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Have few types but with many possible functions for each.  The simpler option

38 (42.2%)

Have many different types that each takes a particular input, for long assembly lines

29 (32.2%)

Have many types, allow using the wrong ones, but using them correctly lets the items have quality levels

23 (25.6%)

Total Members Voted: 69

[Ruan]

An idea.  Gnomes strike me as... well, not so much lazy as 'I'd rather build a machine to do it for me', especially for anything that's grunt work.

With that in mind, would it be possible to build automatons who could say, only do certain grunt work jobs (like mining, lumberjacking, hauling ect.)?  They could never gain skill and could only ever do one job, but they'd do that one job relatively well.  With the added advantage of never getting tired, so they can keeping going and going and going without having to eat, drink, or sleep.

To go with that. Maybe use something like Meph's pylons from warlocks - without the pylons they would just deactivate, lacking power.  And the pylons themselves could use power as well...

Similarly, the automatons could have an eventual chance to turn against their masters if you abuse them too much and the AI decides its had enough, and the robots turn on you.

I imagine the robot revolt happening, and there's this one little gnome racing to an emergency shutdown lever that would power down the pylons that give the robots power.

[IndigoFenix]

Added the powered option to the drill.  Note that it requires 10 power for every 10 z-levels.  The more power it gets beyond that, the faster the liquid comes in...so be careful, because flooding can happen.

The manual option adds 10 power for each level in machine operating.  So a dabbling machine operator can only draw liquid up 1 level, while a legendary one can bring it from 15+ levels down.  This combines with the machine power.  A manual worker will never cause the pump to overflow (but if the machine power is high enough to bring the liquid up on its own, it will overflow anyway.)

[Meph]

I noticed that your gnomes wear shoes AND sandals at the same time. It probably because shoes in MDF act more like socks. They are soft and can be worn inside of boots. I never used sandals in any of the races, so I never noticed that they can also wear shoes inside sandals. ^^

[IndigoFenix]

I noticed that your gnomes wear shoes AND sandals at the same time. It probably because shoes in MDF act more like socks. They are soft and can be worn inside of boots. I never used sandals in any of the races, so I never noticed that they can also wear shoes inside sandals. ^^

Minor adjustments.  But on the subject of clothes, is there a way to make civilians wear metal, non-decaying clothes?  I wanted them to wear some of the 'special' hats but I don'. want those to wear away.  Then again, maybe they should... it could be as though the clockwork is wearing down

[Meph]

Not that I know of. I know that armor counts as clothing, but only the type that has wear is worn at embark/by migrants.

I guess that dfhack can offer a solution (Putnam mentioned some counters for a possible script to add wear to metal armor/weapons), but normal modding cant. Civilians wouldnt want the non-wearable items, except if you draft them all into the military and assign it as uniform.

EDIT: wow. The gnome traders I just killed had a platinum mechanical dragon frame, worth 160.000

[IndigoFenix]

EDIT: wow. The gnome traders I just killed had a platinum mechanical dragon frame, worth 160.000

Too bad other races can't make use of the automatons even if they buy them from the gnomes.  But the bigger ones will make nice sources of metal when melted.

[IndigoFenix]

For the next update, we have LOGIC GATES.

If you like Dwarf Fortress computing but would like an easier time at getting it to work, it's you're lucky day.  No more liquid-and-creature logic - gnomes can create fast, Turing-complete logical machines using mechanical power alone.

Each logic gate (AND, OR, NOT, NOR, NAND, XOR, XNOR) will take input from all its connected axles, evaluate to TRUE or FALSE depending on the type of gate and the status of its inputs, and output to any adjacent mechanical device: gear assemblies, doors, hatches, floodgates, bridges, upright spikes, etc.  See the manual for details.

I also forgot to mention before that the gnomes have new graphics.

There might still be bugs.  Testers would be appreciated.

[Meph]

That sounds amazing.

You mentioned in another thread that the gnome scripts cause slowdown, even if they are not used? Do you think that the gnome-playable button should link to the dfhack init, to enable/disable them if need be?

[IndigoFenix]

It shouldn't be a problem anymore.  I linked the script to the creation/presence of gnome buildings that utilize the script so as long as you don't build any (or if you destroy them all) the scripts shouldn't be running .  The last version had some mistakes that prevented this.

[Meph]

Perfect, that is a nice solution.

I want to do a small bugfix release for the Warlocks in a couple of days, I will add your gnome updates as well.

[arcturusthelesser]

Hey so, I still have a few gripes about the current state of  gnome mode.

- The chance of having a clockborg/exoskeleton gnome at embark is too high for my taste. I've seen copper, iron, and aluminum equipped gnomes, all in the starting seven (though not more than two at once). I think I figured out a way to get around it, though. Choosing a blank embark profile (as opposed to 'prepare for the journey carefully') seems to eliminate or drastically lower your chance of getting special castes (did you see what I did there?).
-Tangentially related to the above: When do you want to include some gnomish embark profiles? Right now, I'm playing with 10k points so I don't have to worry as much about missing important things. This definitely isn't helped by the fact that gnomes seem unable to bring stone or blocks on embark, so I've been bringing bars instead of ores, which are three times as expensive.
-Gnome access to workshops seems to be really screwy to me. Several different buildings are currently unusable because the Researcher's study is missing.
-While I appreciate the immense amount of thought and coding that obviously went into creating it, the nature merit system is still pretty confusing. For example, I brought an ogre. He's been killing like EVERYTHING (in the first month, he's killed three drakes and a cougar). Granted, the other unit has always been the one to strike first, but still. I found a line in the manual "*1 for wild animals killed by pets". I take it to mean that it has no effect?

