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[Phazon77]

This may only apply until the economy is fixed, but I thought it might be an interesting idea in any case. Basically to create an option which would allow you to designate a dwarf to prioritize speed over quality or vice versa when they are creating an item that has a quality related stat or going about their business farming/engraving etc.

I think this would be useful in situations where you may need alot of an item very quickly and quality doesnt matter, or in the case of legendary dwarves you could designate them to work ultra fast as opposed to very fast so dwarves of a lower wage can still afford the plentiful item that they create. For dwarves that are farming, engraving ect it would allow them to work a little faster but at the risk of not doing as good a job or getting hungry/thirsty/tired much faster.

This ability could come with a noble (such as the Guild representatives) or it could be a new feature that gets integrated and is avaliable from the start.

[ May 30, 2007: Message edited by: Phazon77 ]

[Tamren]

Legendary dwarves already make items in pretty much the blink of an eye. And masterpiece items no less.

But i agree some sort of quality control would be great. Its hard to build economy bedrooms when all i have are masterpiece beds.

[Jeon]

quote:Originally posted by Tamren:
<STRONG>But i agree some sort of quality control would be great. Its hard to build economy bedrooms when all i have are masterpiece beds.</STRONG>

I think quality control has been suggested before for the too expensive rooms problem and then it was suggested that instead there would be some kind of supply and demand system for room prices.

If the average quality of the rooms is high and there are plenty of rooms then the price of housing would be adjusted down.  If there aren't many rooms and the average quality of them is low, then a room with masterpiece furniture would cost a fortune.

And by average I mean median so that you can't have rooms with masterpiece platinum chests and cabinets for your legendary dwarves to lower the rent costs of everyone else's rooms significantly.

Supply and demand would be nice for food/clothing/crafts that the dwarves buy as well so that the prices aren't determined by noble's whims... until they spike the demand up insanely high by hoarding all of the goods to themselves.  (Why does my Baron have so many masterpiece dresses on his floor? o.O)

[Tamren]

quote:Originally posted by Jeon:
<STRONG>
(Why does my Baron have so many masterpiece dresses on his floor? o.O)</STRONG>

Personally id be afraid to ask...

Supply and demand sounds great.

What if we also added a noble whose job it is to SET the prices and let YOU determing what is the standard.

Lets say the worst bedroom in your fortress was 3X3, everything is smoothed out, engraved and the bed is a masterpiece item.

In the beginning, the going standard would be an empty patch of ground that the dwarf can sleep on. Now that you have set the standard that room now becomes the baseline to which the quality of other rooms are based off of.

So even a dwarf with an empty pocket could afford such a room because it costs him nothing. The problem with doing this is you must be prepared to make even more extravagant rooms because your nobles will not be happy unless they have better stuff than everyone else.

[slMagnvox]

Letting a less skilled dwarf spend more time on a job to get a better quality level might make it too easy to get the high quality steel gear.  Which is what I spend the majority of my mid game on, training my smiths.

If you want lower quality items, just set your legendary guy to hauling (or give him a crossbow) and let the novices do the work.

For example, my clothesmakers ... I pick a peasant from the first immigration to be my weaver.  He trains weaving for awhile and gets promoted to clothesmaker.  Another peasant gets to become my new weaver, who will eventually become my next Tailor.  I don't like too many masterpiece clothes because there is the threat of tantrums and low quality clothes maybe do allow more breathing room when the economy comes.

And letting more dwarves train up improves the general EXP of your population which is nice to have for hauling and recruiting new soldiers.

[Fieari]

For reference, here's the previous thread on the speed/quality topic, made earlier this month:
http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=000957

My opinion from that thread stands.

[slMagnvox]

Then I would reiterate it being rather unnecesary.  We have the Manager to control who can work in what shop.  I agree its easiest to rely on just one mason, and once legendary he does work very fast, but those immigrants would love a shot at getting to do some work too.  We don't need a way to restrain our legendaries when we have so many novices eager for work.

[Tamren]

No, this would still be highly helpful.

A manager can assign workshops to specific skill levels but if you ordered up 30 tables from the manager interface he ignores the skill levels and assigns the job to all the available workshops at once.

