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[urban48]

after room have been assigned or claimed by a dwarf, and if it contains some furniture.
the owner should be able to rearrange and move the furniture around, inside the room as he sees fit

what do u think?

[Bumber]

Sounds potentially annoying. Especially if "as he sees fit" translates to "into a random mess".

[GavJ]

Sounds ugly/annoying with no obvious benefit for gameplay. Why do you want this, exactly?
Any player who can't arrange furniture better than a pre-coded algorithm is a player who probably wouldn't appreciate it anyway.

[Scruiser]

This seems like it might be useful when it connects to dwarfs buying and placing their own furniture in rooms they have purchased/rented.  Before that happens though, it will probably just result in a random mess, as Bumber suggested. 

[urban48]

the idea behind this suggestion is to show part of the dwarfs personality, some are tidy some a messy....

[Scruiser]

the idea behind this suggestion is to show part of the dwarfs personality, some are tidy some a messy....

The problem is that you would have to write an algorithm that reflects a humans sense of aesthetics of furniture position.  A lot of player go with simple room shapes 1x2, 2x3, 3x3, 5x5 etc. however nothing is stopping player from making weirdly shaped rooms.  This means your algorithm for furniture layout would have to cover a lot of weird cases.  I am just not seeing that happen.  If you have an algorithm for furniture layout that can reflect personalities and cover weird room layouts please share it.  Otherwise I am just not seeing this working.

[urban48]

The problem is that you would have to write an algorithm that reflects a humans sense of aesthetics of furniture position.  A lot of player go with simple room shapes 1x2, 2x3, 3x3, 5x5 etc. however nothing is stopping player from making weirdly shaped rooms.  This means your algorithm for furniture layout would have to cover a lot of weird cases.  I am just not seeing that happen.  If you have an algorithm for furniture layout that can reflect personalities and cover weird room layouts please share it.  Otherwise I am just not seeing this working.

you don’t have to create super sophisticated AI that reflect dwarf/human sense of aesthetics (not sure its even possible). you only need an algorithm that make it look like it dose.
right now i can see three states, dwarfs with high, low or normal aesthetics.

dwarfs with:

low: algorithm will shuffle the furniture around mostly randomly, just keep them from blocking the door. only to make it look like the dwarf is messy, maybe even throw some garbage on the floor
high: furniture will be arranged together in a "smarter" way, for example: the dwarf will put the chest or cabinet next to the bed, or armor stand next to the weapon rack,
if room got rocks on the floor maybe its possible to arrange/move them in one pile at the corner... and so on
normal: no changes to furniture positions

[Adrian]

Once an economy goes in (properly), i'm fully expecting we won't have to manually assign furniture to rooms anymore.
I'm expecting we just have to designate an area as a room (or just general housing if it has a study/dining room integrated) and the owners will check for themselves what they want/need and purchase those items from the state.

But right now there wouldn't be much benefit to it.

[Dirst]

The algorithm could be fairly straightforward.  An efficiency-minded Dwarf will keep things close to the exit while a more orderly/artistic one would keep things along the walls, with the exception that the artistic one would put the most-admired bit of furniture in a central location.  A couple more weighting algorithms for flavor (and tie-breaker rules when two things "want" to be in the same tile) and you've got rooms with personality.

But I agree, this doesn't make sense if the player is manually placing the furniture.  Pre-economy, one could designate a bedroom zone and let the Dwarf pick out available furniture... post-economy the Dwarf buys things with occasional upgrades.

[Scruiser]

The algorithm could be fairly straightforward.  An efficiency-minded Dwarf will keep things close to the exit while a more orderly/artistic one would keep things along the walls, with the exception that the artistic one would put the most-admired bit of furniture in a central location.  A couple more weighting algorithms for flavor (and tie-breaker rules when two things "want" to be in the same tile) and you've got rooms with personality.

low: algorithm will shuffle the furniture around mostly randomly, just keep them from blocking the door. only to make it look like the dwarf is messy, maybe even throw some garbage on the floor
high: furniture will be arranged together in a "smarter" way, for example: the dwarf will put the chest or cabinet next to the bed, or armor stand next to the weapon rack,
if room got rocks on the floor maybe its possible to arrange/move them in one pile at the corner... and so on
normal: no changes to furniture positions

Yeah I actually guess it is doable now that you guys have pointed out a few ideas for it.  Weird rooms (odd shapes, multiple entrances/exits, overlapping room, etc.) will still cause some problems, but for all of the rooms with 4 walls, a single door, and a rectangular shape, this should be possible.  I still see it coming after changes to room designation or dwarf economy, as other posters have pointed out.

[Dirst]

Yeah I actually guess it is doable now that you guys have pointed out a few ideas for it.  Weird rooms (odd shapes, multiple entrances/exits, overlapping room, etc.) will still cause some problems, but for all of the rooms with 4 walls, a single door, and a rectangular shape, this should be possible.  I still see it coming after changes to room designation or dwarf economy, as other posters have pointed out.

This kind of thing has been around for a while (the most memorable to me was Dungeonkeeper), and we know this kind of code is already in the game because NPC fortresses get laid out in some semblance of order.  But Dwarves should not be moving around things planted by the player.  The game can't know how important that placement is to the player's plans (or aesthetic sense).

[Adrian]

The game can't know how important that placement is to the player's plans (or aesthetic sense).

I think you meant "neurotic obsession with symmetry".

[Skullsploder]

Maybe players should decide where things should go, but what goes there exactly is decided by the dwarf? As in, when the economy comes in, a dwarf will replace furniture with better furniture if he can afford it, but place it where the old equivalent item was.

Alternatively, we have this furniture-arranging formula.

The way I see it, the formula would need to locate the center of the room, decide on walking-space required/available, decide what furniture the dwarf would WANT in their room, probably based on a preset list with item preferences getting pushed to the top for individual dwarves, and then decide on an arrangement for the furniture based on the dwarf's artistic-ness, sense of efficiency, and neatness.

Efficiency and work ethic combined decide tendency of dwarves to place items near exits, proximity to exit for each item based on ratio of time owned/times used (so that their bed will be closest to the door, then their dresser, then their coffer, and so on).

Artistic-ness and feel for aesthetics combined determine tendency of dwarves to place items in concentric rings, starting at the walls and working inwards, with the most prized item (not most used) taking the center.

Neatness decides the randomisation factor in the algorithm. That is, once the position for all furniture has been set down by the formula, neatness comes along and screws with it, giving a percentage chance of moving each piece of furniture a random amount of urists from its formula-set position, distance moved and chance of moving both determined by neatness score of dwarf.

Of course, in a standard 2*3 room like the dwarves in my fort get, what I mentioned above would probably result in every room just being a horrible jumble of furniture, but still, maybe more intelligence is what the dwarves need.

I don't know which would be better, the formula with the parameters I gave above, or my first paragraph's idea of having furniture only ever get replaced, never rearranged, but I certainly know which the Great Toad would have an easier time coding

[Bumber]

Declaring where things should go is a good idea, although player-placed furniture should be considered part of the house. Some apartments have rules about replacing certain things, and such.

[Scruiser]

This kind of thing has been around for a while (the most memorable to me was Dungeonkeeper), and we know this kind of code is already in the game because NPC fortresses get laid out in some semblance of order.  But Dwarves should not be moving around things planted by the player.  The game can't know how important that placement is to the player's plans (or aesthetic sense).

It can do a mediocre job at placing furniture in NPC fortresses (has it improved since 40.01?).  Other games can handle simple square and rectangular rooms.  But dwarf fortress allows some really weird combination of room shapes and designations.