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[Dirst]

Additionally, you could add degrees of incompleteness for complex objects, and add arbitrary incompleteness for objects you want for a specific task

For example, a carpenter could make an %%+oak bed+%%, signifying it has no mattress and no blankets. It could then get hauled to a farmers workshop, who would fill it with cave wheat, turning it into a %+oak bed+%. It would then need a clothier to come and add all the additional cloth to finish it as an +oak bed+

Something like this is best handled by simply having intermediary products. Rather than a %wood bed% and %cloth bed% that need to be combined to make a bed, it makes much more sense to make a wood bed frame and a cloth mattress that are either used as components in construction of a new item, or are built into furniture together in the same way that screw pumps are three different types of component items that form a building with a gestalt function.

The same can honestly be said about several of these ideas, like having a baker just make dough instead of %biscuits%.  Having a % around things doesn't give meaningful information as to what stage they are in of a multi-stage process, and you basically cannot do this sort of multi-stage process without functionally programming in intermediary products, anyway.

There are definite intermediate products, like dough, and there are definite incomplete items, like %statues%.  Not sure how big a problem there is with the grey area between those.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalěs]

I think that +granite component+ should be for perfectly usable / mostly usable items that are in the middle of a production chain, and that %items% should be used when one person will return and do the same exact thing that they left off. So engravings, craftwork, etc. (Except craftwork could be multiple parts. Hm, gray area indeed. How do you consider jewelry? In the final version, there will probably be rings that can have gems inlaid. The ring is usable on its own before the gem, but the gem isn't quite ready yet, though it could be traded. Seems straightforward: intermediate. But what if it became a job like "grab metal ring + uncut gem, cut gem, set gem in ring"? I guess Toady should be careful to always subdivide jobs into one-skill, one-task jobs, not composite. Although this is all conjecture anyway.)

[NW_Kohaku]

How do you consider jewelry? In the final version, there will probably be rings that can have gems inlaid.

That's already in the game.  You make a +ring+ at a metalcrafter's and decorate it at a jeweler's to make a -«+ring+»-. 

[cochramd]

How do you consider jewelry? In the final version, there will probably be rings that can have gems inlaid.

That's already in the game.  You make a +ring+ at a metalcrafter's and decorate it at a jeweler's to make a -«+ring+»-.

But what stops someone from coming along and taking the ring before you put the jewel in?

Also, gem encrusting might still need some work. Last I heard, it was somewhere between difficult and impossible to get a large number of specific items encrusted in gems.

[NW_Kohaku]

That's already in the game.  You make a +ring+ at a metalcrafter's and decorate it at a jeweler's to make a -«+ring+»-.

But what stops someone from coming along and taking the ring before you put the jewel in?

Also, gem encrusting might still need some work. Last I heard, it was somewhere between difficult and impossible to get a large number of specific items encrusted in gems.

That's funny, didn't stop this guy from putting a bajillion things on a statue of his king: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/File:Deko.png

The desire of players to put specific items or images in as a decoration on specific products is a problem for having the capacity to select specific items for use in crafting, (something we're getting,) not an issue that applies to some sort of incomplete designation.

Anyway, my point is, this thread's getting a bit like someone with a hammer searching desperately for anything they can call a nail.  Intermediate products (much less already existing intermediate products) make more sense in any case other than a dwarf outright being interrupted in the progress of creating something, or the idea of items that need to "ferment" and be left alone for a time before completion.  Anything beyond that just invites confusion, as if %shirt% usually means someone hasn't completed stitching a shirt together, and XXshirtXX means a shirt with holes and threadbare, then a shirt torn because someone slashed it makes far more sense as a XXshirtXX (where the XX indicates damage and need for replacement) than as a %shirt% (where the % indicates that the tailor went on break halfway through).

[GoblinCookie]

Ideally we would be able to designate items to be set to be decorated in a given way as soon as they are constructed but I do not see why that would require an incomplete item status.  Just tag the item in the code with a job as soon as the base item is complete.  At the moment decorations are effectively random since the only way to control them is to dump the items you want decorated in general in a stockpile near to the workshops, which is laborious indeed.  Far better to be able to simply put in an order for items decorated in a given way and have the game add in jobs for said item the moment the base item is completed; that way if we are unable to finish decorating them due to whatever reason we still end up with base or partially decorated items.

[SixOfSpades]

For simplicity's sake, I'd like to set aside all issues of item decoration (except in cases where the decoration would logically be an intrinsic part of the item itself, such as pottery glazes). Sure, a finished item could still be considered incomplete if you had further plans for it, but that's linking multiple steps together, and this thread should be about moving in the opposite direction.

