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Author Topic: Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'  (Read 1313 times)

GhostDwemer

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Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'
« on: April 23, 2011, 05:39:56 pm »

Probably been suggested before, but in the 'Animals' sub screen of the z-screen, I'd love to see a grid similar to the medical screen, showing the following info about animals: sex, age, whether they can be milked, whether they can be sheared, and how fat they are (for when you want tallow.), plus maybe an 'estimated yield' giving the average number of food units produced if the animal were to be slaughtered right then. As well as designating for pets and slaughter from this screen, it would be cool to be able to designate animals for shearing and milking.
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Argonnek

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Re: Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2011, 08:14:29 pm »

I agree! Shouldn't it be obvious, though, what animals can be sheared or not? It's just Alpacas, Sheep/Rams, and Llamas so far.

IT 000

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Re: Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2011, 08:30:03 pm »

For modded animals it may not be as obvious. I support the original suggestion.
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2011, 09:21:58 pm »

If that showed you whether they were ready to be sheared, rather than if they were a shearable creature in general, that would be more useful.  I assume that is what the OP meant.

If things don't fit on the screen as it is, you could have a button like tab cycle between what is being displayed, like whether they are marked for being slaughtered or not, and then over to milkability and shearability and whether they have claimed a nest box or not.  Maybe even with a button to add a milking job to the nearest farmer's workshop or something for further integration of the menus.

Anyway, this sort of suggestion makes plenty of sense, and is exactly the sort of likely-to-be-considered-by-Toady suggestion that might actually improve the interface functionality.
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Kogut

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Re: Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2011, 10:44:30 am »

Or maybe "shear" key - like "slaughter" key.

"showing the following info about animals: sex" - sex is showed (this funny circles)
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wuphonsreach

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Re: Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'
« Reply #5 on: April 25, 2011, 10:08:17 am »

Probably been suggested before, but in the 'Animals' sub screen of the z-screen, I'd love to see a grid similar to the medical screen, showing the following info about animals: sex, age, whether they can be milked, whether they can be sheared, and how fat they are (for when you want tallow.), plus maybe an 'estimated yield' giving the average number of food units produced if the animal were to be slaughtered right then. As well as designating for pets and slaughter from this screen, it would be cool to be able to designate animals for shearing and milking.

Elements that I'm interested in when looking at the Z-screen (some of these don't exist yet):

- Age (possibly just mature/old flag, not currently shown)
- Sex (as females get culled first if there's a population boom)
- Pastured / Chained (annoying that this isn't shown)
- "is pet" or "can be pet" or "flagged for butchering"
- hungry / starving

And I could support having icons for whether the animal is ready for shearing or milking.

I don't agree with showing 'estimated # of units of meat/fat', that's pulling the veil back too far.  The rule of thumb that I follow is that a dwarf should be able to look at the animal and easily estimate the attributes shown on the z-screen.  They can probably estimate the age as mature or old fairly well, gender they can probably tell without too much poking and prodding.  They can probably see whether the coat is full (shearable) and whether the animal looks ready for milking or if it looks hungry / emaciated.  But to tell how much fat/meat it would produce is a specialist task where the dwarf would have to be a butcher or familiar with animal interiors and/or involve a lot of poking and prodding.
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IT 000

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Re: Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'
« Reply #6 on: April 25, 2011, 10:37:46 am »

Quote
I don't agree with showing 'estimated # of units of meat/fat', that's pulling the veil back too far. The rule of thumb that I follow is that a dwarf should be able to look at the animal and easily estimate the attributes shown on the z-screen.

If one can tell whether an animal is emaciated then they can tell if it's 'fat' or 'muscular' both of which effect how much food it gives.
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Uristocrat

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Re: Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2011, 03:33:29 am »

Elements that I'm interested in when looking at the Z-screen (some of these don't exist yet):

- Age (possibly just mature/old flag, not currently shown)
- Sex (as females get culled first if there's a population boom)
- Pastured / Chained (annoying that this isn't shown)
- "is pet" or "can be pet" or "flagged for butchering"
- hungry / starving

And I could support having icons for whether the animal is ready for shearing or milking.

Easy access to that information for all the animals would be very useful.
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wuphonsreach

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Re: Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2011, 07:49:14 am »

Quote
I don't agree with showing 'estimated # of units of meat/fat', that's pulling the veil back too far. The rule of thumb that I follow is that a dwarf should be able to look at the animal and easily estimate the attributes shown on the z-screen.

If one can tell whether an animal is emaciated then they can tell if it's 'fat' or 'muscular' both of which effect how much food it gives.

Agreed, but I don't want to see "you will get 8 units of fat if you butcher this fat turkey".

And that column could be expanded to show a priority list of attributes that are important and might indicate that you need to intervene in the situation.  Key ones would be "fat", "muscular", "vomiting", "starving", "unconscious".  And the game would order them so that the more critical ones show up as priority over the others.

If you had fat, but starving goat who has been so severely wounded that it's vomiting, I'd want to see the "vomiting" tag.  If it's just muscular, but starving, the "starving" tag should take precedence.  So "fat" and "muscular" can be low-priority tags as they are not a short-term condition that needs attention.

Or maybe just "well-fed" instead of fat/muscular.
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antymattar

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Re: Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'
« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2011, 08:16:18 am »

I'm Antymattar I support this!

zwei

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Re: Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'
« Reply #10 on: April 27, 2011, 05:25:58 am »

Things i want added:

 * Ready to be sheared indicator ("thread" symbol)
 * Ready to be milked indocator ("bucket" symbol)
 * Caged/Chained indicator ("chain"/"cage")
 * Has claimed nestbox, Wants to claim nestbox symbol

 * Toogle "automilk" and "autoshear" jobs.

 * Filter animals by species/gender (i want list of all female dogs for example)

While we are at it, fix of Animal caretaker skill (wounded animals never get diagnosed and treated)

Neowulf

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Re: Brief suggestion for z-screen 'Animals'
« Reply #11 on: April 27, 2011, 08:06:02 pm »

Ye got my vote!
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