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[SixOfSpades]

Besides, plenty of things are designed to have no meaningful impact on the overall function of society at all--yet everybody still knows about Rubik's Cubes, pointillism, and beatboxing.

Isn't pointillism basically how modern (i.e., dot-matrix and laser) printers work?

Hm. I doubt it was Seurat's intention to revolutionize the 4-color printing process and spark the development of the pixel, but I suppose it's possible.

So long as innovation is not entirely dependent on strange moods, that is good.

Why? The classic idea of an inventor is some dude who gets a crazy idea, locks himself away with a bunch of lab equipment & raw materials, then tinkers & fuddles away for 3 straight days of no sleep, and then finally emerges, triumphantly waving his brand-new widget. The Strange Mood mechanic already fits this to a T, what's not to like about using a mood as the vehicle for invention?

I do not think inspiration, whether a strange mood or something more subtle, should be tied to the population of the fort directly.  That seems too arbitrary and abstracted to me.

It's meant to approximate 2 ideals: One, that a Strange Mood is something that happens to a dwarf, not to a fort. Rather than "about 1.5 Moods per year, regardless of population", it should be something like "in any given year, the average dwarf has a 0.0075% chance to be struck by a Strange Mood." Two, a larger population means a more varied society, with dwarves from different walks of like having different experiences and telling each other about them. It's this breadth of possible interactions that creates a more fertile ground in which the right combination of inklings can take hold and spark a new inspiration. If your fort consists of just a handful of dudes who do nothing all day but dig, drink, and tend sheep, they're not going to invent jack. But a thriving metropolis, a hub of international trade? New ideas aplenty.

I think it ought to be tied to autonomous decision making on the part of the dwarf . . . and that this decision making take into account free time and motivation which are influenced by the reality of life within the fort

I don't think DF is ever going to model individual dwarves making intelligent decisions. As we know them, they're perpetually drunk AND retarded AND insane, and we actually seem to like them that way, so I don't see that changing any time soon. Besides, you can't decide to come up with a brilliant invention. Sure, you can tinker, you can run experiments, you can play trial-&-error until the cows come home, but at the end of the day, either you got an epiphany or you didn't.

. . . for example, being supported by a rich patron or being part of an institution that incentivizes/actively promotes spending time towards creative endeavors... much like, say, Hero of Alexandria was.

I'm not sure keeping track of how "incentivized" every single dwarf is would be the best use of the DF engine. I prefer a less CPU-intensive approach: One of my suggested Innovations was called Academy (and I could even stack another one on top of that, called Philosopher), wherein somebody gets the idea to get MORE ideas. It allows the player to put certain dwarves into a scholarly "squad," wherein their duties will be to simply talk to highly-skilled dwarves, and to each other, increasing the intellectual creativity (and with it, their chances of becoming Inspired) of all parties involved.

[SixOfSpades]

. . . perhaps other entities within the game ought to be able to influence this kind of stuff.  For example, say a wealthy noble wishes to support a fight-master to develop some proposed weapon or contraption design that was advertised to her.  Or, perhaps an emperor hires on a group of engineers and directly supports them to develop a novel siege engine (like what happened in real life with the development of ballistae, I think).

Personally, I would shy away from allowing this much control, as the one thing I *don't* want to see is the players choosing what gets invented. I'm developing this system to be the exact opposite of the StarCraft / Age of Empires style: In those games, you decide what to invent, you control when the workers start inventing it & you know how long their work will take, and you know in advance precisely how much the research will cost & what you'll get out of it at the end. That's totally unrealistic. I find it much more plausible for the fort's overseer to only have a pretty good idea of which dwarves will come up with most of the new ideas, and can only encourage research in certain fields, and has no control whatever over each development's timing or material costs.

Actually going forward with making a prototype or doing an experiment requires a decision about whether or not it is economically feasible and worth doing at that time (I mean the project itself, not the resulting invention or discover).

Unless the inventor in question fits the idea of the Mad Scientist, who will stop at nothing, Nothing I say! to finish his life's work. He can & will go completely without sleep, food, drink, toilet needs, and interpersonal contact . . . a crazed inventor dwarf can even give birth without even noticing.

