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[Anvilsmith]

1.Blueprints: activated via the designate command; puts any kind of character available to DF on any tile, with any foreground/background color; the tiles can be made visible/invisible during normal gameplay (i.e. when not designating blueprints).

Blueprints can be used to lay down messages/reminders and to mark down locations that will later be used for building (especially useful above-ground). Extremely useful in succession games. Unlike traffic designations, they don't flash, don't affect gameplay, and can be made permanently visible.

2.labels: a label, which is just a string of text with no gameplay relevance, can be assigned to any building/object (including levers and pressure plates). Useful for describing what a lever does.

4.Job assignment cutoff ranges: set in the manager menu, globally or for every specific job type; a "cutoff range" is the maximum distance a job will look for potential dwarves to do it.

This keeps dwarves from travelling halfway around a 6x6 map just to complete a single task, and makes sure that, if you set up a few stockpiles around a shop, the resident craftsmen won't waste time looking for materials when these stockpiles are depleted. Job assignment cutoff ranges are useful even in conjunction with the upcoming addition of burrows, as the burrows affect individual dwarves, rather than individual job types.

[Exponent]

A minor response, but "labels" could perhaps be called "inscriptions" instead.  Sounds more dwarvenly.  Either way, I'm all for it, and I also agree that they might as well be appliable to any object, not just levers.

And I love the blueprints idea as well.  Too many city building-like games lack this feature.  (Pretty much all of them, that I can think of.)  And yet it's an absolutely awesome and useful feature, that is in all likelihood not that difficult to implement.  Heck, I'd be quite pleased if it were merely monochrome blueprinting.  Even that would provide enough power to be reasonably useful, and should be really easy to implement.

[ March 25, 2008: Message edited by: Exponent ]

[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by Exponent:
<STRONG>And I love the blueprints idea as well.  Too many city building-like games lack this feature.</STRONG>

Castles didn't, you'd blueprint as much of your...castle...as you wanted and it showed up as a low stone wall, but really it wasn't anything (I think people could just walk over them, but it's been a long time since I played and paths rarely crossed them).

I've got ideas on a castle building sim in my head--Flash based--and I'll keep this in mind.  It's a must, really.  But yeah, I'm dying for a good castle building sim where you can really seige the place, but don't have to worry about economy so much (like Castles and unlike Lords of the Realm where it was ALL economy and a little "throw some walls up," the castle itself being one building).  So I plan on making one (with help--got a few people interested in doing the art, design, and music).

[Istrian]

quote:Originally posted by Anvilsmith:
<STRONG>

2.labels: a label, which is just a string of text with no gameplay relevance, can be assigned to any building/object (including levers and pressure plates). Useful for describing what a lever does.

4.Job assignment cutoff ranges: set in the manager menu, globally or for every specific job type; a "cutoff range" is the maximum distance a job will look for potential dwarves to do it.

</STRONG>

Aren't you missing a "3." somewhere ?  :roll:

I would like a "cutoff range" for resources as well, since I don't want a dwarf travelling through half my map instead of waiting until the resource he's waiting for is in the neighboring stockpile.

The blueprint idea could be merged with mass-rewalling : you designate an area for rewalling but don't select the resources to be used right away. When you want it built you ssign a resource to the spot.

[mickel]

Labels. Yes. I've been wanting this for ever. They need to show up in logs and such too so you know what the hell the game messages are referencing to.

"The granite door got jammed shut by a cat yesterday, can you fix it."
"What granite door?"
"You know the granite door with the granite mechanism."
"Oh, THAT granite door! Right, I'm on it!"