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[scionreaver]

I've had my fort for a little while now, and I'm starting to get irritated by upstart dwarves constantly getting moods for professions that I already have several experts in. For example, I have four legendary bone carvers already from moods, but moody dwarves continue to waste precious resources trying to become a new legendary bone carver when I've got absolutely no use for one (I've lost three 150+ ea stacks of forgotten beast bones because these idiots use the whole stack to make their shit bone crossbows).

I propose that the code looks to see how many existing, living legendary crafters that aren't missing currently exist at the fortress, and if it's above a minimum number (let's say 5?), then the dwarves realize that the legendary ranks in that particular field are simply too crowded and trying to wedge themselves in would be pointless.

I mean, after you have a couple of legendary crafters in each field what use do you have for more, other than as backup? I've just recently moved all of my craft shops into separated, locked rooms so I can kill off moody dwarves if they're consuming a resource I consider precious.

[Particleman]

Moody dwarves will make stuff according to whatever their highest "mood-able" skill is. You have four legendary bone carvers because bone carving was their highest mood-able skill when they entered their moods.

[scionreaver]

Moody dwarves will make stuff according to whatever their highest "mood-able" skill is. You have four legendary bone carvers because bone carving was their highest mood-able skill when they entered their moods.

Wrong. While dwarves with points in those skills will default to them when they get moody, dwarves with ZERO skills can and will get moody over stone, bone, and wood crafting. Why do you think my children are legendary crafters? Obviously I didn't set their labors to get a little bit of crafting experience before it happened.

[weenog]

Particleman was mostly right.  However, dwarves with no mood-friendly skills will default to one of the craftsdwarf skills, they needn't necessarily already be a craftsdwarf.  If you want to put a stop to the bone carvers and stone crafters and whatnot, start a training program and make sure all of your dwarves who have no mood-related skills get at least Dabbling skill in a non-craftsdwarf, mood-related skill.  Once you've got your legendary weaponsmith and armorsmith, I'd recommend Masonry.  If you can't find a use for 10 or even 20 legendary masons, you aren't trying.

[FallingWhale]

You can't stop genius.

[scionreaver]

You can't stop genius.

Actually, with a forbidden door and some good ol' starvation, I sure can.

Particleman was mostly right.  However, dwarves with no mood-friendly skills will default to one of the craftsdwarf skills, they needn't necessarily already be a craftsdwarf.  If you want to put a stop to the bone carvers and stone crafters and whatnot, start a training program and make sure all of your dwarves who have no mood-related skills get at least Dabbling skill in a non-craftsdwarf, mood-related skill.  Once you've got your legendary weaponsmith and armorsmith, I'd recommend Masonry.  If you can't find a use for 10 or even 20 legendary masons, you aren't trying.

The training program can't apply to dwarf children, who compose the majority of my problem.

[weenog]

Your dwarf children are useless anyway until they come of age.  You aren't missing out on anything.

[scionreaver]

Your dwarf children are useless anyway until they come of age.  You aren't missing out on anything.

Did you even read my posts? As I've stated, my problem is with dwarves wasting resources, not "missing out on anything". Now, I can keep micromanaging and killing off the ones that grab things I want to save, but my suggestion, as originally posted, is that wood, bone, and stone crafting should be restricted once enough (I feel 5 is a decent number) dwarves are legendary in those fields.

I am FULLY aware of the current methods to stymie their efforts, but instead of being forced to make every single dwarf have dabbling moodable skills just to avoid having an army of redundant crafters, I think the in-game logic should prevent that. (Not to mention that children are simply unstoppable in this regard).

[weenog]

I'm just not impressed enough with a subjective problem that you've misidentified anyway to think it warrants screwing up an otherwise good thing.

Whole stacks being consumed for single bone projects is a bug.  Fucking up strange moods isn't a solution to that problem.

[Silverionmox]

Strange moods can stand some improvement though. Resource choice ought to prefer both whatever resources are available locally and the dwarf's favourites (as long as spheres aren't concretized).