It's possible that any/all of these issues are because I'm dumb and missed something important somewhere, but I don't think that's the case.

[IndigoFenix]

Yeah, I've got to patch up the workshop access thing.  I guess I keep getting sidetracked with making new stuff and forgetting to fix up the little issues.

Odd about the natural-born clockborgs, they're supposed to be virtually nonexistent.  Pop ratios can sometimes be a little wonky, I'll fix those.

I was considering making an embark profile, but I'd like to build up their options a bit more first.  One thing of note is that if you want to go the animal taming route, having a high-level animal trainer is a good option.  Bringing along a bunch of high-value animals can help too, although they matter a lot less than anything you catch in the wild.

I'm not sure why gnomes can't bring stone or blocks.  Might be something leftover from their trader days in the entity file.

As far as the nature merit system goes, pets killing wild animals is the smallest of the demerits, however it's still multiplied by the animal's pet value, so you might want to keep the ogre away from those drakes.  If you want to see details on your standing, commune with nature at the shrine and check the dfhack console for the worth of each individual item. (Wild forest spiders, I've noticed, can be a major problem, since they are both high-value and aggressive, they are likely to kill or be killed by pets.)  You can redeem yourself easiest by capturing some high-value, first-layer cave critters such as giant insects, taming them, and then letting them go - some of those can get you 2500-5000 points or more, each.  Or you could just forget about the nature shrine altogether and capture your pets through normal methods.  You don't HAVE to use nature magic.  (Or just forget about pets and use automatons instead.)

[arcturusthelesser]

Yeah, I've got to patch up the workshop access thing.  I guess I keep getting sidetracked with making new stuff and forgetting to fix up the little issues.

Odd about the natural-born clockborgs, they're supposed to be virtually nonexistent.  Pop ratios can sometimes be a little wonky, I'll fix those.

I was considering making an embark profile, but I'd like to build up their options a bit more first.  One thing of note is that if you want to go the animal taming route, having a high-level animal trainer is a good option.  Bringing along a bunch of high-value animals can help too, although they matter a lot less than anything you catch in the wild.

I'm not sure why gnomes can't bring stone or blocks.  Might be something leftover from their trader days in the entity file.

As far as the nature merit system goes, pets killing wild animals is the smallest of the demerits, however it's still multiplied by the animal's pet value, so you might want to keep the ogre away from those drakes.  If you want to see details on your standing, commune with nature at the shrine and check the dfhack console for the worth of each individual item. (Wild forest spiders, I've noticed, can be a major problem, since they are both high-value and aggressive, they are likely to kill or be killed by pets.)  You can redeem yourself easiest by capturing some high-value, first-layer cave critters such as giant insects, taming them, and then letting them go - some of those can get you 2500-5000 points or more, each.  Or you could just forget about the nature shrine altogether and capture your pets through normal methods.  You don't HAVE to use nature magic.  (Or just forget about pets and use automatons instead.)

Not really sure how that's a 'little issue'. Setting up a proper metal industry is pretty much impossible without a crucible and metallurgist, and to a lesser extent, blast furnace (though I think there's something in the discovery string about blast furnaces being a dwarf-only thing). They definitely don't need access to everything, though. They'd probably have little use for a greatforge, and they probably aren't good enough masons to have access to a Rockforge or Stonecutter's Workshop.
Another issue is that currently it's really hard to tell where construct materials, machine components and the like are made. I was trying to build a telegraph, and I swear I built six different workshops before I finally realized the gears they're made of are just created at the vanilla forge. Especially given the small amount of reactions possible at some of them, I think much hair-pulling would be saved by consolidating a few gnomish workshops, such as the Tinker and Gadgeteer.

It's a shame you can't take already-caged animals at embark. There isn't some token or something that you can add to pets/livestock to stop them from attacking/being attacked by wildlife?

[IndigoFenix]

Some of the workshops are there in anticipation of later things, which is why they have so few reactions.

I have realized that gears are pointless, so they will be removed in the next version and replaced by regular mechanisms.

The upgraded industry buildings are in production.  Gnomes will typically use power in the place of fuel (they can create steam engines earlier than dwarves in case you embark in a place without water or wind).  But for now they are mostly stuck with vanilla options.

[mahrgell]

Btw, how about some sort of power generation with animal power? So pasture an animal on a workshop, run reaction, and then the animal generates power depending on its size? Something like that. Make those workshops 5x5, so it is quite some space investment to produce power that way.
Main reason for that is, that as it is right now, power generation is a pain in Vanilla, as any constructions involving waterwheels cause massive lag, while windmills are neither reliable nor practical.