Brainstorm - Environment Idea - Cave-ins

[Sebt]

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.

I remember Shai'Huluds, the greatest worms on Arrakis, big, durable and that can even make electric sparks around them to defend, like this one here:

Or this one:




But to be honest all creatures in Dwelvers suppose to be able to capture, so I don't know, it should have also special military use too and it's digging skills could also be very helpful in dungeon excavations, like Globlin Robot in Warcraft 3 that could cut 300 units of wood in one time, when Peasants could only cut them 10.

About undigable blocks. When I proposed to implement a resource that could power Golems I suggested also somewhere that some deeper parts or special resources like mentioned before requires better digging equipment to extract those resources - maybe that could be sort of drill that part for manufacturing it could be taken from Crocrodrille?

[Rasmus]

We have gone in a little bit different way than the crocodrille it seems, I will be posting some screenshots here very soon with the new creature.

About the cave-ins and how the technically works:
Some of the blocks will have a mineral imprinted in them called cave-ins (invisible for the player), these are spread out through the dungeon just like the iron veins are. The only difference is that if these cave-ins minerals gets revealed in the dungeon, then they will "explode" and take a 3x3x3 volume with them. Now, depending on the depth of the cave in different things can happen. Maybe nothing happens, maybe a underground water river gets revealed, maybe a lava river get revealed, or maybe a couple of underground creatures comes out and starts attacking the players allies nearby.

[Rasmus]

Okay so we went in a bug direction.

[IMG]replace_photbucket_link/BugWalk.gif[/IMG]

[IMG]replace_photbucket_link/BugAttack.gif[/IMG]

What do you think?

[Mello Tonin]

Yes!!! That's much better. I think an insect makes much more sense when it comes to a burrowing creature since many species build habitats underground or by boring into trees. What do you guys think about Trogosaur? It's like a beetle lizard since it looks like it has features like a beetle, and its underbelly looks reptilian.

[SGrayWolf]

I like the insect approach, makes sense and it looks nifty to me! =)

[Tamorr]

Nice looking mutated rolly poley, well is what I've called them. Don't remember what they are actually called. Small insects resembling a short centipede that curls up into a ball if you mess with them.

Anyways that looks quite nice, and quite fitting. Also reminds me of an ant creature meets Alien. Something like that.

[Sebt]

That's a very nice creature there!
I wonder how he senses surrounding, with what, claws? :p

[wildmick]

if you feed them to the mother, you get your own drillobites ) my first one was aptly named "driller".. so i've started calling them drillobites.

personally i find the cave-ins a little too frequent. The original intent was to make the player explore and dig outwards, rather than downwards so much. And with that in mind, i'd like to see the cave-ins further away from the mother. At the same time, i'd like to see more permanent rock closer to the mother forcing the player to expand out instead of down. I can see that this has happened somewhat already with a pyramid type setup originating from the mother, but beyond that is quite easy to just dig down, grab everything you need rather than explore outward.

When i encounter a cave in, often there is water or lava involved, and while its time consuming, i just build rock blocks on top of the water and fill it all in, then dig down again. I don't think it should be possible to build rock walls on water or lava. Its like, the water might be 5 blocks deep, yet i can still build a rock block on the water, then it gets revealed there is more water, build another and another till there is no water, move onto the next water space. In that instance i think you should only be able to build wooden bridges on water, stone on lava. by removing the ability to build those rock walls on water or lava, you give a player a reason to use the storage of blocks of water and lava, and the trasportation of it.

There will be those that want to create a moat for example. They'll dig out a moat, find some lava and use the bucket feature to transport it to the moat.

I've wandered off on a tangent lol..

i like the idea of cave-ins revealing hidden dangers or treasures far from your safe home region. Maybe there is a hidden tomb hidden somewhere underground, and a chance cave in releases a roaming umber hulk, or a gelatinous cube or slime or something, a hidden terror from the deeps that will attack both yourself and the humans it encounters. Maybe you find a hidden dwarven treausre vault riddled with traps and sliding walls etc.

[Mello Tonin]

I just dropped in before bed, and see that you weren't kiddin about makin some suggestions. XD Just getting around to lookin at the first since I should really be in bed right now. I think the whole cave-ins too frequent issue has been brought up elsewhere, but I agree if not too frequent they are too close together often times. When you bring up the fact that you can just fill dirt on top of water or lava and they disappear, that's something I've not really thought so much about until I read it. I mean I get a bit disappointed filling in water that I could be gathering for a designed water feature elsewhere instead of Alt+W'n it at will, but it would be kinda cool if the fill dirt in water would just raise the water level.

Hidden Tomb! That's a winner!

...and with that I say, g'nite