As for your mood problem: letting the children who become woodcrafters die is easy, and doesn't cost you mood opportunities. But just try setting the maximum number of children to two or so.

[irmo]

Did you even read my posts? As I've stated, my problem is with dwarves wasting resources, not "missing out on anything". Now, I can keep micromanaging and killing off the ones that grab things I want to save, but my suggestion, as originally posted, is that wood, bone, and stone crafting should be restricted once enough (I feel 5 is a decent number) dwarves are legendary in those fields.

Strange moods are supposed to be uncontrollable. You're complaining that you can't control them. Diagnosis: working as intended.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Looking at your original post, the big issue could be fixed by making moody dwarves use only one bone in a stack, or only X (up to ~10% of the stack or 10 bones, whichever is higher?) bones and giving X decorations.

I like moods. I try to boost each mood as much as I can. Sure, I get native gold grates encrusted with tons of microcline images and such, but the awesome potential of an artifact outweighs the uselessness of an amulet or whatever for me. I can see why people would want a use for those amulets, though.

Maybe we should consider giving artifacts uses soon. Magical powers are obvious; maybe each material used in the construction of an artifact would have a 10-25% chance of giving the artifact one magical power appropriate for the material, mood type, and item? Say, a bone crossbow made in a macabre mood might have the abiity to create its own ammo, made from the same kind of bone as the firer (e.g. most likey dwarf bone, unless a kobold gets its dirty little hands on it...), plus any other powers granted by the firer. Or maybe a microcline-decorated native gold grate like I mentioned above would shine (due to being made of native gold), and could create water (associated with blue microcline) in its tile if you shone the sun's light on it (e.g. if it was aboveground). A rose quartz bracelet decorated with three types of wood might have two or three powers associated with plants and growth, or the ability to transform one's skin into bark and the ability to set oneself on fire (courtesy of rose quartz), or some other combination of abilities. In this case, obviously, using half the stone in the fortress would lead to an amulet or something with dozens or hundreds of magical powers, so the Planepacked bug would have to be fixed...maybe by removing moody dwarves from burrows for the duration of the mood?

[Bytyan]

Do moody dwarves use forbidden bones? That might be a solution. I like having moods as they are, as it gives you oppertunities that you can adapt to for future benefit. Children are leaches, but getting a few adult bone carvers for me means reorienting my early fortress to gather and craft bones.

[Manveru Taurënér]

I've given this some thought as well, although the part that bothers me the most is usually dwarves "swapping" professions due to a mood occuring. I guess for most this might be a non-issue but if using a tile-set such as Ironhands where each profession has a set graphic, having a farmer of some kind mooding and becoming a legendary crafter of some kind is a huge nuisance to me.

I'd personally prefer if a dwarf with no or very little skill in a profession defaulted to a "possessed" mood, which would also make much more sense than a man who has never previously held a crafting tool in his life suddenly being a legendary wood/bone/stonecrafter. The possessed mood could then also be changed to involve any profession regardless of the dwarfs current skills for some added variety (which would also make sense since a possession shouldn't really have anything to do with the dwarfs own skills anyhow).

As for the original issue of capping moods, I'm not sure if that would be the best way to tackle the issue. There is and should still be some randomness to it imo and not just a matter of waiting for the moods to get through the skill list to the right profession. The amount of legendary dwarves generated through moods is a bit high though, but the above-mentioned method should help with that somewhat.

And yes, I noticed you were primarily concerned with the waste of materials. That's actually really easy to control as it is (which I'm not sure if I like or not but I guess it helps for issues like these). Dwarves never pick forbidden materials for their moods, and you can even pause and forbid them as they are bringing them to the workshop and they'll just drop it and go find something else. I'm not 100% sure but I think you can even forbid it after it's been put into the workshop and they'll go get a replacement.

