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[Jake]

I daresay Toady One's way ahead of me on this one, but I thought I'd throw out a few thoughts on how these could be implemented.
Tools would need their own raw file, whose format would look pretty much like the entries in item_weapon.txt, save that they could accept multiple entries for which skill they use. There would also need to be a tag called something like [DIGS_SOIL_ONLY] for shovels and mattocks.
There are two ways of handling how tools are used that spring readily to mind; assigning them by skill the way picks and axes are now, or associating individual tools with individual reactions. Going with the former would mean that dwarves would be carrying them around all the time, which would make things a bit awkward for jobs that require more than one tool, though smaller ones could be stored in a bag. Going with the latter would mean tools getting left lying around in workshops all the time instead of being put back in their correct stockpile, which would probably mean a lot of extra back-and-forth to find a spare hammer, though that's hardly a bug; more of an emergent behaviour.
How farming tools would work I'm not quite sure, because harvesting some crops should require a special tool and indeed a certain amount of skill; Plant Gatherer, perhaps. Fruiting trees and bushes are on the to-do list, though, so some of the same mechanics could probably be applied to root crops and mushrooms.

Oh, and constructing certain buildings like roads and fences should require tools as well.

[Shade-o]

Workshop tools could simply be used as a construction material. That way you don't have guys running around stealing or storing tools, but you still need them for setting up the industry.

[Jake]

That's come up before, but making that mesh with the planned introduction of wear and tear on items would be a pain, as would any quality modifiers that stem from better-made tools. (Which should incidentally be fairly small.) Besides, if your dorfs weren't always having to scrounge tools out of another workshop or track them down at the other end of the fortress because some git can't be bothered to tidy them away properly then it wouldn't be a terribly realistic simulation; ask anyone who's ever worked in a factory.

[aepurniet]

I'm pretty sure toady specifically said he's not gonna go down this road. Citing micro managment hell (I'm way too ocd with just the current stuff).  Personally I think a game that models the wear and tear on each sock should require that I have a saw and mallet for each carpenter (mabe even a file), and that each smelter has tongs and a whatever else people use.  Wurm online does this (in kinda a cool way too, but its a slog for single player, it might actually be a little fun when your managing your seven little dwarves.  I think toady explicitly referenced that game and gave a big thumbs down to going down that road.

However! I think it would be awesome if he left it open for modders to implement. (It might already be, rudimentarily), but it would be cool as hell if he let us influence job completion times, and output product quuality and value depending on the skill of the dwarf, the tools used, and the qality and material makep of those tools.

ie. A carpenter can make a normal chair, but that chair would have a bump down in quality if he didn't use a file, or leather polishing cloth (maybe even oils from some of that abundant tallow). The quality of the final item would only have a small chance to surpass the quality of the tools.  This would also have a nice effect of our economy gradually scaling up.

Wait, I meant mason, I'm not an elf so don't flame me with magma...

Also tools could have homes in workshops, like socks have homes in cabinets, to address that previous concern. I think modders right now could probably make them required for building workshops (no carrying of tools anywhere, but that seems like a cludge)

[Andeerz]

Did Toady, in fact, say that?  :3 

[aepurniet]

Yeah he did. Df talk #6. Search for tools. There's a large paragraph on it. I mean it sorta exists right now with the pickaxe and the axe. But I'm sure those are hard coded and in an ancient section of code.

[Andeerz]

Thanks for pointing that out!  I thought I read all of the talks, but I guess I never read Talk #6! 

I want to discuss Toady's stance on tools, in particular the stuff mentioned in the following:

Dwarf mode has useful abstractions, because you don't want to have a lot of clutter and crap and micromanagement and all kinds of horrible things that come out of that. Some of it wouldn't be bad, but a lot of the problems that arise then, like if you had people using tools for every job ... It would be cool in a sense if you could produce those things quickly enough and if there weren't stacking problems introduced and pathing problems in general. If you needed to have all the nails and hammers and boards and things to make a chair then even if the stacking weren't a problem then you'd still need that dwarf to go get that crap and it might take a month for them to collect all the different little pieces from all over the place. You have to sacrifice at that point the more epic sweeping nature of dwarf mode because you'd want to slow down the days to allow a dwarf to build a chair before winter comes. It's a tricky question for dwarf mode and I think a lot of abstractions will ultimately stay in dwarf mode, but in adventure mode there's no reason not to go completely nuts with it.

Hmmmm... yeah reading that gives me the impression that Toady isn't too stoked about putting a lot of tools and stuff like nails and other supplies into dwarf mode though he's definitely all for that stuff being in adventure mode. 

I think the micromanagement and clutter issues he hints at in the beginning might not be an issue with the planned improvements to hauling as well as some sort of improvements to the AI of dwarves as to where their priorities lie.  But I think Toady has a better grasp of this than I, and in any case, I don't think we can really know until improved hauling and (hopefully) better dwarf AI happens.  After that happens, I think we'll all have a better idea of what kinds of things might have to remain abstracted out. 

