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definatly

5 (27.8%)

yes

4 (22.2%)

almost

5 (27.8%)

no

2 (11.1%)

never

0 (0%)

already suggested

2 (11.1%)

Total Members Voted: 18

[Megaman]

I had an idea, how about we have unidentified plants in the game? For example, UristMcDwarf dosn't have a herbilist skill and gathers plants, how about he then brings the plant to an unidentified plant stockpile, so UristMcHerbilist can identify the plant, and all plants of that type are identified. If none of your dwarves are herbilists, or none of your dwarves can identify it, it reamains an unidentified plant and you can toggle it to be studied via taste by a dwarf of your choice, it can cause poisining, resulting in eventual death. If the dwarf dies of this plant, it will still be unammed, but it will be marked (poisionous), even if it is of some use(i.e can make dyes). Elves will sell you information about plants for a small fee(lol looser, turning to hippies for help). If the plant is edible but unidentified, it will be unkown(edible). You cannot farm unidentified plants(how will your dwarves know how if they don't know what it is?) and unbrewible, not knowing if you can even brew it.

what do you think?

[Fieari]

This seems like it ties into Toady's new "Knowledge" system that he's currently implementing for Medicine only, and will be branching out from there.  But this really is multiple suggestions.

1) Have a Knowledge for each type of plant
2) Be able to gain PARTIAL Knowledge of plants by eatting it
3) Be able tp purchase knowledge from other races
4) Be restricted as to what you can do based on what you know about it

#1 is fine, although may run into memory issues as more types of knowledge are added to dwarves (each piece of knowledge will need its own bit, and bits add up).  #2 -- partial knowledge -- would be even worse memory wise, as you'd have to keep track of what is known about each different plant, for each dwarf.  Gaining knowledge automatically by testing it once isn't something I'm keen on either... I'd prefer it to take some more effort, with possibility for misidentification in the process.  That's more dwarfy.

#3 is going to be in, IIRC from interviews with Toady.  #4 will also be in to some extent... except that it's not that you CAN'T do things without knowing how, it's that you'll just suck horribly at it.  To the point of almost always mangling the job, with a couple of possible lucky breaks for something passable.

[Megaman]

On No.1 I meant a good herbalist could discover all of it's features and name it(Having a pop-up message telling you about your discovery)
 No.2 I mean puerly if it's edible raw or not, nothing else.

[Warlord255]

Poisonous plants of any sort becomes invalidated the first time a player runs into them. There is currently no appropriate variable mechanic where a dwarf might accidentally eat a poisonous plant, as you can forbid it, ban it from the kitchen, make a separate stockpile for it, and otherwise screen it without much disobedience from your dwarves.

So yes, this is a good way to get poisonous things into the game.

[Pilsu]

The idea holds promise. You shouldn't get any Herbalism experience by eating random shit though, that's just stupid. In order to learn anything from it, you'd need meticulous testing and only eating every few days. Otherwise it'd be hard to tell which plant made you shit through your mouth


Personally I'd handle knowledge with apprenticeship and botany manuals that are carried around by novice Herbalists. From what I understand, every bush has predetermined properties that are only displayed in adventure mode. Let's put this into use! Each time a dwarf approaches a bush to find something usable, a Herbalism skill check is performed. Without a manual or a trainer you won't get any XP from this whatsoever. Let's use the item quality chart from the wiki for this. No Quality shall stand in for failure. For example, a Novice would fail two-thirds of the time. There would be three types of bushes:

• Edible and Poisonous berries:
  
  Any dwarf can find and pick these. An unskilled dwarf would pick all berries indiscriminately and bring home a bundle of Unidentified Berries. An Herbalist checking a berry bush would try to determine whether the berries are edible. Failure would make him forage the bush and bring back Unidentified Berries regardless of what kind the bush contains. Success would make him harvest any edible berries or in the case of poisonous ones, remove the foraging designation from the bush and ignore it. The bush is not destroyed by harvesting.
  
  
• Bushes requiring knowledge:
  
  These contain leaves and roots that can only be found by Herbalists. Failure in the skill check means the dwarf moves on and removes it's foraging designation. In the case of poisonous roots and leaves, two checks might be needed. Success and the following harvesting destroys the plant.
  
  
• Empty Bushes:
  
  These contain nothing edible. The berries are either raw, have already been picked or the plant never had anything edible or usable to begin with.

Of course, we'd need a way to pick poisonous berries in case they're tagged as [Dye], edible cooked or usable as poison. Civ ethics should play a part in whether poison use is acceptable and physiology should determine whether a plant counts as poisonous. Gloves should protect from contact poison and irritants like nettles. And as you can plainly see, I think plants should be seasonal. I don't think that'd meet with much resistance


Personally I would not include any fatal plants whatsoever. Plants that make you shit yourself, make you sore or in the worst case scenario, require bed rest are more like it. Toughness would reduce symptoms a little bit at most. And well, poison isn't instant. If you suddenly vomit and pass out, your friends aren't gonna magically guess which berries are bad to eat and leave them alone. Eating unidentified berries would rank really low on priorities, just above vermin. Basically a player initiated desperation move. They wouldn't be cookable either

[jaked122]

fatal plants, no... make some plants that will mutate your dwarves, that's what I want!!! twenty armed swordsmen!

[Megaman]

wow jake, you hate fun don't you?

[Rowanas]

twenty arms, but alas, they all appear red. bed rest FOREVER.

[Footkerchief]

This seems like it ties into Toady's new "Knowledge" system that he's currently implementing for Medicine only, and will be branching out from there. 

Unfortunately, unless there was another post I missed, it sounds like knowledge is at best a "consider" for this release:

However, I'm considering starting up a notion of "knowledge" as opposed to skill...

I'm assuming we will see this filtered out to other professions eventually? Seems like this would be a nice way to ease into apprenticeship and teaching/learning.

Is the distinction between the two something like this below, or do you have something else in mind?


Knowledge: Knowing how to do some action, or how to identify something. (So basically like wisdom/experience. Strictly mental)

Skill: Ability to perform some action (strictly physical)


So you may know how to remove an arrow that has punctured the lung (sufficient knowledge), but lack the dexterity to do so (insufficient skill).

Something like that.  I wouldn't say strictly physical for skills.  The main goal is to split out things that a creature shouldn't just be able to stumble upon with a little tinkering.  It perhaps falls in line with "technology" and would probably be stored at both the individual and civilization level.  It should also be able to capture notions like misinformation, so each of the most finely-grained concepts could say, have 32 bits worth of unspecified "facts" and a book could carry both information and misinformation for each bit, if things need to be kept concise.  I haven't sorted it out yet, but those are some of the things that need to be captured.  The more I think about what I need for the system to model what's needed, the less likely we'll see it for this release I think.