But yes, granted, ideally there should be a fair amount of consideration for mental/emotional stimuli. For example, a dwarf should not be inspired to create a Wheelchair or Prosthetics without either being or at least seeing somebody who could really benefit from one of those inventions. Only a dwarf whose *silver warhammer* can't do jack against an unconscious goblin's -iron helm- should be inspired to create a War Pick. Etc. But those requirements, while very nice to think about, would likely be a nightmare to code, and so I'm very comfortable with leaving them as a pipe dream, at least for now. As far as economic constraints are concerned, I think I've approximated that fairly well by stipulating that each Innovation (that creates a physical object) will have its own material requirements for completion, but the moody dwarf will actually collect more than is actually required: For each material type, the dwarf will gather from 125 to 300% of what is actually needed, and may even throw some totally-random items in there as well. This extra material is destroyed & consumed during the construction phase, and does not appear in the finished item, thus accounting for the unpredictable cost of the experimentation / trial & error phase of the invention.

Sure, you can tinker, you can run experiments, you can play trial-&-error until the cows come home, but at the end of the day, either you got an epiphany or you didn't.

Some clarification here. Yes, a lot of inventions do require a substantial amount of learn-as-you-go work, where success is achieved mainly through diligence and Edison's 99% perspiration--things like discovering precisely where to drill the holes in a flute, or the exact ratio of copper to tin that produces the strongest bronze. But it seems there's an equally large number of advancements where the idea itself is pretty much everything: You cannot work at inventing the Bearded Axe, or Suturing, or the Volley, or the Bathing Tub.

[Andeerz]

So long as innovation is not entirely dependent on strange moods, that is good.

Why? The classic idea of an inventor is some dude who gets a crazy idea, locks himself away with a bunch of lab equipment & raw materials, then tinkers & fuddles away for 3 straight days of no sleep, and then finally emerges, triumphantly waving his brand-new widget. The Strange Mood mechanic already fits this to a T, what's not to like about using a mood as the vehicle for invention?

Perhaps I should clarify... I think it is fine for strange moods (as in, gets an idea, spends 3 straight days tinkering, etc.) to be involved in this, but not necessarily every instance of innovation/invention/discovery.  And if it is only going to be strange moods that does this, shouldn't more than just dwarves be able to do this?

I do not think inspiration, whether a strange mood or something more subtle, should be tied to the population of the fort directly.  That seems too arbitrary and abstracted to me.

It's meant to approximate 2 ideals: One, that a Strange Mood is something that happens to a dwarf, not to a fort. Rather than "about 1.5 Moods per year, regardless of population", it should be something like "in any given year, the average dwarf has a 0.0075% chance to be struck by a Strange Mood." Two, a larger population means a more varied society, with dwarves from different walks of like having different experiences and telling each other about them. It's this breadth of possible interactions that creates a more fertile ground in which the right combination of inklings can take hold and spark a new inspiration. If your fort consists of just a handful of dudes who do nothing all day but dig, drink, and tend sheep, they're not going to invent jack. But a thriving metropolis, a hub of international trade? New ideas aplenty.

A larger population does not always mean a more varied society, especially if we are talking about under 1000 people.  What if virtually all of the people in your fort are "dudes who do nothing all day but dig, drink, and tend sheep"?  This mechanic you suggest is too much of an abstraction in my opinion.  Though it would be more difficult and resource intensive in terms of computing power, why not have it so that the actual "dwarves from different walks of like having different experiences and telling each other about them" and "breadth of possible interactions" themselves influence the onset of inspiration?  Then again, in a sense, your suggestion, since the nature of the inspiration that happens is dependent on prerequisite knowledge and knowledge spread requires interactions, sort of mimics this.  And, now that I think of it, with this being the case, why should strange moods be directly tied to fortress population at all?

I think it ought to be tied to autonomous decision making on the part of the dwarf . . . and that this decision making take into account free time and motivation which are influenced by the reality of life within the fort

I don't think DF is ever going to model individual dwarves making intelligent decisions. As we know them, they're perpetually drunk AND retarded AND insane, and we actually seem to like them that way, so I don't see that changing any time soon.

