Hey all. Only been playing for a few (solid, sleepless) weeks now, but there are some tweaks I would like to see. Unsure how many of them might be covered in coming updates/already on the drawing board/requested to death already.
Trader/Caravan
-Browsing an ordered list would be helpful. Bonus points for adding filters for price, object type, material, weight, ect....Incidentally, I'd appreciate the left menu in the Stocks screen to be somewhat ordered to. After 9+ hours of DF, the eyes, they don't read so well anymore.
-A "Trade all/Buy all" button would be fabulous. Part of the reason I order way too much stuff to the trader at once is because I don't want to hassle with down, enter, down, enter more than I have to. And besides, I've already had to do that once, should I really need to do it again, on top of having to do it with the caravan's good as well...and to sell my goods....and to stop my trader from moving things to the depot...and to start my trader moving goods to the depot again....
-Use more of the screen. There's like 2/3rds unused real estate on the trader screen. Can't both lists display more?
-Ability to view Stocks from the Trade screen.
Container Interaction/Item display
-It would be nice to be able to designate an item in a bin for melting WITHOUT having to view the item first.
-I'd like to be able to see the quality and adornments on placed objects in "Look Around mode". Unless I've missed something, you can't view object descriptions when they are in place. Shouldn't viewing objects work similar to how engravings are viewed?
AI/Behavior
-I really wish my miners/builders would more intelligently approach how they build sometimes. It's a little silly how often they dig themselves on to inaccessible platforms, or build themselves into corners. The AI should really ask itself "Am I going to be trapped if I build this?" before it does it. It already does in a fashion, but it needs to take that next step of evaluating the dwarves' path after construction too.
OR, make it part of the Foremans's (that's what I call my Managers) job to supervise work sites so stuff like that doesn't happen. That'd be a cooler way to approach it. Maybe even make the "Stupid test" a function of job skill.
-Ability to designate a master stockpile that operates sort of like "Fish only from designated areas" works. My reasoning is that I build outpost stockpiles for my military and and the bulk of my civilians decide it's the best place to eat and drink. Probably because it has the newest goods and is close to a thoroughfare. Perhaps this will be addressed by the burrows update.
Priority Task Assignment
It would be nice to able to assign certain tasks not covered by work orders (hauling and mining) a priority flag, which automatically bumps it to the top of the job list. Preference would still apply, but the most willing dwarf able to do the job would go after that task first. This way you could direct the effort of miners towards resources you need now, and most importantly, get dumpers and haulers to fetch items that are important/obstructing right away. It's frustrating to have a doorway "conveniently" blocked by refuse or dropped items so it won't close, and wait a whole season before someone deals with it.
Something as easy as shift + P brings puts you in priority task assignment mode, and you can select one item marked for dumping, a grid of priority mining or an object on the ground for immediate actioning. It'd dove tail work orders which handle most of your automated tasks, while letting you handle expansion projects/important maintenance.
Military
I know military is getting a big update, but here's some anyways.
-Renaming squads, redux. Seems like people have been requesting that for a while.
-Another quasi-noble position for the military leader of the Fortress. I know, I know, that's technically the Captain of the Guard...but with the new world conflict arc, there's going to be a distinct divide between home and away military. So there should probably be "General" noble position. I already do this in my fortress, taking the first legendary, non-champion figure and making them the nominal head of military. The Captain of the Guard is just a lackey for the nobles, anyways.
-I'm guessing this has been heard before. Catapults really need a) to be able to fire up/down z-levels and deal damage and b) need target area designation. This hurling a boulder in a straight line across one z-level is for the birds. It might be good for amusing yourself, moving rock, and building stats without making ammo, but it lacks the natural awesome factor of the catapult. Ordering them to "drop stones around here" would be much more fun/effective. And give Today and Co. an excuse to add more calcs to the game.
I can see there would be some problems with having an actual trajectory though. You could a) make them only buildable outdoors...but that screws the fortress for having big interior defenses with them. It's more realistic though, by a long shot. A second solution is to just have stones magically appear around your designated target area, after a short delay. That works for the mechanics, and satisfies DF's 2-d requirements. (In 3-d, you expect midair collision. In iso and 2d, not so much.)
Lists
This game more than any other I've ever played could benefit from stat dumps in-game. I know there are limitations to that sort of thing, like doing charts and graphs would be iffy. But you could even use it as an excuse to create another noble position, akin to what the Treasurer already does. And I NEEDS MY DATAS.
Lists I'd like to see-
-Relationships list. It's a pain in the ass after 50 dwarves to try and view relationships. Sublimate parent/child entries the way Squad leaders and members are displayed.
-Productivity output, per non-enlisted dwarf, per Craft, overall % of ilders per season, all that good stuff.
-Condensed death history list, including name, profession at death, age at death, time of death, reason for death and killer if applicable. I leave copious notes around my tombs, and this is both time consuming and cluttered.
-Enemy List. I find it hard/awkward to get a handle on the enemies I'm facing sometimes. The extra long Goblin names cause their professions to run off-screen using the "v" key and it's messy as hell when they start stacking. It's tedious to scroll through EVERY entity on the unit list to get to them, and that's just with ~15 or 20 goblins. Putting all the living, visible opponents on one screen would make things way easier to manage and digest.
Visual overlays
Lists are all fine and dandy to a certain point, but the number of dwarves eventually makes them a pain to navigate and read. Again, there limitations to how much you can do visually but the frame work is already there. The Depot Access overlay already demonstrates how this would work.
-Occupancy/cost overlay. Oh my god, how I want this. It would be helpful when you're creating/assigning rooms in a panic to deal with immigrants, and to get a sense of how income is distributed later on. Rooms that are defined but not owned have their squares flash black/gray. Rooms that are renting for 1-200 would flash green, 201-1000 yellow, 1001-2000+ red, 2000+ white. Rooms that are occupied by nobility/before the economy would flash blue. Bonus points for different modes like craft of occupant, income of owner, item count, ect...
-Traffic Levels Overlay. Not terrible important but again, it's data and data is good. It wouldn't have to dump the pathing explicity, just show where dwarves prefer to walk. It might also help explain to the player visually what their dwarves prefer to do/how their orders are being interpreted.
Notification Options
-I'd like to toggle whether or not I'm notified when a dwarf starts bleeding. Lots of times there's nothing you can do about it (although that may change soon), but as it is now I only know what's happened after someone has bled to death. Leave it on for peace time so you know when stuff is going down, turn it off for wartime.
-I'd like to be notified when a child is actually physically kidnapped. I've had kids get kidnapped and I've only been informed when the kidnapper reaches the edge of the map. If a kidnapper was able to get the child without being seen in the first place, there's little chance I'm going to be able to stop them. But I want to at least know where the kid was kidnapped FROM so I can close that hole in my defenses.
Random stuff
-Secret doors. They're RPG-y, and I'm sort of surprised they aren't in yet. They would be doors that non-thief enemies only have a 20% chance of seeing, unless they see a dwarf come through it. It would require mechanisms to be built, and you the quality of the doors and mechanisms could adjust its chances of being seen up or down. It would be nice to have a different set of doors from your main entrance that you could sally forth from.
It'd also be cool if you could make the door secret from your own dwarves, but that might run afoul of the labor system, since dwarves will go wherever they need to, to complete jobs.
Author
Topic: A handful of suggestions (Read 2162 times)