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[Starver]

I may have missed (been unable to find, on searching) either a Wiki page or a dedicated forum thread (or dozen, thereof), but I was thinking that a useful page of information for newbies and even (on occasion) and oldbies like myself would be a list of functionally identical things that differ in name according to material.

Off the top of my head, something like the following.

Function	Stone	Wood	Metal	Glass	Leather	Cloth
Seat	throne	chair	throne	throne	n/a	n/a
Dry container	coffer	chest	chest	box	bag	bag
Drinking vessel	mug	cup	goblet	goblet	n/a	n/a
Portable drink store	n/a	n/a	flask	vial	waterskin	n/a
Tether	n/a	n/a	chain	n/a	n/a	rope

Probably missed several things. (Wax? How many things would have a wax column entry, if any?)  And you could add an explanation that Barrels (metal, wood) are different things from Large Pots (more options, overlapping), in a Notes column that just bookends a same-name-plus-N/As row, for each.

edit: Immediately after I post, I think of Sarcophagi/Caskets/Coffins, thus I'm even more certain that I've missed some other common ones.

At the very least, a Category for it so that Also Known As items could be so tagged (Chair redirects to Throne, whilst the Rope and Chain pages are separate, but tagging could highlight where merges/splits could be done, for consistency) even if no table is actually maintained.

editedit: I mention it here rather than create the page myself because I reckon it needs discussion first, and I don't even recall whether I ever had a Wiki logon, never mind what credentials I used at the time. So here's the easiest place to (probably) repeat an old argument that I failed to find.

[CLA]

They all currently already redirect to each other if you search for it (i.e. mug, cup & goblet all point to "finished goods"; coffer, chest, etc point to "container"; throne and chair point to "throne", etc) and the naming variants are mentioned on the page. I think that's sufficient, but a possible improvement would be to change the way it's presented in the article. Personally I think a category would be the best option.

[Starver]

Aye, a category would give a handy hint (I pretty much never Extract Plants To Vial until I get glassworking online, which means Magma Workshopping up and running in my case, because I have an early-game blindspot about other-types-of-'vial') and might encourage consistency.

Chain and rope pages are practically identical separate entities that state that the other exists, with a link across in both directions, whilst others redirect everything to the Ur-example page with either tabular or longhand plaintext explanation of the material/name relationships. I imagine everyone has their own favourite way of thinking of these links, so won't suggest which way would be the best way to make the result consistent (whilst maintaining source-material differences appropriately).  (Obviously with mugs/etc as sub-headed within Finished Goods, it'd be impractical to split out Mugs/etc into separate-but-linked pages, so that suggests the direction, if not the final presentation.)

A handy Template construct for a comparison table, would be my next suggestion, could be used for "Can you make a Foo out of a Bar" reference (single or multiline, in addition to headers), another handy-lookup reference material that I keep on meaning to make myself instead of relying on memory.


It's not even as if the game is internally consistent in handling of 'groupings'. Within the Conditionals for a Manager/Profile job, the default post-requisite check for all containers of all kinds works on the generic "boxes and bags" category whilst the same check for other things that have equivalents appear (may or may not be functionally more broad, untested!) to narrow down to the specific subset being requested.

But, then, consistency within the game is an oft-mentioned issue. Which is of course why I still go looking at the Wiki every now and then, even after all these years, to at least jog such vague memories. But really, I just thought that someone else might appreciate the info gathered together, somewhere it could be sufficiently curated to take new additions at a later date.

[CLA]

Yeah, a template would be a good solution that can be pasted in the appropriate places without disturbing the existing text. I think the furniture template (and the workshop template to some extend) is a very good canditate to look at for copying (see its use on the "Throne" page for reference). Essentially the problem we're discussing is already solved for Chair/Throne with that template. Though we might want to add a column for the different names.
For consistency, it might be good to eventually add it to all pages of things that can be created, but are not covered by the furniture template. Essentially it would be the contrary of the workshop template and I think you're right that this would be very useful.



Regarding the chain and Rope pages, I think those can be marked for merge/redirect and if nobody has anything against it, can be merged. I suggest using the Chain page and having Rope redirect to it:

Ropes are not actually a distinct item type - they are merely what chains are called when they are made of cloth. They are both listed under the 'chains' heading in the z-stocks menu, are stored in finished goods stockpiles, and are generally interchangeable.

So to recap:

• merge Chain and Rope pages
• create template similar to furniture template or extend it to include more goods
• add template in relevant articles
• possibly add template to more object articles if it seems useful

What do you think?

/Edit:
Added merge suggestion to Rope page.

[Starver]

For my part, at least, it all sounds good. Cheers.

[CLA]

Alright, I merged the Chain and Rope pages. Feel free to work on the template, I don't think I'll find enough time for now.

[Loci]

The "furniture" ones are listed on the furniture page:

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Furniture#Furniture_types_with_multiple_names