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[greenskye]

With the recent changes to stockpiles, I think it would be good if the trade depot had an input stockpile. Anything in this stockpile would be automatically hauled to the trade depot as soon as the caravans arrived. You would still be able to haul individual items as normal, but dwarves would automatically haul everything in the designated stockpile.


I know there have been a lot of other trade depot improvements suggested before, but I felt like given recent changes this might be a nice stop-gap until a more complete overhaul can be undertaken.

[Silverionmox]

Why wait until the caravan arrives? Haul it there immediately.

[bluea]

I'd rather have a "T" designation like Melt, Forbid, Dump, Hide -and- a stockpile for 'Things marked T'. (And 'Things marked M' etc.)

This would allow far away stockpiles to fill -bins- of stuff to trade. Then carry the whole bin (or minecart).

Put under 'Additional Options'.

[NW_Kohaku]

Yeah, the thing about stop-gap measures is... when was the last time Toady actually took a stop-gap suggestion up?  I mean, excepting some bugs, I don't think any of these stop-gap or simple solutions have ever been implemented.

I'd much rather have some sort of Tavern-style of change where merchants come by the fort constantly, and you just have stuff marked for trade, and have a menu where you set what sort of things you want to buy.  That way, we don't have to spend half an hour searching through caravans looking for the handful of things that are actually useful because there is no search feature in the lists. 

[greenskye]

I'd argue that the current mining drop rate changes are just a stop gap measure. Granted it wasn't one that was suggested to him, but it definitely seems to be a temporary place holder. Otherwise why have mining as a skill at all? Just a simple speed boost?


I only tend to go for stop gap measures when they seem to be relevant to the code currently under review. He just made the change to stockpiles to allow workshops to have input stockpiles. It seems natural that this suggestion would fall under that category.


I am all for a more sweeping overhaul to trading, but it's not going to come in this release. The recent change made to blocks has given me hope that Toady is willing to make small adjustments if given at the proper time and if it is a good idea. It most likely won't be implemented, but he might see it and do something about it. Just never know.

[NW_Kohaku]

The same can be said of the removal of the dungeon master and the system of civ knowledge of animals which is shallow as to considering the knowledge of taming of peach-faced lovebirds completely unrelated to the knowledge of taming of masked lovebirds. It was a stop-gap, yes, but it was a stop-gap he didn't take advice from anyone to do.

I don't mean he doesn't do stop-gaps, but that he doesn't search for suggestions and plan them out carefully when they do happen.  He just does them to get back to the things he was planning.  He also doesn't pay attention to many balance issues in the game. 

Toady only reads suggestions when he is ready to focus on a given topic.  That means when he's not going for a stop-gap but a longer-reaching solution. 

That's not to say that we shouldn't discuss solutions, but that we should acknowledge that we are only going to have our discussions referred to when looking for long-term solutions, and as such, we should favor long-term ideal solutions in our discussions to "just make this one simple change to make things much better for right now". 


I would also point out, however, that many jobs do nothing but provide a speed boost.  Especially some of the farming jobs, like milking and butchery and shearing and threshing. 

[greenskye]

Didn't you write a thread on improving caravans or trade? I feel like you have a megathread for every aspect of DF by now.... If not, we should totally make one.

[NW_Kohaku]

I wrote one on taverns, which slightly touched on this topic, but I've mostly written this in response to the suggestions of other people, or in non-Suggestions Forum threads. 

Besides, I don't consider my threads "megathreads", although Improved Farming does come close.  Megathreads are threads which pull in a list of every idea on a given topic all at once.  They're more lists of everything that has been discussed (preferably with links back to those discussions) than a single narrative idea of where any one person wants the game to go.  Just being a large thread doesn't make a megathread.  (Think of it like the difference between a book in a library and the card catalog with descriptions of the topics of every book.)

Also, I actually have a bit of a list of things I want to write still.  I'd like to write a more abstract thread on the nature of player work versus dwarven work, and one on the signal-to-noise ratio of dwarf fortress's information.  Mostly, though, I'm gearing up to rewrite Class Warfare. 

I consider the mining improvements, Improved Farming, and Class Warfare to be a sort of trio of the basic structure of fortresses, which make all resource gathering and expenditure more deep and entertaining.  Mining covers inorganic resources (stone, ore, gems), farming covers organic resources (including wild resources like naturally growing trees and mushrooms), and class warfare redesigns the way that dwarves interact with the player and their fortress, making labor a more tricky subject. 

It's not exactly "every aspect", (I could probably write much more about Adventurer Mode,) but it does make up a pretty massive chunk of Fortress Mode. 

There's no point in saying much otherwise: I enjoy thinking about and discussing DF in a grand abstract fashion for its own sake.  I'm obviously capable of devoting pretty serious time to the topic, and enjoying it.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll even change Toady's mind on something, or come up with something he didn't know about.  But really, I just enjoy thinking about these things, and occasionally writing long posts up about them.

[Buoyancy]

'd much rather have some sort of Tavern-style of change where merchants come by the fort constantly, and you just have stuff marked for trade, and have a menu where you set what sort of things you want to buy.

Something like this would be great.  I usually have certain types of items I want to buy, and certain types that I want to sell, and if something special is brought, then there would be a reason to go to a trade menu.

[King Mir]

You can have a hauling route next the trade depot, which will allow stuff to be dumped there, though not explicitly marked for trade. That'll work for mine-carts and eventually animal carts. It's yet unknown exactly how to specify what stuff gets loaded on a cart.

[UHaulDwarf]

The Trade depot is already a stockpiles for trading, all that needs to be done is to allow the player to gather goods for trade at all times, caravan on the map or not.

[Silverionmox]

The "mark for trade" idea is in the eternal suggestion list as "Persistent trade good tags", for those who are inclined.

[greenskye]

Thanks for the link.

One thing I didn't understand from your suggestion; when you mark something for trade (rock mug), does it mark *all* rock mugs for trade, or that specific rock mug? If it's all rock mugs, does that include any that are made afterwards?

I do think some sort of persistent marking is a good idea, but by using a stockpile you avoid any exploitation of infinite storage in the Trade Depot.

By utilizing stockpiles you will also be able to setup production chains. Your workshops can now output directly to the Depot stockpile. By specializing your workshops, you should be able to have export workshops as well as fort-specific ones.

[bluea]

When you mark something "Melt", you're only marking that one thing. "Trade" should work the same way.

Using the Stocks menu you -can- designate entire categories of things for Melt. And you can also use 'd-b-m' to mark an entire rectangle of objects "Melt".

A "Trade" mark would (should) work the same way.

But a stockpile option "Only accept items marked 'Trade'" still seems like a further improvement. Particularly if -all- the 'item tags' are added. (A melt stockpile, for instance.)

[kaenneth]

Right now items can be tagged M)elt D)ump F)orbidden and H)idden. If T)rade were to be added; what other flags might be added at the same time in a batch to encourage Toady to make the multiple changes at once?

S)oak to command an item be dropped in a Pond zone (cleaning off contaminants)
I)ncinerate to command an item be dropped into the nearest magma or furnace to be destroyed, without material recovery (zombie body parts)
A)mmunition to load an item into the nearest catapult for firing ("fetchez la vache")

edit: fixing formatting.