Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Dorf and Dumb]

I'm sure the present labor system sprung up organically and made sense at the time, and I know people have !!FUN!! coming up with special uses for High Master Lye Makers, but I think it's time for some major simplification.  Also, labors that have skill but can't produce better output just don't make much sense.  A menu system where hitting return on some categories gets you two pages of crap and hitting it on Mining probably makes your digger drop his pick or run off to put it away doesn't make much sense.  So what I would suggest is:

* Gathering
** Mining
** Wood Cutting
** Hunting
** Fishing

* Building
** Carpentry (includes Siege Engineering of wooden parts)
** Masonry
** Mechanics (includes any other Siege Engineering and Pump Operating)
** Architecture
** Construction Removal
** Cleaning
** Lever Operation

* Healthcare
** Diagnosis
** Surgery
** First Aid (includes Suturing, Dressing Wounds, Setting Bones, [Washing Patient])
** Feed Patients/Pets/Prisoners (in that order; I think this includes some Animal Care)
** Recovering Wounded

* Farming/Related
** Butchery/Tanning (includes Small Animal Dissection, Fish Dissection, Fish Cleaning)
** Animal Care/Beekeeping (includes Animal Training, Milking and any Animal Care other than feeding caged animals)
** Planting (the current Farming (Fields) is too confusing when they're called Planters; includes harvesting when restricted to farmers)
** Farm Industry (= Lye Making, Soap Making, Potash Making, Cheese Making, Pressing, Milling, Plant Processing, Wax Working)
** Cooking
** Brewing

*Metalsmithing
** Furnace Operating (includes Wood Burning)
** Weaponsmithing (includes Crossbow-Making)
** Armoring
** Metalcrafting (includes Metalsmithing/Blacksmithing, finally ending THAT naming controversy!)

* Crafts
** Leatherworking
** Woodcrafting
** Stonecrafting
** Glassmaking
** Weaving (includes Spinning, Strand Extraction)
** Clothesmaking (includes Dyeing)
** Pottery (includes Glazing)
** Jewelry (Gem Cutting, Gem Setting)
** Alchemy ( I think, not sure what this is...)

* Hauling --- as is, including the new categories

I probably forgot a few in the reorganization, if so my apologies.

[darknessofthenight]

I agree that the interface should be simplified, however getting rid of labors seems like it would hurt realism and create easy exploits. For example:

** Weaving (includes Spinning, Strand Extraction)

would make it so strand extraction, which takes a very long time for an unskilled dwarf to do, could be trained by spinning thread or weaving thread into cloth, which is a lot quicker to do.

[Dorf and Dumb]

I dunno, do you really think strand extraction takes that long?  To me it never seemed like a huge bottleneck.

[GavJ]

On the contrary, I think the opposite is needed: more complexity on most labors. For example, masonry should be split into low skill building rock walls and stuff versus high skill craftsmanship, statue-carving, etc. Or mining it might be nice to be able to turn on channeling only, or whatever.

However I think the names and categories could use help, yes, and these could even help serve as a functional compromise too. If a certain level of category and below shared experience. So like, digging gives you 75% normal experience to channeling as well, because they are both under a low enough mining subcategory, and so on.

[Deboche]

I don't like the idea of putting skills together, I like full control over everything. It's hard enough already to get dwarves to do what they're supposed to instead of storing items in stockpiles all the time. With this system, you might have to cancel milking in order to get your beekeeper to keep bees. Or cancel animal training to get them to do the milking.

On the contrary, I think the opposite is needed: more complexity on most labors. For example, masonry should be split into low skill building rock walls and stuff versus high skill craftsmanship, statue-carving, etc. Or mining it might be nice to be able to turn on channeling only, or whatever.

Indeed. I would like to be able to assign a dwarf to a workshop, assign the workshop to the dwarf(so that he doesn't work anywhere else and you don't have to burrow him) and specify in the manager jobs panel which workshop gets which jobs. Definitely more control, not less

[Bumber]

I tried my hand at it. It's really difficult to decide where stuff goes because of all the different workshops, skills, and goods. I tried not to change anything too drastically, but that might be a better option in the end.

Spoiler: List (click to show/hide)

Gathering:
* Mining
* Wood Cutting
* Hunting
* Trapping (shouldn't build traps)
* Fishing
* Foraging (a.k.a. Plant gathering)

Building:
* Carpentry
**** Workshop
**** Construction
* Masonry
**** Workshop
**** Construction
* Stone Detailing
**** Smooth Walls
**** Engrave Walls
* Mechanics
**** Workshop
**** Construction
* Siege Engineering
**** Workshop
**** Construction
* Architecture
* Construction Removal

Healthcare:
* Diagnosis
**** Dwarf
**** Animal
* Surgery
**** Dwarf
**** Animal
* First Aid (Suturing/Dressing Wounds/Setting Bones)
**** Dwarf
**** Animal
* Caregiving (Feed/wash)
**** Patients
**** Prisoners
**** Animals
* Recover Wounded

Agriculture:
* Horticulture (a.k.a. Farming (Fields); name indicates fertilizing and any future plant care)
* Butchery
**** Animal (butcher/tanner/small animal dissection)
**** Fish (fish dissection/fish cleaning)
* Cooking
**** Prepare meals
**** Render fat
* Brewing
* Animal Husbandry
**** Milking
**** Shearing
**** Bee Keeping
**** Animal Training
* Processing
**** Potash/Lye Making
**** Soap Making
**** Cheese Making
**** Pressing
**** Milling
**** Threshing (a.k.a. Plant Processing)
Burning (a.k.a Wood Burning)
**** Charcoal Making
**** Burn Object (to ash; would include clothes, furniture, etc.)