[scionreaver]

Did you even read my posts? As I've stated, my problem is with dwarves wasting resources, not "missing out on anything". Now, I can keep micromanaging and killing off the ones that grab things I want to save, but my suggestion, as originally posted, is that wood, bone, and stone crafting should be restricted once enough (I feel 5 is a decent number) dwarves are legendary in those fields.

Strange moods are supposed to be uncontrollable. You're complaining that you can't control them. Diagnosis: working as intended.

Actually, I'm complaining that I need to control them.

Jesus, I don't understand how half the people have interpreted my first post as "I don't think moods are useful". It's not that I don't like dwarves getting moods, it's just that after I've had a dozen legendary crafters crop up, I simply don't need any more. Now, with the way the game currently works, I either let the mooder go on if he/she's using resources that I don't care about, and kill the ones who do. However, my suggestion was that after I have 5 legendary bone crafters already, I simply do not need more unskilled dwarves going into that profession. I like encrusting my goods, and I like masterwork, but all you need for that is ONE legendary dwarf, not five, not ten, not twenty, and that's the way my fort is going.

It's not horribly detrimental as I can simply assign them to do other jobs, but I figured if the game slowed down or halted moods in a field that's overcrowded, opting instead to strike less populated professions with a mood, then we wouldn't have to micromanage every single detail (which I understand is a part of the game and half the reason I play it, but why not cut down on parts that are simply tedious?).

I've given this some thought as well, although the part that bothers me the most is usually dwarves "swapping" professions due to a mood occuring. I guess for most this might be a non-issue but if using a tile-set such as Ironhands where each profession has a set graphic, having a farmer of some kind mooding and becoming a legendary crafter of some kind is a huge nuisance to me.

I'd personally prefer if a dwarf with no or very little skill in a profession defaulted to a "possessed" mood, which would also make much more sense than a man who has never previously held a crafting tool in his life suddenly being a legendary wood/bone/stonecrafter. The possessed mood could then also be changed to involve any profession regardless of the dwarfs current skills for some added variety (which would also make sense since a possession shouldn't really have anything to do with the dwarfs own skills anyhow).

As for the original issue of capping moods, I'm not sure if that would be the best way to tackle the issue. There is and should still be some randomness to it imo and not just a matter of waiting for the moods to get through the skill list to the right profession. The amount of legendary dwarves generated through moods is a bit high though, but the above-mentioned method should help with that somewhat.

And yes, I noticed you were primarily concerned with the waste of materials. That's actually really easy to control as it is (which I'm not sure if I like or not but I guess it helps for issues like these). Dwarves never pick forbidden materials for their moods, and you can even pause and forbid them as they are bringing them to the workshop and they'll just drop it and go find something else. I'm not 100% sure but I think you can even forbid it after it's been put into the workshop and they'll go get a replacement.

I actually agree with the majority of your post. And yes, forbidding is another workaround to accomplish the goal (I'm not saying I CAN'T solve my problem, I'm saying I'm tired of having to).

Making dabblers go possessed instead of fey is also an idea I like - happening upon a novel idea doesn't turn somebody into an expert.

Perhaps a cap is not the best solution, but an alteration of the chances of who gets struck by a mood in order to more spread out the professions. I now have 4 stonecrafters, 6 bone carvers, and 3 woodcrafters at legendary, but not a single one of my smiths (4 armorers, 1 weapon, 2 blacksmith, 1 metalcrafting) has been struck by a mood for benefit.

Randomness and lack of control is also another factor I enjoy about this game, but when you get your seventh legendary bone carver in a row, it just starts to get tedious.

I'm just not impressed enough with a subjective problem that you've misidentified anyway to think it warrants screwing up an otherwise good thing.

Whole stacks being consumed for single bone projects is a bug.  Fucking up strange moods isn't a solution to that problem.

Weenog you sure have a funny attitude when it comes to game improvement. Looking at all of your recent, inflammatory posts on other topics, however, I'm just surprised you haven't devolved to name calling yet.