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[UncleSporky]

Is there any sort of penalty for assigning too many different jobs to dwarves skilled in other things?  At the end of the first year most of my dwarves have done a bit of everything.  In particular, I had farming troubles - it's my first time setting up a farm and the first two floodgates weren't right next to the river so it didn't get all finished and flooded until the start of fall.  As a result I had everyone planting for a long time...btw, I lost a lot of seeds/helmets at the crack of winter!  That sucked.

But anyway.  Any reason not to have everyone doing everything?  Also, do most people leave a variety of tasks on for their dwarves, or do you micromanage and turn everything off except what you want them to do?  I'm almost to the point of doing that since there's so much time wasted doing menial tasks (floodgates were queued up for a whole @#$% season).

My request has to do with the above.  I do so much toggling and shuffling of tasks that sometimes I forget what a dwarf was originally supposed to be doing.  I get mad when my skilled miner is idling when there's mining to be done...but then I check his jobs and notice that I turned off mining at some point.  My solution to this would be graying out or highlighting the dwarves' skills based on whether they're currently practicing that skill or not.

Another nice feature would be highlighting the labor list in the same way furniture and such is labeled for quality.  I could see right in the list whether it's something I'd want them to be doing: *Mining* or -Masonry-, etc.  I don't know how DF was programmed but it seems to me these things ought to be fairly easy to throw in there for convenience.  I don't mean to assume too much though, I know you've already got a lot on your plate.    Would anyone else appreciate either of these features?

[Dwarf Chunk]

quote: But anyway. Any reason not to have everyone doing everything?

Yes! A dwarf doing just one task improves pretty fast, so he creates better stuff. If everyone does everything, they are going to be bad at everything for quite some time.

[karnot]

quote: I do so much toggling and shuffling of tasks that sometimes I forget what a dwarf was originally supposed to be doing.

About that, i'd like to see an option for a Peasant to become "apprentice" for some skilled dwarf, just so he got his first skill update faster and i didnt look who of my 12 peasants had masonry turned on.

quote: I get mad when my skilled miner is idling when there's mining to be done...but then I check his jobs and notice that I turned off mining at some point.

Well, dont.
I dont change anyone's main jobs unless absolutely nessesary. And for farming.

[UncleSporky]

quote:Originally posted by Dwarf Chunk:
<STRONG>

Yes! A dwarf doing just one task improves pretty fast, so he creates better stuff. If everyone does everything, they are going to be bad at everything for quite some time.</STRONG>

I know that grinding one skill will make that skill improve faster, but taking a break to farm for half a season won't piss them off or anything, right?  That's more of what I meant.  And anyway, what I've got is closer to classes of dwarves, like the stone and metalworkers, food gatherers and craftsmen/woodworkers.  They might toggle between fishing, farming and cooking but I try to keep them organized a little.

[ August 16, 2006: Message edited by: UncleSporky ]

[Dehydration]

quote:Originally posted by UncleSporky:
<STRONG>
I know that grinding one skill will make that skill improve faster, but taking a break to farm for half a season won't piss them off or anything, right?
[ August 16, 2006: Message edited by: UncleSporky ]</STRONG>

I've never had any problems with that method. There's a field in dwarf profiles indicating that the character has a satisfaction level with work, so one would assume that there's a way to make them dissatisfied with work. However, due to not getting various types of skills with migrations, I have active dwarves with as many as nine non-hauling jobs active at any one time and in Year 3 it's never caused a problem that I can tell.

For the record, they *are* fairly uncommon jobs, just ones that I like to have done immediately when I queue them up.

[JT]

I think "satisfied at work" is just a pleasant thought that occurs if a dwarf has a steady job.  If a dwarf doesn't have a job, they don't have the pleasant thought.