the open areas where water and lava are so there may need to be exclusionary rules where those are concerned.
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(23-06-2015, 07:31 PM)Mello Tonin Wrote: Yeah, I think it's high time we see the Rockworm in one form or another. That was a really cool idea from Palandus, which really fits the conversation.
Yeah, some really interesting ideas there indeed!
(23-06-2015, 07:31 PM)Mello Tonin Wrote: As far as cave-ins, this is really a good idea and really just makes sense. You can't dig underground without making bracers to prevent cave-ins, and it should be the same in the game world. It seems almost instinctive to build 3x3 and 5x5 rooms so that would make a good 2D limit preventing a cave-in. Then a limit would need to be set for digging down. So let's say you've dug a 3x3 area, and since the pressures that would cause a cave-in are less than a 5x5 area, perhaps in this case you could dig down 5 blocks instead of 3 blocks for a 5x5 area.
True, but it will be possible to rebuild unless we remove the build rock option.
(23-06-2015, 07:31 PM)Mello Tonin Wrote: The thing is if we have to brace the ceiling to dig deeper, we will need some way to do that. This also will create issues in the open areas where water and lava are so there may need to be exclusionary rules where those are concerned.
I am not sure I see the issue there. Could you expand on it?
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I'm not sure where I stand on this. On one hand, I do agree that it shouldn't be the default and optimal strategy to just dig down to the bottom, all around the dark mother, and only as a last resort dig outwards. On the other, if it's not desired that the players dig all the way down all the time, do we really need so many levels of depth? It's cool to have a few, but having so much tends to make me think "if I don't dig out all the way to the bottom, I'll either be missing out on important resources, or I'll need to screw up all of my rooms later when I want to get these extracted." Having 5 sub-levels instead of 10 would probably be better, imo, because depth is redundant if our dungeon is essentially in two dimensions (can't have rooms above other rooms).
Though really, the current pickaxe mechanics that makes rooms slide down kind of seems like a cave-in to me. The room is preserved, but it needs to be sold and rebuilt to get it level again, so it's essentially ruined. Perhaps constructing a mine should allow one to extract minerals from a block without removing that block? Thus allowing us to dig under buildings? The more mines we have close together, the greater the odds of them not holding out and collapsing? May as well completely wreck the rooms above, though (items in room are preserved, but room is removed without getting the resources back). Or maybe it replaces the block that is mined with a support block, that creatures can walk through (allowing for tunnels), but which, if not reinforced, and if there's too much stuff above and too many others of its type nearby, could collapse.
Increasing risk for mining out the bottom sounds like a good idea, though. Perhaps one can uncover lava (just like digging straight down is a bad idea in MineCraft), which can burn creatures. Perhaps bottom floor rock has a chance to periodically spawn a certain type of creature (like rockworms), thus digging out a trench around the dungeon might be fine, but building the entire dungeon on the bottom floor is a foolish idea, and so is keeping too much bottom floor exposed at any time. With bottom floor spawning, though, I think it should be possible to build bridges over voids, and not just over lava or water. That's actually be a nice feature even without any new mechanics, though.
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What I was meaning is that say for instance having a 5x5x3 area dug out may be fine and you're not risking a cave-in there, but when you come across an underground lake say with a 20x10 area it covers as well as 4 tiles down from the ceiling, then you end up with an area that should be caved-in. If it caves-in when you explore to it, then you've lost all the water and the fish in it.
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(24-06-2015, 04:45 PM)Mello Tonin Wrote: What I was meaning is that say for instance having a 5x5x3 area dug out may be fine and you're not risking a cave-in there, but when you come across an underground lake say with a 20x10 area it covers as well as 4 tiles down from the ceiling, then you end up with an area that should be caved-in. If it caves-in when you explore to it, then you've lost all the water and the fish in it.
But in that case, what's the point? If an environment is only a certain way for as long as it is unexplored, and that it changes to something else as soon as it is explored, then it's no different than if it was the latter from the beginning? Large open areas serve no purpose if they fall down as soon as they are explored.
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Yeah I know the large open areas would be kind of pointless then, but I was referring to what Rasmus mentioned in the initial post about exploring into open areas. Plus because the maps are generated already with sometimes really large open areas, this could cause some issues in game play depending on the rules governing a cave-in.
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24-06-2015, 07:46 PM
(This post was last modified: 24-06-2015, 07:48 PM by Sebt.)
Seriously, I like this sort of Minesweeper idea. Maybe could we be able to set how dense are such surprising cave-ins? Maybe we could even find a hidden mine, other trap or some item there if we're lucky? 
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24-06-2015, 10:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 24-06-2015, 10:53 PM by Rasmus.)
I would say that we could still make these big 20x20 rooms but not that deep perhaps, because there will be a greater risk at the depth. Lets say that the 2 first layers don't get caveins at all. But from that point it will increase.
I am probably going to make it so that the rooms get destroyed by cave ins. And we also had a discussion here somewhere about making rock underneath rooms undigable.
About the rockworm. Burningpet made this one, what do you think?
[IMG]replace_photbucket_link/CaveCrawler.png[/IMG]
It is like a rock digger crocodile.
Any name suggestions?
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Maybe once I get home and get "inspired" I can come up with something, but nothing really sounds right that combines crocodile and drilling/digging. To be honest, it's kinda hard to wrap my head around a burrowing crocodile not to detract from Ben's art. Looks good man.
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24-06-2015, 11:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 24-06-2015, 11:37 PM by Excess.)
Crockodrill?
I'm sorry...
Regarding the cave-ins, I'm totally behind them.
Or perhaps, another idea easier to implement (to an extent) could be that if you make a hole 3 blocks deep, the walls around it collapse, killing the imps/rogues/orcs that where digging, and filling the hole with a dirt block. Maybe make it a 25% random chance to happen?
This way, to dig all the way down you would have to expand outward too, taking away walls so they don't colapse. There should be some way to reinforce the walls though, maybe 1 wood? This would stop the free defacing of the land, but still allow to do it for aesthetics/architecture reasons.
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