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[protobob]

Great game. Here are some interface ideas I had:

Job Priorities:

1. Provide ability to to specify a job priority. Ie. Stuki the Miner's primary job is Mining. If there is no mining he will do something else. But if there is mining available he will not do anything else.

Work Groups:

Idea: Instead of assigning Jobs to each dwarf manually, have Work Groups.

1. We would have the ability to create Work Groups, remove Work Groups, activate Work Groups and deactivate Work Groups.
2. Each Work Group has it's own Job Template (and feature the same Job priority feature I mention in #1 above).
3. Dwarves can only be assigned to one group at a time.
4. The Dwarf selection screen lists all the dwarves. You can see who is already in a group, and you can check off names that you wish to be in the group (like that screen where you select which trade goods you wish to move to the depot).
5. When a Dwarf is added to a Work Group, his Job assignments are over-rided by the Work Group's Job Template.
6. When a Dwarf is removed from a Work Group (or a Work Group is inactived), the dwarf goes back to his old Job profile that is defined individually.

NOTES: This is a lot like setting security permissions on a network. Instead of editing each users permissions (which is what we do now in the game) you just create a group and set the permissions on the group. In the end you do much less fiddeling. You just have to edit the Job screen once for, say, all your farmers, instead of for every farmer.

Optimally the Work Group screen shows a list of Work Groups. You can hit one key to see the members of a selected group, and another key to see the Job Template(s) of the selected work group.

Advanced Work Group options:

1. Work Groups can be turned into Smart Work Groups. A Smart Work Group can be set up with a Keyword. All Dwarves who's profession name matches the keyword are automatically added to the Smart Work Group.
2. Work Groups can be set to seasonal. Seasonal Work Groups have 4 Job templates, one for each season. (Or maybe just 2,  Winter/Non-Winter templates.) The active Template is determined by the current season.

NOTES: The seasonal options would be real handy for creating a group that farms in the spring/summer/autumn and chops wood in the winter, or a group that fishes in the spring/summer/autumn and hauls stone in the winter.

Complicated Work Group Ideas:

1. Dwarves can be added to multiple groups.
2. Work Groups are sorted. The higher in the list the group is, the higher priority it is. So if a Dwarf is in Group 1 (Farmers) and Group 2 (Miners), he will farm. But if the Miners Group is set to 1. and Farmers set to 2. he will Mine.

NOTES: I think this is the optimum solution but it is more complicated. The problem with this is that you might end up being confused why someone in the mining group is fishing, etc.

Selection 'Brushes':

1. When having to draw Designations, Stashes, we can use one of 10 'brushes.'To pick a brush press 0-9. Brushes are just preset selections. You can have a 1x10 brush, a 3x3 brush, a 6x6 brush, etc.
2. Allow the user to edit the brushes.

[ September 01, 2006: Message edited by: protobob ]

[ September 01, 2006: Message edited by: protobob ]

[Lurve]

I think that's needlessly complicated.  It's annoying enough just managing the military, I'd hate to have to do the same every time I wanted a job done.  I think most of the efficiency improvements you're looking for can be attained  simply by having a dwarf prioritize the jobs they're best at.  That is, given the choice between masonry and stone hauling, a mason should always choose the masonry task instead of whichever's closer.

[Sophismata]

I like it. It could handle just like the military screen, and allow the easy assignation of set labour preferences.