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[mickel]

This is probably a space issue, but I come across a lot of occasions where it would really help to have something more clearly stated. A good example is the farmer's workshop, which I tend to avoid completely simply because I can't figure out what it does (yes I know there's a wikipage on it).

Take "process plants" for example. It's a very generic label for a very specific action. You get the impression it will process any plant, but it turns out it's not. And then "process plant (to bag)", which gives the impression you'll be turning the plant into a bag...

It would be nice if the interface could be fitted with at least labels for what goes into the process (e.g. foo-bush and any bag) and what comes out (bag filled with foo-leaves).

[nerdpride]

I'm still hoping that pressing the "?" key will bring up help for whatever menus or items are selected.  Like if you used "k" to look at an (iron axe), then pressed "?", it would tell you how to assign woodcutting, designate choppy areas, set soldiering preferences for using an axe, how skill in axefighting increases or put a unit in military mode.

Of course this is still an alpha--no such features when players can be encouraged to look at the wiki, but it would be a cool feature to attract a larger community.

So the problem with the farmer's workshop is that there are many similar tasks that require different containers for completion.  The "process plant to flask" is there for the "potion" (that don't do anything yet, right?), so obviously it turns a plant into a liquid in the workshop in a container.  I think that there should just be a "process plants" and another "process into liquid" that requires a container.

With this, I'm hoping that someday containers will be limited by a carrying capacity, so the dwarves themselves can decide whether processing a certain plant into a liquid will use a barrel or a vial (or half a barrel that might be mixed with another half of the same stuff).  I think that dwarves would recognice that a vial of booze is useless and that a barrel with a little potion at the bottom is hard to use  (maybe a lower bound on something containers can hold?  Will "X" seep through the cracks?).  

It's a little bit silly that quarry bush leaves need their own bags, IMHO.  Tobacco doesn't necessarily need its own bag, it can't be much different.  Maybe there's a good reason for this, I've sure had a lot of headaches (well, not really) over those bags.

[Dreamer]

I think it would be nice to have sub-menus that allow you to specify what types of plants, et cetera.  For example, "Process Quarry Bushes (Needs Bag)".

That aside, I think it'd be awesome if there were some Lengendary Drinks that required a vial, and a very skilled brewer, to make (It's easy to botch, in other words, resulting in losing stuff and possibly a flaming dwarf, resulting in an utter fortress collapse).

Maybe Quarry Leaves are vulnerable to exposure.  Once they're picked, their open stems allow contaminants in that could ruin the leaf.  Or maybe dwarves are just lazy and don't feel like carrying dozens of leaves by hand...  Ever tried carrying herbs like that?  It gets messy, and dwarves don't feel like creating additional hauling tasks for all the dropped leaves, so, in the end, it's actually good for you!

But that's just me.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

I think the biggest problem for newbies is that the plants don't tell you what they are used for. So you started farming, got some plants with funny names, and have 4 options for the farm workshop - will any of the 4 options do anything for the plants I have? Especially with bags and barrels usually rare commodities, trying out the variations may be a problem. And this also makes the workshop a bit of a hassle.

Still, there are a few good constants that are easily remember:
pigtail processed to pigtail thread (some dwarves start with pigtail thread clothes, I think, so everyone has a hint the plant can be used that way)
sweet pod (I think (^_^;; ) makes barrels of dwarven syrup

Personally, I am not too fond of quarry bushes. The thing is, I got lucky and the first collected cave plant was a quarry bush, so I was able to use quarry bushes in farms right away. With some 90 quarry bush leaves, I noticed that my dwarves rarely used them in the kitchens (I was producing meals of all sizes all the time). It seems as if quarry bush leaves are about the last thing they want to use in a meal, so it only accumulates in the stock piles (being unedible as is) while all the other food is cooked. At least that is how things are happening in my current fortress.

Ah, eventually, they do cook the leaves, but only once they have used up all the prestiguous food, it seems.

Deathworks

[mickel]

I never produce meals at all for this reason. Can't tell what the options do and I don't know what plants do what. The dwarves seem okay with eating their mushrooms raw, and planting only mushrooms is a pretty easy way to go, so the farm workshop and kitchen don't usually make it into my fortresses.

It would be nice to be able to use all these things.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Well, personally I think the kitchen is completely unproblematic:

Simply have it prepare easy meals on 'r'epeat and you are all set. If you have a butcher, make sure to set render fat on 'r'epeat from time to time as well.

Usually, if you have some food there, they will make nice meals out of it and this is said to rejuvenate food that was showing some wear (not rotting, just wear from getting trampled).

If you do use the kitchen, make sure to turn of cooking for alcohol and seeds. Alcohol cooking is usually nothing but trouble - you need more alcohol than food anyway and the cook seems to have a hard time defending the alcohol from thirsty dwarves.

Having recipes implemented would make kitchens more interesting, of course

Deathworks

[mickel]

It'd be nice to set these things on auto. Other workshops seem to have it. Spider silk is an example. But that's material for another thread.

What bugs me about setting the kitchen to cook easy meals on repeat is that eventually they run out of cookable items and stop working, and you have to set another repeat order, and another...

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Well, there are a few problems with automatization.

You see, there is just one thing you can do with spider web - turn it into spider silk.
There is just one thing you can do with the corpse of a large animal - butcher it.

That is why these things work great with automatization.

Theoretically, fish cleaning could also be automized under that token, because there is no known other use for raw turtle (except maybe as a lethal throwing weapon in adventure mode ).

But when you get to the kitchen, clothes making, the farm workshop and so on, there is the issue of diversity. If you have some food lying around, you can cook it into simple meals, but you could also cook it into lavish meals. How should the program know which one to cook? And would you want it to do this endlessly? After all, you might want to do a few lavish meals to calm down some nobles or maybe to sell to a caravan.

The same is true for clothes making and armor making. And the farm workshop, mill, and brewery are even worse, because there are some items that overlap between the three of them (pig tail can be brewed but can also be turned into cloth; longland grass can be brewed or turned into flower)

So, there is the problem how to make automatization viable for these complex cases. And since this is more of a minor inconvenience, I am afraid that that will not be handled any time soon (^_^;;

Deathworks

[mickel]

That's a topic for another thread, which I'll be starting right now.