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[hanni79]

Greetings dear Forum members,

today I will present a suggestion that came to my mind when I saw the new (h)-Hauling menu.
It often bothered me that you can't see which Lever is linked to what and when I noticed that you have a line showing up when highlighting route stops in the Hauling menu, I thought this would fit perfectly for displaying Mechanical Links, too.

So why a new Noble ?
Someone has to keep an overview over all those links and it requires some record keeping. In contrast to Minecart stops, which are always connected by tracks visible to everyone, mechanical links do not require that. Therefore I thought it should be appropriate to appoint someone to do this, since it would be necessary to keep records because those Links are "hidden" to everyone besides the one who built them.

How exactly would that change the game ?
1. New Nobles position in the nobles menu "Chief Mechanic"
2. Appointing one causes the dwarf to do "updating Link records" Job. Works like the record keeper, but with linked buildings.
3. New menu item in the main interface "M - Linked buildings"
4. New menu "Linked buildings"

The "Linked Buildings" Menu would look like this:
Upper part (Link List):
Granite Lever
linked to Iron Bridge
linked to Granite Floodgate
Microcline Lever
linked to Iron Bridge
Microcline Pressure Plate
Upright Spear Trap (and so on)

Lower part(Controls):
z: Zoom to building
x: Unlink building (removes Mechanisms from building and Lever without deconstruction of Lever)
X: Unlink Lever (removes Mechanisms from all connected buildings and Lever without deconstruction of Lever)
n: New Link (adds marked Buildings via Cursor+Enter directly to the upper List. Shown in red as long the triggered Linking Job isn't done)
Esc: Done

Also, as long as you are in the "Linked buildings" menu, Lines will show the highlighted Links as the Hauling menu shows Lines which connect the route stops to give a better overview. Highlighting a Lever/Pressure Plate shows Lines to all connected buildings, while highlighting buildings would only show the Line between the corresponding Building and lever.

In short, I want to add a new noble which gives access to advanced overview and control of mechanics.

I hope you like this suggestion and I would love to get some feedback on this

[GreatWyrmGold]

Something like this makes sense. I'm not sure if a noble should be required, though.

[hanni79]

I made a noble a requirement so you don't have the ability of advanced control from the start. I think it suits the way how nobles work (Record keeper -> Advanced Stocks menu, Medical dwarf -> advanced Health Interface) very well.
It has also the advantage that new players aren't bothered by menus they don't need when they start (the M-Linked buildings menu simply won't show up before you appoint the chief mechanic) or people who rarely use them.

Just adding that menu would be nice, too, of course, but I felt using a noble for this task is more "DF-Style".

[Manveru Taurënér]

Considering all most mechanic related stuff is to be overhauled some time in the future (Toady's been talking about stuff like traps requiring linkage between trigger, trap area and room for the "weapon to the side to be deployed, and similar changes could be made to levers as well), so it's hard to say how useful such a position would really be for the particular issues you've mentioned, but I think it'd still be a great addition to keep track of whatever we do end up with ^^

[hanni79]

@Manveru Taurënér:

I see what you are trying to say, but as far as I read Toady's "Planned to do" the only bigger change would be the need for some Trap/Mechanism Components to be powered. In case that happens it would be nice to be able to distinguish Powered and Unpowered Links in my suggested menu, for example a powered Mechanism can only be given a "Pull Lever" command when actually powered.
The other thing you mentioned ( space for weapon traps where they retract to, for example) simply would not interfere with my suggestion, at least I don't see how it could. Did you have something in mind I missed ?

@GreatWyrmGold:
I think I answered why I would use a noble, but do you happen to have an alternative idea how to implement this menu using some form of requirement ? I just couldn't think of anything else besides adding a noble as req.


Also, thanks for the support

[Manveru Taurënér]

Oh, I was mainly pointing at part of the motivation, with "Someone has to keep an overview over all those links and it requires some record keeping. In contrast to Minecart stops, which are always connected by tracks visible to everyone, mechanical links do not require that." in particular. There's a decent chance we'll actually get something similar with levers as well, them needing to be physically linked in some manner to the object in question, which may make this just as apparant as the minecart tracks. I still like the idea though, and I'm sure there will be lots of stuff a mechanics menu could help with, especially as we'll also be getting more complicated mechanisms and moving fortress parts etc to oversee ^^

[GreatWyrmGold]

@GreatWyrmGold:
I think I answered why I would use a noble, but do you happen to have an alternative idea how to implement this menu using some form of requirement ? I just couldn't think of anything else besides adding a noble as req.

