Dig Holes! Get Dirt! ??? Profit!

Started by Zael, September 20, 2015, 05:33:50 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Zael

So I was driving in my truck by a graveyard and I was thinking, There's a lot of dirt coming out of a body sized hole. Where does that dirt go, and what use could it be?
You know what? Mud, gravel, water and so on bother me. In real life, I would dry up an area with fresh, dry earth. So then what about that, do I need to dig graves to make dirth? That seems kinda dumb. Why not an option to just dig up fresh dirt from somewhere and leave a hole? Kinda dumb too, except...
TRENCHES! Dig a hole in soft ground and hide in it, shoot from it, gives cover and slows movement.
It's perfect, and I think it's exactly what we need here.
It would take some time to dig a hole in the ground but think of the mobile uses of it. Getting sieged early by Randy? Take your guys up to them, dig a hole for each of them, get in and use the dirt pile to shoot from behind as an impromptu sandbag.
Input?

Adamiks

+1

There are mods with tranches but they aren't really tranches - they're sandbags you can walk on and still have protection. The point of tranches is to have a cover *but* also have a road to somewhere without your head not being *your* head anymore.

Loki88

+1 not only for trenches but also for dirt construction. some of the oldest buildings in the world are made of dirt!

For instance a tulou
Outside

Inside


Houses an entire village and was built in 1308 to thwart bandit raiders!

Zael

Holy pictures Manbat. I was just thinking that the piles of dirt that come out of the ground would be like slag or other rubble. Like a one tile hole makes a pile of 75 'dirt' and is haul-able as such, and like the hay grass with a stack of 500 it turns into a larger mound that might give cover when you're behind it. Building with dirt with the 'stuff' mechanic would be kinda cool, temporary walls at best against explosives though, might be a good insulator? Pack a layer of dirt outside your walls to keep the warmth in during harsh winters or keep a building cold in the same way for freezing food during the summer.

Wex

Some of the toughest walls in the medieval times (requiring several shots from today's atrillery) werw made with SDDDDDS Where S is stone and D is packed dirt.
"You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant."
    Harlan Ellison

LouisTBR

#5
Mmm, seems like it could work. Maybe have 'Dig Hole' option in the 'Orders' menu, which would take into account the construction skill to determine speed of digging. Like sandbags, but slower to walk/jump over and better low cover. You would have to click on the trench square for your colonists to recognise it and for it to work as a cover mechanism.

As for the dirt, yes, but it would need to be DIRT cheap (ooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh!) when sold and only give 35 per square. Sorry, but I can't think of what you call a unit of dirt! Like haybales, when you get 200 units it makes the sprite a bag of fertilizer-like garden dirt. The dirt could be used to make basic cover, like 50 dirt per square with a little better cover quality than a sandbag(s).

I think it works better as a trench/cover mechanism, as it turns a square of terrain into both a good cover item and resources. Profit, as I said, should be minimal.

But, what about different terrain? Obviously, you couldn't dig ice, but you could dig sand (fits in with my idea of glass here @ https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16314.0).

The coolest feature that would come with this has to be fertilizer, where you get 200x units of rich soil, it turns into a bag of fertilizer which growers will collect (like handlers will keep food on them) and keep on them, using 10x units of fertilizer per plant which gives the same boost as actually growing plants in rich soil. This would be useful if you don't want to make your growers travel forever to get to a patch of rich soil, but don't mind your idle constructers going over to dig some fertilizer to bring home and use. Alternatively, you could use this rich soil at 35x per square (same as digging yield) to make any terrain rich soil. This can also work with all other dig-able resources, and will allow you to creature pastures for your animals by growing plants in it.
Only in RimWorld is the phrase "31 Heavily-Armed Siegers are currently bombing your base" preferable to "50 manhunting squirrels are attacking your colony"

Zeta Omega

1. Dig hole
2. Get dirt
3. Strike minerals/gems/stem/lava
4. PROFIT (hopefully)

Toggle

Quote from: Zeta Omega on October 11, 2015, 05:04:36 PM
1. Dig hole
2. Get dirt
3. Strike minerals/gems/stem/lava
4. PROFIT (hopefully)

So... Z-Levels. So not really happening.
Selling broken colonist souls for two thousand gold. Accepting cash or credit.

BetaSpectre

Quote from: Z0MBIE2 on October 11, 2015, 06:27:08 PM
Quote from: Zeta Omega on October 11, 2015, 05:04:36 PM
1. Dig hole
2. Get dirt
3. Strike minerals/gems/stem/lava
4. PROFIT (hopefully)

So... Z-Levels. So not really happening.
3 Pseudo Z levels could be done. It'd be no different from the mountains we have no being called Z-levels. Just have a random spawn chance of the ground underneath having ores and its all good.

IMO we ought to mine more downward instead of into mountains for ores. Though I see trenches as either easy defenses, or over powered defenses since they won't need supplies to be built.
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░─╤▌██ |
░░░░░░░░─╤▂▃▃▄▄▄███████▄▃|
▂█▃▃▅▅███/█████\█[<BSS>█\███▅▅▅▃▂
◥████████████████████████████████◤
                           TO WAR WE GO

Zeta Omega


So... Z-Levels. So not really happening.
[/quote]
Not Z-levels, maybe like an event where lava comes out for a select amount of time and sets fire to the area, the tiles would hurt you if you walk on them. I was thinking of a digging machine like other mods have, not like mining on another axis