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[Shujaa]

When you want to build a workshop, bridge, support etc, you have to select the material to use.

This is fine at first but later it means you could be picking the 3 pieces of rock furthest away from the building.

How about splitting it up so you can still choose specific materials, or you can just choose "get any rock", "get any dark stone", "get any metal bar" etc in place of a specific material. Then the dwarf would just choose whatever happened to be nearest at the time.

For example a bridge could have the following construction list:

Steel bar
Steel bar
Limestone
Any rock
Any rock

[Boogey]

Juh, current system of selecting invidual rocks is ridiculous really. It adds so much overhead to your dwarfs workings, makes you a god that doesn't know what to do and prevents dwarfs from using their own "brains".

Thumbs up.

[Captain Mayday]

Interesting idea.
Consolidation of the lists IS happening, but yes, I agree there should be an 'Any Rock' option.

I believe that the consolidation will seek out the closest rock of the requested type, in any case.

[Anticheese]

I agree. It would be a nice feature.

---

A while ago I suggested an improvement for the building display.

It had pictures   :cool:

[Jothki]

If anything, it would make sense for random choices to be normal for both building and crafting, and have specific choices be unlocked as an option by a noble.

[ July 15, 2007: Message edited by: Jothki ]

[AlanL]

Then how are you supposed to make steel bridges and the like before nobles arrive? I guess it could be random items of the material type, since you can order a steel weapon to be made, why not order a generic steel bridge to be made?

[ July 16, 2007: Message edited by: AlanL ]

[axus]

I like options, I probably wouldn't use it though because I like more precise control.  But it's still a good idea, I'm not the only one playing this game.

[Dead Milkman]

I like this idea in general. And it could be improved upon in this way.
Instead of listing every individual rock/bar/etc... just list 1 of each. and possibly an option for "Any".
That way I can just tell it to build the bridge with Basalt or whatever, and it will select the proper amount and hopefully nearest ones all scaled on the size of the bridge. If there is not enough of the selected material, it can just say so.

[Veroule]

At some point in the future I would actually like to be able to create some really fancy thing like this:

This grand bridge was masterfully designed by Mistem Tostivdon.  Its 12 onyx pillars are banded in gold, and were engraved with masterful images demons making a submissive gesture by Erib Daskabouz.  4 moonstone towers hold the control mechanisms to raise the steel deck.  They were exceptionally engraved with images of dwarves and dogs by Thikton Sausabrau and are topped with platinum idols in the form of dragons.

Materials needed would be 48 onyx blocks, 20 steel bars, 12 gold bars, 12 moonstone blocks, 8 stone mechanisms, 4 platinum idols.

I see that as something in the far future where we all we say is put a bridge with these dimensions here, and this is the maximum materials that can be used.  Then the dwarf with the architecture skill actually decides what is needed and chooses all the materials within the list we have said could be used.

Another thing that would be needed for this is to be able to overlap all sorts of things.  Ordering dwarves to engrave a bridge.  Placing a stockpile on a bridge, rush hour traffic creates car stockpiles on many bridges in our world.  Making a brdige then creating a channel under it, or just putting one up over an empty channel.  Bridges and roads with slopes.  For that matter I don't want to use ramps in the new z-axis, I want make bridges as my ramps so I can set a raise or retract form for them.

There are many things that can be done yet, but just having a consolidated list is a huge improvment.  I am very confident that Toady already has a lot of ideas to make some of the crazy stuff I am saying a reality.

[Axehilt_VuP]

The materials list could be cleaned up a lot actually:

Steel Bar x5 (16 avg distance)   (x2 selected)
Limestone x40 (18 avg distance)
...
etc.

So it could display how many of each resource you have and the average distance, but it'd only display one line per material type (because that's all you really care about.)

[Iain]

quote:Originally posted by Axehilt_VuP:

Steel Bar x5 (16 avg distance)   (x2 selected)
Limestone x40 (18 avg distance)

I'd heard that something like that was happening. I don't like the "avg distance" though - I don't think it adds anything (you can go and look and see that there are 8 blocks of obsidian near the bridge). Also, it would seem to be rather computationally expensive (as sorting the list in order of distance would be).

I would find it more satisfying to specify a material (or a mix of...), and have the architect select the stacks of it that are closest to the point of construction.

Incidentally, I think that would be a general improvement - if materials were selected by proximity to the point of construction rather than by proximity to the dwarf.

For example, I have a craftsdwarf making stone blocks. He has a large stockpile of Granite next to his workshop. While he's working, he'll pick up granite (because it's nearby) and work with it. However, if he goes to sleep, or to eat, when he resumes his task he'll pick up a random rock from elsewhere in the fortress.

Would it be possible to have workers move to their workshop before they pick materials to gather?

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Just as a sidenote. As far as efficiency is concerned, you always have to consider how often a routine is called. A routine that is called only once in a while can bear some little delay without causing trouble whereas your main loop will be a problem with any delay, no matter how small.

Depending on how it is implemented, the distance could be made mainly an issue of the routine linked to the build command, so that would be a one-shot routine, so slow down wouldn't be a real problem (especially when you consider that the game pauses automatically when you give building orders anyway).

Deathworks

[Toady One]

A version of this has been done for the next version.  You can select by general type (in which case it shows you the distance to the closest) or by specific item (in which case it shows the distance to that object).  The default is to do it by general type, and you can press a button to expand the list.  You place buildings now before you choose the items, so it only has to do a one-time function call to get the distances.

[ August 03, 2007: Message edited by: Toady One ]