You don't need a head miner to use the designations menu, nor an architectural noble to build stuff. Why would you even need a noble?

[hanni79]

That was more along the lines of  Record keeper -> Advanced Stocks menu, Medical dwarf -> advanced Health Interface, like I wrote. I just thought mechanisms are pretty "high-tech" in DF and therefore having easier control/overview should have some requirements.

The only thing I could think of as requirement is a noble. A possibility to not use another noble and still have a requirement would be to assign the book keeper for the "Updating Links Job". Then at least you would have to assign a book keeper first to gain acces to the Link menu.

As I said, a noble is not needed but I think some form of requirement should be in place to gain acces to the Link menu.

[Neonivek]

The issue is how much should a person incharge of a profession be required.

Even the Grand Medical Dwarf is a bit of a stretch only accepted because of how many unknowns there was still in medicine back then.

Should there be a Chief Blacksmith? Chief Chef? Chief Brewer?

Why is the mechanic any different?

Heck a Chief Architect tends to make sense given how many deaths can occur from bad construction.

Maybe if people want to keep adding these kinds of nobles we should add a mechanic where any number of Dwarves in a single job that reaches are certain point needs skilled supervision to remain co-ordinated.

[hanni79]

I see why adding a noble for every reason would be a bad idea.

But in contrast to a chief Brewer for example, consider how much he will have to coordinate. I rarely have more than two breweries (or kitchens, Forges etc.)

Having excessive overview over circuitry is more or less always "late game content", since it simply takes lots of time (read building / linking Levers) before you even have a number big enough to loose overview.

Another idea I had ( but I guessed it was too unconventional) was to have the chief mechanic actually have mechanics skill as requirement. In case you want to appoint a chief mechanic, you couldn't really choose because the one with the highest mechanics skill would automatically be chosen.
In that case the title "chief mechanic" would be more of a little extra promotion than an actual noble.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Hm. Maybe broaden the idea.

Each labor or set of labors is a "guild." Each guild has an associated leader, who can be appointed when you have at least, oh, 3-5 dwarves with at least Novice skills in appropriate labors and one who is at least Professional, and who automatically is appointed when you get at least 10-20 skilled dwarves or a Master in the skill (as well as at least one dwarf at Professional level or 3-5 skilled dwarves).
These guild leaders would give access to various specialized screens.

[hanni79]

Lool, GreatWyrmGold, actually you are vaguely pointing into the direction of another suggestion I wanted to drop sometimes. The suggestion here pretty much was the condensation out of it, since guilds are planned as far as I know and it would have interfered with too much (planned) stuff, but I had a very similar idea like yours I guess.
The idiot in me just failed to back up the txt file properly, where I had pre-written 80% of it -.-

I would have solved it like follows :
Every noble can make a demand for a "Lackey" when he reaches [requirement]. After a noble gets a Lackey, he is able to make the Lackey do jobs he dislikes himself (also 50% of his "main job" like record keeping) and appropriate advanced menus can be accessed.
I had some problems with inventing proper requirements to meet in that system, but I think giving nobles some minions could be a very nice idea.
For example a manager with 1 Lackey could give you the possibility to Queue [material][item] and a manager with two lackeys allows to fully define [material][item][decoration]. I think a manager having some minions would nicely reflect the need for advanced (and more people-intensive) organisation structures. (The ability to completely define [material][item][decoration] is planned but Toady didn't give hints if he had any ideas about how he exactly wanted to do it, but I thought Manager-noble + Minion would fit really well)
Another idea I wanted to implement into this suggestion, was the ability for nobles with lackeys to make Fortress- and job-specific demands. Let's say we have a chief medical dwarf with one lackey and no soap.  The heightened status of the chief medical dwarf now would allow him to make a demand for soap.

In this system, the "chief mechanic" would have been solely replaced by the book-keeper(with at least one lackey), since he is the one who actually saves knowledge about stuff over long time.

Any comments on this ? Does anyone think that would fit better ?

[Damiac]

I completely agree with this.  It seems like the chief mechanic would be a very high ranking (working) noble to the dwarves, and like you said, it's a lot like the CMD, and the broker.  The noble keeps track of all the mechanical links, power usage, etc. Maybe call him chief engineer instead of chief mechanic though.

But yeah, it does seem to make sense to continue with that idea, and have heads of all major industries, although the manager sort of fits that role to a point.  Guilds totally make sense for that.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Wow.
I managed to derail a topic to a related topic...
I don't think I've seen that happen. Usually it's random.

[Damiac]

It's like when a minecart jumps over to an adjecent track, just in time to run over a goblin snatcher.  Sometimes de-rails work out.