Some job like making charcoal, however, will probably continue to burn the material even if the worker leaves the furnace.

Yes--but that would almost certainly mean burning it completely, meaning the charcoal itself would burn away. Without a Wood Burner constantly monitoring & maintaining temperature, all the fuel would be consumed and you'd be left with nothing but ash (which, admittedly, might have been your intention).

Also damage to clothes or armor from fighting could create a %shirt% or %breastplate%. This would mean that items would actually need to be fixed by a clothier or armorer.

Damage to shirts in fighting sounds like it would mostly be wear, but if you do chop an arm off, it sounds like a XX%shirt%XX might be the result. Still, a %item% is generally a good-quality item that just needs more work to be complete, not a complete item that now has a piece missing.

Yeah, I'd prefer the use of a different designation flag entirely. Something to denote that okay, this shirt will indeed be wearable after some repairs, but the left sleeve is always going to have that bloodstain (& a sewn-up jagged slash) and be a little shorter than the right one.

Rather than a %wood bed% and %cloth bed% that need to be combined to make a bed, it makes much more sense to make a wood bed frame and a cloth mattress that are either used as components in construction of a new item, or are built into furniture together in the same way that screw pumps are three different types of component items that form a building with a gestalt function.

Agreed. Besides, if you're looking at a stockpile full of %cloth bed%, %cloth bed%, and %cloth bed%, how are you supposed to know which is the mattress, which is the blanket, & which is the pillow?

The same can honestly be said about several of these ideas, like having a baker just make dough instead of %biscuits%.

Unless you're talking about a sourdough starter, I don't think any kind of dough is stable enough to be considered a finished item. It should be a dry mix, or nothing.

Having a % around things doesn't give meaningful information as to what stage they are in of a multi-stage process

Examining the contents of the workshop should tell you precisely how far along the process it is--that's why I chose the % sign for incomplete items in the first place. Ideally, each %item% would carry a numerical counter to track its progress, and perhaps even specific names for different steps of the process, like "Forging - Done, Tempering - Done, Hilt - In Progress, Scabbard - Pending, Overall 82% complete".

There are definite intermediate products, like dough, and there are definite incomplete items, like %statues%.  Not sure how big a problem there is with the grey area between those.

We should compile a list. What items make sense to have %incomplete% versions of, which items do NOT make sense, and which are in between.

[MoonyTheHuman]

%incomplete% items would be great, but of course, no-one is looking at this from the angle of a programmer (toady in specific)

• Large amounts of new programming would have to be implemented, alongside better descriptors and tags
• This kind of code would probably be very hard to optimize, even for the compiler itself (-o, damn you!)
• New jobtypes might have to be implented
• Nesting of tags would happen alot more often (*<<+%Steel Pickaxe Head%+>>*)
• New chunks of code would be needed for strange moods (infact, near full rewrite)
• Alot of other things would need more code or even full rewrites

dont break toady's back. (=

[NW_Kohaku]

%incomplete% items would be great, but of course, no-one is looking at this from the angle of a programmer (toady in specific)

• Large amounts of new programming would have to be implemented, alongside better descriptors and tags
• This kind of code would probably be very hard to optimize, even for the compiler itself (-o, damn you!)
• New jobtypes might have to be implented
• Nesting of tags would happen alot more often (*<<+%Steel Pickaxe Head%+>>*)
• New chunks of code would be needed for strange moods (infact, near full rewrite)
• Alot of other things would need more code or even full rewrites

dont break toady's back. (=

I'm going to have to ask you to explain these statements.  You're declaring things without demonstrating any evidence or the reasoning behind your statements.

1. All suggestions nearly by definition require more code, so that, by itself, is a meaningless argument in the suggestions forum unless you can demonstrate it is massively disproportionately harder to code for the benefit it provides. (Even then, "benefit" is subjective and that line of thinking can lead to a pissing war over whose favorite suggestions should get priority because they are "more worthy".)

2. Declarations of difficulty of optimization definitely require you specifically describe what you're talking about, because people are lobbing many different systems around.

3. If by "jobtypes", you mean professions or labors, I don't see why, but if you mean actual "this is my current task", then sheer number is not a significant problem so long as code can be reused.  See the tremendous number of animals in the game that are just copy-pastes of much of the same code.

4. I'd have to ask why an item that isn't even fully made yet has a quality and is being decorated... That seems like a simple thing to prevent: Items only can have quality upon completion and cannot be decorated until then.

