Rubble wall (Added a poll, Yes or No? )

[Bobisme]

A basic low HP wall made from stone chunks, lacks the ability to hold up a roof, takes any chunk, not a 'stone type' catagorized wall.

I'm digging deep into a mountain right now, a decent winding passage and then a straight that goes 40 long give or take.
I'm just waiting for a bug infestation, i can see my guys being trapped. A rubble wall would be nice, the mad panic as one places rubble as the other tries to tunnel out

....possibly something anyone can build? like an extended haul..  though someone specialized in construction can build slightly better and faster?

EDIT: I say no roof as i consider a chunk wall being able to hold up a roof OP considering integrity, i left just a yes or no in the poll..We can deal with semantics later heh

[Call me Arty]

 This is just one of those things that should be in the game, right next to steel slag walls. Sometimes you just want a cheap wall somewhere without the extra work of having to cut a bunch of stone or in places where wood isn't abundant.

[Bolgfred]

I think a cheap wall would also fit into the floor designs, as there is flagstone as a fast way and stone tiles as a pretty one.
Having the same in walls would make sense.

Anyway, in question of balancing I think there is an issue that if one chunk per wall is used, it would be kind of costy, as refined a chunk contains 20 bricks, which are enough for 4 walls.

[AileTheAlien]

You've already got cheap walls - wooden and steel walls. Just use those.

[bobucles]

Should it be in the game? Stone chunks already get cut into 4 tiles of wall, which have more HP and can be built several sections at a time. This option sounds worse in every single way.

[Bobisme]

I see it as costly too, expensive as lets say it takes 3 chunks to make 1 section, seems 'right' though in comparison to how many blocks you would have gotten out of it.., say it takes 3 and you get 2 back..
The on the fly build where you don't have to walk over to a pile of cut stone, mainly felt i'd like it inc ase i was digging a tunnel and bugs appeared trapping me in, seems feesable that one could mound chunks, it would also work as a fence..

[Call me Arty]

You've already got cheap walls - wooden and steel walls. Just use those.

Desert map: Almost no wood. You need what you have for chemfuel, keeping pre-electricity stuff going, but you also need some walls.
Flat map: Almost no stone, and therefore steel. Do you really want to use probably the #1 most sought-ought resource in the game for cheap walls?

[AileTheAlien]

The original request was for when tunneling deep into mountains, to keep bugs out. By definition that means there's tonnes of stone around.

[Bolgfred]

The original request was for when tunneling deep into mountains, to keep bugs out. By definition that means there's tonnes of stone around.

and steel

[Bobisme]

It's not like people are forced to use 'rubble wall' it's a slightly expensive yet 'cheap' wall. 
As one progresses efficiency goes up, lets say 'evolve' into knowing how to carve stone blocks, (i'm stretchin here lol, evolve.. )

My point is ,you have stone, you should be able to jam some together to make a rudimentary wall, it makes sense to be able to do so.

As i was in the mountain and i had stone around me one would think you could stick them together instead of walking a mile or two to a carved stone stock pile and a plus is it can work in other ways, i'd consider it more of a 'fence' type wall when out side, as i'd say it can't hold up a roof.

...I'm in a mountain tunnel, bugs have spawned at the only exit. I have stone everywhere, my people know how to carve a sweet stone 'brick' but can't fathom placing a couple chunks together, to make a piece of crap wall to buy them some time?

3 stone chunks 100 hp
...possibly another 2 stone chunks when placing an adjacent rubble wall when 'interlocking'
Just to establish a more solid form to the idea, to flesh it out, if you have a room that is open to the outside via 'one' hole, placing rubble wall there will turn it into an indoor area, (but it cannot hold up a roof)

You get 20 stone blocks from 1 chunk right, it is in your best interests to get a stone cutters table asap, but the option should still be there

[AileTheAlien]

Now I think I understand what you're after:
- save on time by not cutting chunks into blocks
- save time not hauling chunks / blocks
- can be built by colonies which haven't yet researched stone-cutting

There's a couple problems with this proposal, given the limitations of the game. First, anything that acts as a wall, can support a roof in the game; I'm not 100% sure on that, but I think that's what I saw, last time I was messing with XML for buildings. That wouldn't be too big of a deal, in my opinion, since roofs don't do much for game-balance, except for having an "indoors" area, which would help with item rot/decay, plus snow and toxic fallout. As for the cost of the wall, that would be a bit trickier. Walls, chunks, and stone blocks are all balanced, so that you get about one tile of wall per one tile of stone wall, on average. However, that's because chunks drop 1/4 of the time, and you get 4X the resources needed for a tile of wall, from a single chunk. If you made the rubble-wall longer than a single tile, that would work, but then you'd lose flexibility. Alternately, you could make a crafting recipe, which turned stone chunks into something smaller; They could be called "rocks". (I think that would work well for flagstone flooring too - that should be buildable without cut stone.)

All of this sounds pretty do-able, except for the no-roof thing; If you make a mod to show how this concept would work / be balanced, that'd give it a better chance of ending up in the base game.

[Bobisme]

The reason I say no roof is I would consider the object OP, too easy to slap a few chunks together and hey presto a house. (though i suppose in a tribal sort of fashion it would fit) though how a few bits of rubble/chunks could be a good enough support for a roof.., unless you want to go deeper into coding and say it can only expand out by say 3 and not 6, a wall that can't support a roof is easier to code than one that does, if you consider it's integrity.

I understand the cost issue, it isn't supposed to be cost effective, because again, if it were 'balanced out' why would you bother with the harder to make wall, as you progress in the game you learn to make a cost effective wall.

One chunk makes 20 stone blocks / 4 walls, to even slightly balance it out you would have to say that one chunk is a wall and ya can't do that. I think 3 chunks would make sense, again it is not cost effective, but it is early game and you get 2 back apon deconstruction. Also, lets say that a constructed wall is thinner than an unmined wall which gives the balance.

It's not ment to be cost effective, it's ment to be quick, rudimentary, early game and emergency..
i also like the thought of using it as a fence, and it being roof worthy causes an issue there

[AileTheAlien]

Disabling roof support won't help much with balance, because a single tile of wall can support a roof to a distance of 6 tiles. So even if this new wall type was unable to support roofs, you could just throw down one or two tiles of wooden wall, and get the roof anyways. You also say this is supposed to be early-game, non-durable, and cheap, but if it's made out of such a readily-available resource, it's by definition going to be easy to spam / over-use. I recommend you make a mod to put this in the game, to see how balanced or unbalanced it feels, and modify as necessary.

[Bolgfred]

Maybe the simple way is the best: rock chunks can be disassembled into 5-10 stone blocks, allowing to convert them without a crafter or a workbench, but at a worse material output than the mason's table with 20 blocks per chunk.

Anything else sounds too complicated to me as the PO's demand is a niche situation.

[Bobisme]

I added a poll if anyone wants to hit a yay or nay