But the game does model individual dwarves making decisions.  They might not be smart, but they are made constantly, from the pathfinding, to deciding whether or not to go ahead and do the job they were assigned or party at the mess hall, eat, etc.  And I, for one, do not like their current level of stupidity (though they are a whole hell of a lot less stupid than most AI encountered in games).

Besides, you can't decide to come up with a brilliant invention. Sure, you can tinker, you can run experiments, you can play trial-&-error until the cows come home, but at the end of the day, either you got an epiphany or you didn't.

I agree that you can't decide to come up with a brilliant invention.  But, what I meant was that you can decide to put yourself in a situation where you are more likely to (not that this is necessarily the intention of this decision), or someone else can decide to (again, not necessarily the intention).  For examples, read my previous post.     

. . . for example, being supported by a rich patron or being part of an institution that incentivizes/actively promotes spending time towards creative endeavors... much like, say, Hero of Alexandria was.

I'm not sure keeping track of how "incentivized" every single dwarf is would be the best use of the DF engine. I prefer a less CPU-intensive approach: One of my suggested Innovations was called Academy (and I could even stack another one on top of that, called Philosopher), wherein somebody gets the idea to get MORE ideas. It allows the player to put certain dwarves into a scholarly "squad," wherein their duties will be to simply talk to highly-skilled dwarves, and to each other, increasing the intellectual creativity (and with it, their chances of becoming Inspired) of all parties involved.

Oh, but I DO think it is a fantastic, if not the best, use of computer resources, CPU-intensiveness be damned!    And why not, instead of a discrete, hard-coded innovation leading to such behavior, have the situation put in place by the player (or other entities) facilitate this kind of behavior?  In other words I would like the following situation to be able to happen: if I built a fort to basically be the library of Alexandria and attracted the best and brightest to reside there and made sure that the design of the place and activities done there encouraged discussion and creative interaction, then the people who reside there (who would be these "highly-skilled" individuals you mention) would talk more to each other, which by itself would facilitate intellectual creativity (and with it their chances of becoming "inspired").  Why would there need to be some gimmick necessary to allow me to do this and designate people to talk to each other?  It would be much cooler if it was an emergent phenomenon.

Personally, I would shy away from allowing this much control, as the one thing I *don't* want to see is the players choosing what gets invented. I'm developing this system to be the exact opposite of the StarCraft / Age of Empires style: In those games, you decide what to invent, you control when the workers start inventing it & you know how long their work will take, and you know in advance precisely how much the research will cost & what you'll get out of it at the end. That's totally unrealistic. I find it much more plausible for the fort's overseer to only have a pretty good idea of which dwarves will come up with most of the new ideas, and can only encourage research in certain fields, and has no control whatever over each development's timing or material costs.

I agree that the StarCraft/Age of Empires style research crap is not what we want.  However, it is perfectly realistic for someone to choose what gets invented, at least in a manner of speaking.  For example, let's say someone is inspired to make a prototype of something they wish to invent, and it requires resources beyond their ability to get on their own.  So they petition someone (like you, the player) who does have access to those resources to support their endeavor but they refuse to after considering it.  That right there is something that can and has happened in real life.  Of course, that person who denied (or could have supported) the inventor to build her proposed invention would not in any case really have much if any control over the development's timing or material costs, and to a large extent, even the inventor might not have control over that, either.  For this to be in the game, though, there needs to be a more nuanced concept of ownership of objects (which ties into the economy and government stuff which needs a lot of work still) as well as commodity and service valuation... and for Inspiration-strange-mood-affected individals to not blatantly steal crap for their project.

Actually going forward with making a prototype or doing an experiment requires a decision about whether or not it is economically feasible and worth doing at that time (I mean the project itself, not the resulting invention or discovery).

Unless the inventor in question fits the idea of the Mad Scientist, who will stop at nothing, Nothing I say! to finish his life's work. He can & will go completely without sleep, food, drink, toilet needs, and interpersonal contact . . . a crazed inventor dwarf can even give birth without even noticing.