5. Why? Artifact construction is not intrinsic to the nature of this suggestion, and even if it were included, I do not see how the most significant aspects of mood would need a "near full rewrite", when there is no reason for most of the code involving being selected or gathering items or outcomes to change.  For that matter, Toady has been doing and plans to do some far more massive rewrites for artifacts to both make divine or ancestor possessions possible, and have overt magic associated with artifacts.  With no reasoning behind your statement, this point in particular is meaningless.

6. The statement "Alot of other things would need more code or even full rewrites" literally contains no intelligible information whatsoever.  I suppose the best response is, "I disagree because reasons."

[Dozebôm Lolumzalěs]

%incomplete% items would be great, but of course, no-one is looking at this from the angle of a programmer (toady in specific)

• Large amounts of new programming would have to be implemented, alongside better descriptors and tags
• This kind of code would probably be very hard to optimize, even for the compiler itself (-o, damn you!)
• New jobtypes might have to be implented
• Nesting of tags would happen alot more often (*<<+%Steel Pickaxe Head%+>>*)
• New chunks of code would be needed for strange moods (infact, near full rewrite)
• Alot of other things would need more code or even full rewrites

dont break toady's back. (=

I have a few more thoughts.

1. See above. NW_Kohaku is awesome.

2. Ditto.

3. Hm, this seems like a subset of "new programming would have to be done to implement this! oh noes!" TBH. Also, I can see how some jobs that are currently split up could be divided, like engraving / smoothing stone, or a difference between baking and frying. But that's another suggestion entirely, and it's not really a bad thing. And really, this subdivision would only occur when dealing with PARTS, not incompletes.

4. First of all, you completely ignored the last few posts. A steel pickaxe head would NOT, I repeat, NOT be incomplete! That is a whole 'nother suggestion. They are similar, yes, and some creep has occurred (since the code would likely be similar), but this suggestion is about incomplete items. Like when a mason isn't quite finished, or a shirt is half-made. Not when the two parts of something haven't been brought together yet.

5. Not true. Just completely false. It would be a bit difficult to include moods in this suggestion for coding, yes, but certainly not a full rewrite of the mood system. The ability to temporarily stop a mood isn't that ridiculous a suggestion, and it's already present in every other job. This would allow jobs to be stopped, and the progress REMAIN. Moods aren't even necessary in this suggestion!

6. Catchall statement. "And a bunch of other stuff is bad!" Also, needing more code and needing rewrites IS WHAT YOU JUST TALKED ABOUT.

[Bumber]

Some job like making charcoal, however, will probably continue to burn the material even if the worker leaves the furnace.

Yes--but that would almost certainly mean burning it completely, meaning the charcoal itself would burn away. Without a Wood Burner constantly monitoring & maintaining temperature, all the fuel would be consumed and you'd be left with nothing but ash (which, admittedly, might have been your intention).

Charcoal is made in a sealed oxygen-free container. It shouldn't burn away.

[SixOfSpades]

Reasons for an item to have an %incomplete% version (in descending importance):

• The job of creating the item would realistically take more than 5 hours to complete.
• A significant part of the item's production relies on the simple passage of time, rather than the direct actions of any dwarf.
• An unskilled worker can get a significant part of the job done, getting it to a convenient stopping point to await a craftsdwarf of greater skill.
• The job of creating the item is so time-consuming (more than 16? hours) that doing prep-work during slow periods is justified, to avoid bottlenecks during rushes.
• It can be spontaneously be made by a dwarf seeking to fight boredom / skill rust (read: dwarves can have a preference for it), so having an %incomplete% version of the item would be a handy way to permit / forbid its spontaneous production.

Examples:
Pretty much all furniture, especially when made of metal or stone (1, 3, 5, maybe 4)
Wine maturing, food cooking, leather tanning (2)
Forging quality steel weapons (4)
Anything outrageously complicated, like clocks or tapestries (4)
Architectural plans (maybe 1, maybe 4, depending on the Building Designer's skill)
etc.

Reasons for an item NOT to have an incomplete version:

• An incomplete version would be perishable, or otherwise unstable; it could not be stored for any reasonable time.
• The job of creating the item would realistically take less than 1 hour to complete.
• Work (or other resources) invested in an incomplete version will just have to be spent again to finish the dang thing.

Examples:
Milk from animals (2)
Half-prepared food (1)
Medical casts (1, 2)
Smelted metals, anything glass (3)
etc.