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[Nkosi_SW]

I had a dwarf who was Legendary +5 in Armouring and Metalcrafting (as well as a couple of other non-moodable skills), but I deliberately manipulated his experience so that his Armouring had higher experience (31,332 to Metalcrafting's 30,838). 

However, when that dwarf had a mood, he created a Metalcraft artifact (an earring).

Does anyone have an idea why this happened?  Does DF take something besides experience points in to account when determining Highest Moodable Skill?

[codyorr]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Mood#Chance

"The precise type of craft created is usually somewhat random, but if a dwarf has a personality preference for a particular thing, such as gauntlets or floodgates or crowns, and that thing is an available choice given the dwarf's profession, they are guaranteed to create an object of that type (if multiple preferences match, one will be randomly selected). "

That's what I get from the wiki anyway. I'm not experienced enough to know anything more as I've only had strange moods a few times.

[Sutremaine]

That's for the item produced during the chosen mood. The problem here is that the chosen mood isn't the right one given the assumed facts about how moods are chosen. If a dwarf likes goblets (and no other items) but their highest metalworking skill is in weapons, they should go for the weapon mood and make a semi-random type. 'Semi-random' because I've never seen a dwarf make a pike or halberd or any other human-sized weapons.

Edit: I thought I'd encountered this before... There's a topic here from 2009 that mentions Metalsmithing being chosen over the more desirable metal mood.

[Nathail]

Maybe he just really, really likes earrings.

[Nkosi_SW]

The conclusion of the 2009 thread is that prerefences influence the highest moodable skill, but the conclusion appears to be based on anecdotal evidence and is untested.

In fact, my dwarf does like earrings, but he also likes high boots (which is why I wanted Armourer as his Highest Moodable Skill in the first place).  So we're back to where we started: a dwarf with more experience and a preference in one moodable skill instead has a mood for another skill in which he has less experience and a preference.

Can anyone actually confirm that preference has an affect on highest moodable skill?  And whether it does or not, is there an explanation for why a moodable skill with lower experience (and a preference) was choosen for a mood over a moodable skill with higher experience (and a preference)?

[wierd]

Thinking about this...

It might be that DF looks for profficiency levels, (dabbling, profficient, skilled, etc...) and uses that to equate.  Eg, if both skills are at "profficient", despite one being higher than the other experience points wise, the mood selector algo treats them as being equally weighted, then does a check against preferences with a random pick.

A way to check this would be to save before moody McDwarf goes moody, and let it play through several times with various pokings from DFHack/Runesmith.

[splinterz]

Nkosi_SW, do you happen to have another save just prior to this dwarf going into the mood? i noticed that DT/DF is already aware of the artifact made even though the dwarf hasn't even claimed the workshop!

i had the same thought as wierd, and would like to try removing/modifying the earring preference to see if that results in this dwarf crafting a boot instead..

[Gentlefish]

Well. It's his profession, not his job. He's a metalworker, right? So any job would technically be up for grabs, as I see it anyway.

[Nkosi_SW]

Nkosi_SW, do you happen to have another save just prior to this dwarf going into the mood? i noticed that DT/DF is already aware of the artifact made even though the dwarf hasn't even claimed the workshop!

i had the same thought as wierd, and would like to try removing/modifying the earring preference to see if that results in this dwarf crafting a boot instead..

I do have a seasonal save at the start of spring (13 days before the mood).  But I don't think this approach will work.  The random timing and selection for strange moods means it's extremely unlikely the mood will happen at the same time or to the same dwarf.  Unless you can influence who DF chooses, for instance by altering the "already had mood" flag on all other dwarves?

[Jimmy]

Correct. As an experienced save-scummer for mood exploitation, I can tell you it's impossible to guarantee the same dwarf will get the same mood. I find your experience surprising, as I'd always assumed the same as you, namely that a mood will be triggered for the dwarf's highest experienced skill.

[splinterz]

alright so i'm fairly confident i've got this problem sorted.

first i tried changing the earring preference to low boots instead. the dwarf still created a figurine. next i hacked the metalcraft skill experience to ensure it was lower than armoring. this is when i noticed that the raw level of metalcrafting was 37 (holy crap!?) but the raw level of armoring was only 23. since these are both way over the +5 legendary level 20, therapist is no help there. however, in Dwarf Therapist, when the rating is read in, it's capping the rating down to 20! then it calculates experience values, which by that point is totally off.

this capping has been in for a long time it seems, and wasn't noticed as the raw skill experience wasn't used for any purpose other than display. i didn't notice it when i implemented the moodable skill features but i'll make sure to fix this in my branch so it's reporting the correct experience values, which will in turn result in correct identification of the highest moodable skills.

[Sutremaine]

Are you going to leave in the raw skill levels? I don't think they matter much beyond 20, but I like seeing just how far dwarves get over the years.

[Nkosi_SW]

this is when i noticed that the raw level of metalcrafting was 37 (holy crap!?)

Ah, yeah, I've had a fairly large metalworking industry going for a while...

however, in Dwarf Therapist, when the rating is read in, it's capping the rating down to 20! then it calculates experience values, which by that point is totally off.

That explains everything.  DF is using the highest experience, but Dwarf Therapist isn't reporting it correctly.  I knew it was capped, but I thought it was DF doing the capping, not DT.  Well, this will necessitate a change in how I manage strange moods.  I won't be able to so easily change my mind about the highest moodable skill when I have dwarves at a raw skill level of 37!   

i didn't notice it when i implemented the moodable skill features but i'll make sure to fix this in my branch so it's reporting the correct experience values, which will in turn result in correct identification of the highest moodable skills.

Brilliant!  Thanks heaps splinterz, and thanks to everyone else who contributed too.

[splinterz]

@Sutremaine: yes i'm going to leave the raw ratings in. currently the raw skill ratings show something like this: [RAW LEVEL: 15 +5] in the tooltips. now they'll simply show the raw value, no capping or truncating.

@Nkosi_SW: oh after more testing you've got many even higher than that! you'll certainly have to switch out the jobs more often, but seeing the correct xp and raw levels should at least make it possible now.

i should have a fix out soon for this and a few other bugs reported soon

[thistleknot]

alright so i'm fairly confident i've got this problem sorted.

first i tried changing the earring preference to low boots instead. the dwarf still created a figurine. next i hacked the metalcraft skill experience to ensure it was lower than armoring. this is when i noticed that the raw level of metalcrafting was 37 (holy crap!?) but the raw level of armoring was only 23. since these are both way over the +5 legendary level 20, therapist is no help there. however, in Dwarf Therapist, when the rating is read in, it's capping the rating down to 20! then it calculates experience values, which by that point is totally off.

this capping has been in for a long time it seems, and wasn't noticed as the raw skill experience wasn't used for any purpose other than display. i didn't notice it when i implemented the moodable skill features but i'll make sure to fix this in my branch so it's reporting the correct experience values, which will in turn result in correct identification of the highest moodable skills.

I think Splinterz just gained "ascension", as I can find no other article related to it, I purely meant the RPG term, when a player character achieves deity status.