Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: Choosing speed or quality.  (Read 2076 times)

2074red2074

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Choosing speed or quality.
« on: August 17, 2014, 12:55:40 am »

It should be possible to choose whether a dwarf should rush out crappy crafts or take longer and increase quality. However, I don't think you should guarantee a certain quality of work by taking longer. If you give a toddler a crayon and all the time in the world, he still can't draw the Mona Lisa.


There should be some kind of easily-changed value (maybe a slider in the workshop menu) that ranges from 0 to 4, where 0 is favoring speed and 4 is favoring quality. Maybe some skills could even have subskills that determine speed and quality.

For example, the speed formula could be something like this:

speed in steps=(????)*(N)*(4-(speed/quality setting)), N=speed/quality number

The quality formula could be whatever it is now but with an added thing where the speed/quality number is added to the skill level before calculations are made.


For the experience, the formulas could be (speed subskill)=2T*(4-N)/4 and (quality subskill)=2T*N/4 where T=total exp earned.

The main skill level would be calculated by adding the two subskill levels and dividing by two. This means that you could have a dwarf whose speed becomes limited only by how fast his muscles can react to an impulse but he will continue making crap until you command him to slow down a little and work on his quality. It also means that a legendary craftsdwarf would have to have legendary speed AND quality subskills.


The formula should be balanced so that the net value multiplier is slightly higher if you pick speed, because modern industry has reflected this. Also, it would balance the fact that the reduction in hauling and resource use would make quality seem like the best option.


Possible uses for this:
-You want high-end furniture for a noble built quicker
-You need to build cheap bedrooms for a huge wave of immigrants on the double
-You are too lazy to select 200 crafts for trade and would like to have fewer but better crafts
-You want to spam low-quality cages and mechanisms to trap wild livestock
-You have 30 stonecrafters and your miners all died with their picks when you had to seal off some clowns with a cave-in and you only had enough metal to make one pick unless you melt your masterwork armor so now there is a huge stone shortage


This suggestion is different from the one made by dudlol. His idea is to modify the manager so that you can have a job that persists until a certain amount of X-level crafts have been made. It gave me this idea.
Logged

Orange Wizard

  • Bay Watcher
  • mou ii yo
    • View Profile
    • S M U G
Re: Choosing speed or quality.
« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2014, 01:13:34 am »

I like this idea. Although I must insist on five points for the slider, because I have a deranged need for a half-way mark when using sliders.
Logged
Please don't shitpost, it lowers the quality of discourse
Hard science is like a sword, and soft science is like fear. You can use both to equally powerful results, but even if your opponent disbelieve your stabs, they will still die.

2074red2074

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Choosing speed or quality.
« Reply #2 on: August 17, 2014, 02:45:11 pm »

I like this idea. Although I must insist on five points for the slider, because I have a deranged need for a half-way mark when using sliders.
There are 5 values. 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Logged

Niddhoger

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Choosing speed or quality.
« Reply #3 on: August 17, 2014, 10:20:39 pm »

It would be nice... especially for endgame when you are just going to sell/destroy the none-masterpiece items anyway.  Telling your dwarves to take extra time and focus on those masterpieces could ensure you get a masterpiece table ever time, but take as much time as 1 and a half table jobs or something.
Logged

2074red2074

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Choosing speed or quality.
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2014, 12:34:43 am »

It would be nice... especially for endgame when you are just going to sell/destroy the none-masterpiece items anyway.  Telling your dwarves to take extra time and focus on those masterpieces could ensure you get a masterpiece table ever time, but take as much time as 1 and a half table jobs or something.
No, there should never be a guarantee. The percentages should not be tweaked. Focusing on quality would only bump up the level of the dwarf, like when the dwarf is making something he/she likes.
Logged

Dorf and Dumb

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Choosing speed or quality.
« Reply #5 on: August 19, 2014, 01:03:31 pm »

I like this idea for another kind of stupid reason: it gets annoying trying to figure out what to do with your legendary armorer/leatherer/whatever during the 95% of the time that he's out of materials, after whipping through the entire supply and turning it into masterworks.  It doesn't seem right that somebody can make the stuff so much better AND faster all at the same time.  It'd be more satisfying to see them toiling away at their masterworks season in and season out, somehow.

I should add that what I'm thinking is that the speed versus quality should affect dorfs only to the degree they have skill, which should be applied to one or the other.  If they don't have skill they're not making a tradeoff, they're lucky they can make something at all.
Logged

Pancakes

  • Bay Watcher
  • Cancels drink: Too insane
    • View Profile
Re: Choosing speed or quality.
« Reply #6 on: August 19, 2014, 07:49:27 pm »

Another thing that would be nice that this brings to the table is having your clothier focus on quickly making clothes, thus reducing bad thoughts from destroyed masterworks.
Logged

MightyEvilPunk

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Choosing speed or quality.
« Reply #7 on: August 20, 2014, 04:23:14 am »

I do not really see a case where anybody will choose speed having this option.
Logged

GavJ

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Choosing speed or quality.
« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2014, 05:38:30 am »

I do not really see a case where anybody will choose speed having this option.
Simple, during the same update as this feature, make slowest, most careful jobs take about 3x longer than they do now, and speed up less with experience. And REQUIRE that slow, careful speed for masterworks.