Personally, I'm entirely with you, aepurniet.  I also think a game that models the wear and tear on each sock should require appropriate tools for craftspeople, and have appropriate wear and tear for those, too.  Perhaps not every nitty-gritty tool should be in (i.e. a single hammer for a blacksmith could represent the 10's of different kinds of hammers a real blacksmith typically uses), but the basic representative tools of a given profession or craft should be in.  The tools of a job is as much a part of a job, if not more so, than the workshop or whatever you do the job in.  I mean, what is a workshop if not a place to conveniently store one's tools and provide a place to use said tools?  In a way, I'd much prefer tools be required for a task rather than a workshop. 

And if this game is going to try to model the management of an economy and the rise and fall of civilizations (those, to me, are a big part of the "epic sweeping nature" of DF), then tool use, and just as importantly, tool wear should not be ignored.  In many respects, the ability of people of a civilization to make and maintain tools determined the health of an economy and prosperity of a civilization.  In DF, I think it should be no different.  Take farming for instance: without the blacksmith to replace and maintain the metal bits of plows and make horse-shoes for plow horses, the population boom of the High Middle Ages in England would not have been able to happen, as these tools allowed for more land to be worked in a shorter amount of time by farmers, which allowed for a lot more food to be produced, which in turn allowed for a much higher population to be supported.  In fact, many lands with harder soils would have been impossible to farm without such tools and their maintenance, and the ability to farm these marginally arable lands contributed significantly to the rise in power of the English during the High Middle Ages.  Basically, I think that tools are too huge a deal to ignore, that they are well within the scope of Dwarf Mode, and that they should be represented somehow.

In a way, though, versions of the kind of interdependency mentioned in the previous example already exist in DF in their own way... I hope I'm making sense... it all basically boils down to opinion and what kind of flavor of DF I would like to have. 

Meh... I should go to bed now.  It's late here. 

[Interus]

Maybe not everything needs tools, but after reading that, I wouldn't be opposed to plows for farming at the very least.  Dwarves can pull a plow, even if they can't pull it as long as a horse can.  A hand plow could easily just be a tool like the mining pick or axe that is used whenever seeds are planted.  And it might appease the people who want farming to be harder too.

From what I understand of modding, one of the ideas in here can just be modded in.  Reactions to create Carpentry Tools, Cooking Tools, Butcher's Tools, Looms, Tanning Vats, and stuff like that from various places and then requiring them to build workshops seem possible.  I don't personally like that idea, but I think it can be done.

[Andeerz]

Good point!  It seems like a lot of what is necessary is sorta already in place and is raw editable.  Wear and tear isn't, though... >.>  And I think only some tools should be absolutely required for certain tasks (like a pick for mining), but some would just make the dwarf/human/whatever simply able to do things either of consistently higher quality and/or speed (like horse-drawn plow vs. hand plow, or an iron chisel able to do decorative copper engravings and not vice-versa).    If the factors of wear and tear, modifiers of speed and quality, and desirability by appropriate craftspeople become raw-editable, then tools can be modded in to the users content without it having to be in the vanilla game.  :3     

Ideally, I'd have tools as a non-consumable, often optional reagent for a particular task.  And, also ideally, tools from other professions of appropriate nature could be co-opted for another use, like the butt of a crossbow being able to be used to hammer a stake to the ground if a hammer wasn't around, or a short sword able to be used for butchering if a proper cleaver isn't available.  I dunno, just food for thought.     

[zwei]

 * Hauling issues can be solved by simply making craftsman carry his own tools in backpack/toolbelt/whatever much like hunter carries bolts in quiver/woodcutter axe/miner pick.

 * Production micro can be solved by player by simply overproducing tools to have good stock from which dwarves will take as they break stuff.

 * Implementation does not need to go down to individual tools and nails - generic "carpenters tools" with ability to mod in more complex stuff should be enough.

 * All we need for this to be modable is having all reactions (including stuff like wall construction) and workshops in raws and new "jobs" raws which will allow to modify behavior of job-assigned dwarves to carry their tools around, example for current behavior:

[LABOR:MINING]
[WIELD:PICK][REQUIRED]

[LABOR:WOODCUTTING]
[WIELD:AXE][REQUIRED]

[LABOR:HUNTING]
[WIELD:CROSSBOW]
[WEAR:QUIVER][CARRY:BOLTS:1:MAX_CAPACITY]
[WEAR:ARMOR:LEATHER]
[WILDERNESS_SLEEP]

modder could, for example mod in:

[LABOR:MINING]
[WIELD:PICK][REQUIRED]
[WEAR:WATERSKIN][CARRY:DRINK:1:3]
[WEAR:BACKPACK][CARRY:FOOD:1:3]

To make miners carry some food and water with them so that they take less time on snack breaks.

or make dwarves do silly realistic stuff:

[LABOR:WEAPONSMITHING]
[WEAR:APRON]
[WIELD:WAR_HAMMER]

With this working, one could mod carpenter to look like:

[LABOR:CARPENTRY]
[WEAR:BACKPACK][CARRY:CARPENTERS_TOOLS:1:1]

or even more complex:

[LABOR:CARPENTRY]
[WEAR:BACKPACK][CARRY:NAILS:1:10][CARRY:SAW:1:1][CARRY:HAMMER:1:1][CARRY:CHISEL:1:1][CARRY:FILE:1:1]

[aepurniet]

That last one is what I want. Although currently it would mess things up something royal. Woodcutters / carpenters would be impossible with the current dwarf AI. A good system for this wold be that all dwarves carry the tools that their current job requires until the take another job that requires other tools. The dwarves would drop their tools and pickup the new tools they need for the job. That way snack breaks don't involve putting down and then repicking up tools.  Alternatively if a dwarf takes another tooled job while still in the workshop, he could put down his current set of tools in there.  A nice general item selection issue could be solved as well (prepathfinding), when looking for the closest item (or tool) take the destination of the job into account.

If a hammer is 10 tiles east, and the workshop is 20 tiles west. But also has a hammer in it, the first hammer is actually 40 tiles away, while the one in the workshop is 20 tiles away. So one should pathfind to the workshop not the other hammer.

This could also stop burrow haling job cancelation spam. If a burrow contains a stockpile, but the item to be fetched is outside the burrow, that item should have a distance of INF, and not selected. (Only for dwarves assigned that burrow)

[Jake]

Zwei's pretty much nailed what I had in mind, though the option of forcing dwarves to carry around food and water hadn't occurred to me. And there definitely needs to be a fairly limited number of tools. What I had in mind was along the lines of:
* Large/small hammer
* Large/small chisel
* Tongs
* Saw and/or hatchet
* Generic 'knife' for wood/bone carving and food prep
* Large/small needle
* Spade
* Scythe or sickle
I think that would probably offer the best possible balance between realism and player sanity, but other players will undoubtedly have their own preferences. And ploughs are probably best restricted to the sprawl, or at least races who rely on outdoor crops, if only because the maximum size farm plot in fortress mode doesn't really justify them.

[Andeerz]

I LOVE Zwei's idea also.  I think Zwei implied this as well: The requirement or optional use of tools should be coded in the labor (carpentry, blacksmithing, mining, etc.) as well as in the task/reaction itself (though for mining and woodcutting this would change nothing).  I think this would allow for a lot of flexibility. 

Like...

[REACTION:MAKE_WOODEN_CHAIR]
   [NAME:make wooden chair]
   [BUILDING:CARPENTER:CUSTOM_P]
   [REAGENT:A:1:WOOD_TEMPLATE:NO_SUBTYPE]
   [TOOL:A:1:HAMMER:OPTIONAL]*                 
   [TOOL:B:1:SAW:OPTIONAL]*
   [PRODUCT:100:1:chair blah I don't have the template raw with me...]
   [SKILL:CARPENTRY]

I figure a chair can be made without a hammer and/or a saw, but would be harder to do.  The use of tools would be optional, but would greatly speed up the process and even the overall quality of the item.  I dunno... whatcha think?

And Jake raises a good point about the plow.  If farm sizes do get reworked in fort mode, maybe that would justify the use of plows.
 
*This is where the flexibility comes in, and this would be especially important for adventure mode, methinks.  Maybe the tool tags and stuff like hammer and saw could be added to more than just tools made specifically for the trade.  For example, say someone wants to make a copper bowl but for whatever reason doesn't have a dishing hammer laying around.  However, maybe there's a warhammer laying about.  Why couldn't the metalworker co-opt that hammer instead?  Or even a rock or something? Those non-trade-specific tools should be able to be co-opted, I think, albeit at a penalty compared to using a dishing hammer.  So, in order to allow this to happen, the appropriate tool tags could be added to the raws of those items!  See where I'm getting at?  This would especially be good for adventure mode, I think, and would be great for fort mode, too. 

And aepurniet, that is a most excellent suggestion, and could apply to even non-tool related stuff.

[zwei]

Indeed, optional use of hammer for blacksmith, but required pick for mining. That is, of course, matter of modders opinion.

Hopefully, masterwork tools would have bonus effect not unsimilar to what weapons have where when given to newbie dwarf they would allow him to perform a bit better than expected.

Also, one thing occured to me, consider this:

[LABOR:SURTURING]
[WEAR:BACKPACK][CARRY:THREAD:1:1]

[LABOR:WOUND_DRESSING]
[WEAR:BACKPACK][CARRY:CLOTH:1:1]

Dwarf with theese two labors will carry supplies needed for his trade with him at all times, making his response time much better.

[Jake]

That's not a bad idea, actually, especially as it's intended that dwarves recovering their wounded attempt to control bleeding. I also like the idea of requiring certain items of clothing like gauntlets and aprons; maybe they could reduce the odds of work-related injuries?

And another, somewhat related idea occurs to me. Why not add in some extra items of furniture necessary for building certain workshops? A kitchen could require a couple of cooking pots, a loom could require a spinning-wheel, maybe the still could require a barrel and a few pipe sections.