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[Sappho]

I am currently building an enormous pyramid for later use in adventure mode.  It is being constructed entirely out of stone mined from beneath it.  To try to keep my FPS as high as possible, I have capped the population at 20 (I currently have 28 but am not getting more immigrants), and to speed things along I turned off invasions and artifacts.  The end result of this is that 3/4 of my population is currently working on the construction of the pyramid, while the other 1/4 is keeping up with food production.

After 3 in-game years of work, it struck me that I still didn't have any legendary masons - or any masons at all, in fact.  I checked their stats and none of them were so much as dabbling masons.  Even though building stone constructions requires the masonry skill, it does not exercise that skill.  This doesn't make any sense - if it's not going to give experience, it shouldn't need a skill to do it.  After years of play, I'm left with a bunch of essentially unskilled dwarves with no attributes.  It's a good thing I turned off invasions, because none of them would have a chance against a goblin.

Apologies if this has already been reported, but I didn't see it anywhere in the forum.

[Todd]

Do we know if the mason skill makes them build walls faster?

The workaround for this is to carve all the stones into blocks before building them.  Also your pyramid will be prettier  

[Sappho]

Higher mason skill does make them build faster.  I have one skilled mason which I brought with me, and he builds much faster than the others.  My pyramid is going to take a great deal longer than it would if building gave experience.

I don't think constructions made from blocks look any different from those made with raw stone, however, and it would take a lot more time to carve the stones into blocks first...  This pyramid is truly massive, going to take somewhere around 15000 - 20000 stones to complete, I think.

[ November 13, 2007: Message edited by: Sappho ]

[Zurai]

Raw-stone and stone-block walls look identical.

I've noticed the same thing re: constructions not giving Masonry skill.

[Buggy]

quote:After years of play, I'm left with a bunch of essentially unskilled dwarves with no attributes.  

And so much the better for you when the slave revolt comes....

[Lazer Bomb]

If you could build walls for mason experience, then there would be no way to stop people from building then unbuilding unlimited walls and getting unlimited experience. I think that wall-making should give some exp, say 5.

This could be this low to prevent people from using it as a source of xp, but still allowing you to get a bit of a bonus from building walls. An alternative is that you get about 10 to 30 exp, but there is a chance of the rock being lost if the wall is removed, such as 6% the rock stays and 40% it is destroyed.
It still seems cheap that you got no exp. I suggest that next time you make some rock blocks, because 1 you get experience, causing your dwarves to work faster, and 2 when examined, you see "smooth rock wall" instead of "rough rcok wall" (which is cooler- imagine exploring an entire fortress/architectual work in entirely smooth rock! It would really make it cool).

[Sappho]

I don't see why it would be a problem to use it as a source of XP.  It's no different to do that than to have them take turns counting rocks, or just make rock bocks nonstop, or just carve stone or wooden crafts nonstop.  It would take just as long to get XP from building walls as from any other activity, and when doing a large building project like the one I'm doing now, it is absurd that they don't get any experience from hauling rock from 3 levels below the ground to 2 levels above the ground and then crafting a single square of floor or wall, over and over and over again.

[Buoyancy]

quote:Originally posted by Lazer Bomb:
[QB]If you could build walls for mason experience, then there would be no way to stop people from building then unbuilding unlimited walls and getting unlimited experience. I think that wall-making should give some exp, say 5.

What's the purpose of trying to limit this?  I can stick the same dwarf in a mason's shop making stone blocks and have him reach legendary status with far less effort on my part.  It's not like you're ever going to run out of stone on most maps.

[Morkilus]

It sure makes sense to me for a mason to get experience from, you know, building things rather than making blocks or mugs - a "stonecutter" ability perhaps?

[Mylon]

Or build a pump and pump water from one giant tank into another!  Or heck, just spin a pump around that isn't connected to anything!

[Veroule]

As someone that actually spent a number of years out of my life building brick and block sturctures, I can safely say that a dwarf damn well should get experience from building a structure.

ALL structures currently do not give experience for building them.  Workshops, walls, traps, etc. not a single one gives exp in the building of them.  Traps do give exp for reloading.

This really needs to change.  If a skill is required to do something then that skill is being used when that something is being done.  There should be an associated exp gain with all usages of a skill.