Then make fast ~60% maybe the time of a normal job now for the highest speed.

Thus not using speed is murderously slow, and the difference is huge, and people would use both.



Whether it's actually fun or worthwhile to encourage people to use the feature or have the feature, I'm not entirely sure. I don't think it's really a worthwhile feature as the game stands right now, in its unbalanced easy mode for most things, but if/when industries get tightened up and made more realistic or having difficulty modes, and thus labor becomes an actual valuable commodity, then it would become a very worthwhile feature. So IF much mroe challening industries are part of the plan, then this would be a useful foundation to lay, or the other way around. By itself, meh.
Logged
Cauliflower Labs – Geologically realistic world generator devblog

Dwarf fortress in 50 words: You start with seven alcoholic, manic-depressive dwarves. You build a fortress in the wilderness where EVERYTHING tries to kill you, including your own dwarves. Usually, your chief imports are immigrants, beer, and optimism. Your chief exports are misery, limestone violins, forest fires, elf tallow soap, and carved kitten bone.

Dirst

  • Bay Watcher
  • [EASILY_DISTRA
    • View Profile
Re: Choosing speed or quality.
« Reply #9 on: August 21, 2014, 10:16:59 am »

I have no problem with the mechanics presented, though I'm a bit curious how this would play out among NPCs.  Dwarves value craftsmanship and Elves are immortal, so in worldgen and off-site pretty much everything Dwarven or Elven is going to be really high quality.  Goblins might all be wearing crap.  So far, so good.

Now we have an Overseer telling his craftsdwarf to just bang out some stuff quickly before the caravan comes.  His OCD starts twitching at every little imperfection that he doesn't have time to fix, but his sense of duty sustains him through it.

This has Unhappy Thoughts written all over it for creatures that value craftsmanship highly.  For goods like rushed armor that stay in the fort, it could become debilitating as he sees his crappy handiwork marching through the halls. He'll want nothing more than to take some time making proper armor and replacing all of that embarrassing stuff.
Logged
Just got back, updating:
(0.42 & 0.43) The Earth Strikes Back! v2.15 - Pay attention...  It's a mine!  It's-a not yours!
(0.42 & 0.43) Appearance Tweaks v1.03 - Tease those hippies about their pointy ears.
(0.42 & 0.43) Accessibility Utility v1.04 - Console tools to navigate the map

Tristan Alkai

  • Bay Watcher
  • [SPHERE_CURIOSITY]
    • View Profile
Re: Choosing speed or quality.
« Reply #10 on: January 01, 2015, 02:23:45 pm »

I have no problem with the mechanics presented, though I'm a bit curious how this would play out among NPCs.  Dwarves value craftsmanship and Elves are immortal, so in worldgen and off-site pretty much everything Dwarven or Elven is going to be really high quality.  Goblins might all be wearing crap.  So far, so good.

Now we have an Overseer telling his craftsdwarf to just bang out some stuff quickly before the caravan comes.  His OCD starts twitching at every little imperfection that he doesn't have time to fix, but his sense of duty sustains him through it.

This has Unhappy Thoughts written all over it for creatures that value craftsmanship highly.  For goods like rushed armor that stay in the fort, it could become debilitating as he sees his crappy handiwork marching through the halls. He'll want nothing more than to take some time making proper armor and replacing all of that embarrassing stuff.
I agree. 

Also, now that we have personality facets for "Perfectionist" and "Wastefulness," both of those facets have segments where the dwarf prefers to cut corners when working on projects.  Low Perfectionism in particular would get unhappy thoughts when working under the high quality setting. 
Logged

darknessofthenight

  • Bay Watcher
  • cannibalism is complicated
    • View Profile
Re: Choosing speed or quality.
« Reply #11 on: January 02, 2015, 12:32:57 pm »

I have no problem with the mechanics presented, though I'm a bit curious how this would play out among NPCs.  Dwarves value craftsmanship and Elves are immortal, so in worldgen and off-site pretty much everything Dwarven or Elven is going to be really high quality.  Goblins might all be wearing crap.  So far, so good.

Now we have an Overseer telling his craftsdwarf to just bang out some stuff quickly before the caravan comes.  His OCD starts twitching at every little imperfection that he doesn't have time to fix, but his sense of duty sustains him through it.

This has Unhappy Thoughts written all over it for creatures that value craftsmanship highly.  For goods like rushed armor that stay in the fort, it could become debilitating as he sees his crappy handiwork marching through the halls. He'll want nothing more than to take some time making proper armor and replacing all of that embarrassing stuff.
I agree. 

Also, now that we have personality facets for "Perfectionist" and "Wastefulness," both of those facets have segments where the dwarf prefers to cut corners when working on projects.  Low Perfectionism in particular would get unhappy thoughts when working under the high quality setting.
I like this idea but it would get super annoying unless there was an in game warning of some kind
Logged