Metallurgy:
* Smelting (a.k.a. Furnace Operator)
**** Smelt Ore
**** Melt Object
* Weaponsmithing (+Metal Crossbows?)
* Armoring
* Blacksmithing
**** Workshop
**** Construction

Artisan:
* Crafting
**** Bone carving (+Bone Crossbows)
**** Leathercrafting
**** Woodcrafting (+Wood Crossbows)
**** Metalcrafting (use craft workshop? (might imply no fuel, i.e. using sheet metal), +Metal Crossbows?)
**** Wax Working
* Glassmaking
**** Workshop
**** Construction
* Pottery (+Glazing)
* Jeweling
**** Gem Cutting
**** Gem Setting
* Textiles
**** Weave Cloth
**** Strand Extraction (Moved to loom)
**** Clothesmaking
**** Dyeing

Other:
* Cleaning
* Pump Operating
* Siege Operating
* Lever Operating
* Hauling
**** [Everything you'd expect]
* Alchemy

An entry should indicate if it has additional options (e.g., with a '+' next to it.) Relevant skill should be indicated on highlight. I've grouped similar labors for potential skill merges (though it's not explicitly indicated.) For example, Press+Mill+Thresh and ash/lye+soap. The labors themselves remain distinct except where I've merged them to a single line.

Afterthoughts:
Carpentry, Masonry, Blacksmithing, and Glassmaking are actually pretty similar jobs. Maybe they'd be well suited to be grouped together somewhere.

Certain skills could potentially be hybridized, such that the Metalcrafting labor requires skills called 'Metallurgy' and 'Handicrafting', and making leather armor requires 'Armoring' and 'Leatherworking'. I'm fairly certain strict workshops are being done away with at some point, so it might be insightful to consider what kind of equipment you'd need for the job, rather than think in terms of current workshops.

[King Mir]

I think it would make a better interface to organize skills by industry vertically than horizontally as suggester here. That is, you should group labors that build off each other. DF does this mostly now, except for the categories of farming and crafts. The textile labors would be better served as their own category, as would animal husbandry, and horticulture. Each of the crafts would be better placed with the method of obtaining that particular material.

[GavJ]

I think it would make a better interface to organize skills by industry vertically than horizontally as suggester here. That is, you should group labors that build off each other. DF does this mostly now, except for the categories of farming and crafts. The textile labors would be better served as their own category, as would animal husbandry, and horticulture. Each of the crafts would be better placed with the method of obtaining that particular material.

Well, the category shouldn't actually matter at all. (It does now, unfortunately, due to a bug in the code for RAWs that stops you from removing job permissions without removing a whole category, but that's just a bug). Only for visualization.

So presumably you could just be able to show it either way, back and forth in the same game.

[Adrian]

On the contrary, I think the opposite is needed: more complexity on most labors. For example, masonry should be split into low skill building rock walls and stuff versus high skill craftsmanship, statue-carving, etc. Or mining it might be nice to be able to turn on channeling only, or whatever.

I agree with this guy and raise him: Professions as (customizable) collections of labors along a similar theme.

[Bumber]

I think it would make a better interface to organize skills by industry vertically than horizontally as suggester here. That is, you should group labors that build off each other. DF does this mostly now, except for the categories of farming and crafts. The textile labors would be better served as their own category, as would animal husbandry, and horticulture. Each of the crafts would be better placed with the method of obtaining that particular material.

It's difficult to do, though, because not only is burning a step in the production of fertilizer and soap, but also in metallurgy, pottery, and glassmaking.

[palu]

No. I want more skills and labors, not less. I want trees according to industries, and related skills making it easier to learn similar skills, instead of just merging them. It's realism I want: Knowing how to make chhese doesn't make you equally good at carving wax or making lye, etc.

[GavJ]

I think it would make a better interface to organize skills by industry vertically than horizontally as suggester here. That is, you should group labors that build off each other. DF does this mostly now, except for the categories of farming and crafts. The textile labors would be better served as their own category, as would animal husbandry, and horticulture. Each of the crafts would be better placed with the method of obtaining that particular material.

It's difficult to do, though, because not only is burning a step in the production of fertilizer and soap, but also in metallurgy, pottery, and glassmaking.

Simply list it several times each place it's relevant and link them (turn one off, turns the others off since they're actually the same skill)