Besides, even if you DO use complete novice carpenters, you are not guaranteed to get tables of base quality.

So far there is no penalty for crappy work. But if the quality scale was expanded into the negatives we would very much want the best craftsman working on products we expect to use.

On the other hand, the problem with this is we need to have a way to train those noob carpenters without making a gigantic pile of low quality goods that our nobles will balk at.

Perhaps some recycling system would work?

[irmo]

quote:Originally posted by Fieari:
<STRONG> http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=000957

My opinion from that thread stands.</STRONG>

As does mine.  The idea of a tradeoff between speed and quality is un-dwarvish.

In theory I like the suggestion to allow it with a happiness hit, but if it's a significant hit, there's no point in doing it.  The gain in production would be offset when the dwarf has to go on break (or tantrum) due to low morale.  The only reason to do it would be to avoid masterpieces, and you can do that by putting a less-skilled artisan on the job.

[slMagnvox]

quote:Originally posted by Tamren:
A manager can assign workshops to specific skill levels but if you ordered up 30 tables from the manager interface he ignores the skill levels and assigns the job to all the available workshops at once

The individual workshops still respect the skill level and dwarf restrictions you put into place.

The batch job assignment through the manager screen becomes less useful with multiple shops.  But remember, say you want low quality stone tables, you can just have two novice only workshops and queue up ten each for 20 tables.  Thats nearly as good as the manager's 30 and less error prone.

[Veroule]

What is missed in my original thread is the concept that you could also choose to have higher quality items made by less skilled persons at a huge cost to speed.  The formula itself is true.

Again a happiness hit would likely apply, something along the lines of "feels too much has been demanded of him at work recently."  I know I have had such thoughts myself from work sometimes.

[Zereth]

quote:Originally posted by slMagnvox:
<STRONG>Letting a less skilled dwarf spend more time on a job to get a better quality level might make it too easy to get the high quality steel gear.  Which is what I spend the majority of my mid game on, training my smiths.</STRONG>

However, when you _Are_ trying to get masterpeice steel gear, it might be nice to have an option to automatically send anythign that doesn't meet quality standards direclty to the furance for melting back down into bars. Perhaps an option on the workshop, "auto-scrap", with a quality setting, and if a dwarf produces only a + quality item, he smashes it with the forge's tools a few times, turning it into "scrap steel" so nobody tries using it, and then it gets melted down automatically. (and perhaps a dwarf which is wearing steel plate and is cut into a half-dozen peices by one attack would also have his armor turn into scrap, or a destroyed steel building or other item becomes some scrap.)

[irmo]

quote:Originally posted by Zereth:
<STRONG>
However, when you _Are_ trying to get masterpeice steel gear, it might be nice to have an option to automatically send anythign that doesn't meet quality standards direclty to the furance for melting back down into bars. </STRONG>

I like this idea.  It seems very appropriate for legendary dwarves, who aren't getting any better by producing inferior goods and therefore should insist on masterpieces.  Maybe a "masterpieces only" option on jobs (like the light/dark stone options) that requires a legendary dwarf to do the job and automatically recycles/destroys anything less than a masterpiece.  So you can consistently get masterpieces, but you can't skip the training process.

[slMagnvox]

You can already melt your less-than-masterpiece steel plate on your own all you want.  You'll just need the Bookkeeper and only get about one in three bars back.

A masterpiece only option is, c'mon, cheesy.

[Tamren]

... cheesy how? if you wanted only masterpieces you would simply trash all the items produced that are NOT masterpieces.

Having such an option would only automate the process.

quote:Originally posted by slMagnvox:
<STRONG>The batch job assignment through the manager screen becomes less useful with multiple shops.  But remember, say you want low quality stone tables, you can just have two novice only workshops and queue up ten each for 20 tables.  Thats nearly as good as the manager's 30 and less error prone.</STRONG>

1. I still can not control the quality of the finished work.
2. That forces me to use my slowest craftsman in order to make the easiest item. Should be reversed.
3. That does not work when there are already standing orders in the queue.

[ June 01, 2007: Message edited by: Tamren ]