But yes, granted, ideally there should be a fair amount of consideration for mental/emotional stimuli. For example, a dwarf should not be inspired to create a Wheelchair or Prosthetics without either being or at least seeing somebody who could really benefit from one of those inventions. Only a dwarf whose *silver warhammer* can't do jack against an unconscious goblin's -iron helm- should be inspired to create a War Pick. Etc. But those requirements, while very nice to think about, would likely be a nightmare to code, and so I'm very comfortable with leaving them as a pipe dream, at least for now. As far as economic constraints are concerned, I think I've approximated that fairly well by stipulating that each Innovation (that creates a physical object) will have its own material requirements for completion, but the moody dwarf will actually collect more than is actually required: For each material type, the dwarf will gather from 125 to 300% of what is actually needed, and may even throw some totally-random items in there as well. This extra material is destroyed & consumed during the construction phase, and does not appear in the finished item, thus accounting for the unpredictable cost of the experimentation / trial & error phase of the invention.

Aside from the moody dwarf taking stuff willy-nilly as they do now, I actually think this is pretty good for the game as it is now with what you suggest.

Sure, you can tinker, you can run experiments, you can play trial-&-error until the cows come home, but at the end of the day, either you got an epiphany or you didn't.

Some clarification here. Yes, a lot of inventions do require a substantial amount of learn-as-you-go work, where success is achieved mainly through diligence and Edison's 99% perspiration--things like discovering precisely where to drill the holes in a flute, or the exact ratio of copper to tin that produces the strongest bronze. But it seems there's an equally large number of advancements where the idea itself is pretty much everything: You cannot work at inventing the Bearded Axe, or Suturing, or the Volley, or the Bathing Tub.

I agree, but the work related to said inventions can facilitate the inspiration leading to said inventions.  And that is somewhat, I think, reasonably modeled by your suggestion by having inspiration for inventions being related to the job the potential inventor normally does.

[SixOfSpades]

I think it is fine for strange moods (as in, gets an idea, spends 3 straight days tinkering, etc.) to be involved in this, but not necessarily every instance of innovation/invention/discovery.  And if it is only going to be strange moods that does this, shouldn't more than just dwarves be able to do this?

I confess I haven't given any serious thought to the non-dwarven races, I merely assumed that if Toady does decide to adopt this method, then naturally the other races should be able to advance too, and would therefore probably have strange moods of their own. (For flavor reasons, it would be nice if each race had their own set of moods.)
As for dwarves, the only non-mood tech development I would suggest is the ability to buy books. If the elves invent Fletching or the humans develop the Rivet, their merchants have a small chance to bring books detailing those inventions to your fort. Once purchased, and read by a dwarf of a relevant profession, these books unlock the same effects & reactions that the Innovation would normally . . . and can, presumably, then be re-sold to a different buyer. The ability to select a book from a merchant's wares (and, by extension, the ability to request that merchants try to bring a specific book next year) is, in my opinion, the only way a player should be able to directly choose what techs their fort has.

A larger population does not always mean a more varied society, especially if we are talking about under 1000 people.  What if virtually all of the people in your fort are "dudes who do nothing all day but dig, drink, and tend sheep"? . . . why not have it so that the actual "dwarves from different walks of life" themselves influence the onset of inspiration? . . . why should strange moods be directly tied to fortress population at all?

True, a larger population isn't a guarantee of a filled profession list--heck, even in the largest forts, I think fewer than 1% of us EVER have Wood Crafters or Beekeepers, let alone Wax Workers and Fish or Animal Dissectors. But for the vast majority of forts, once we get above 80 or so adults we've got a good mix of soldiers, farmers, laborers, & craftsdwarves, plus a few administrators thrown in, so that seems good & diverse enough for lots of ideas to get thrown around. Having the percieved frequency of moods tied to population is not only easier to code, it's also far more realistic. For example, consider a city of 10,000 people. If the hospital in that city sees 10 cases of appendicitis a year, that's perfectly normal. But a village of just thirty people getting 10 appendicitis attacks every year, how is that even possible?!? In contrast, tying Strange Moods to profession diversity just seems really clunky. Sure, I suppose you could code something that grants you more moods if you have a fairly even mix of dwarves of every color, but that wouldn't account for the fact that it doesn't make sense to have an even mix of dwarves of every color. You might have 30 Stoneworkers but only one Jeweler, and there's nothing at all wrong with that, but the game might "penalize" your access to Moods if you decide to build a fort that's oriented toward Glassmaking. Or Carpentry. Or Engineering. Or the military. If you have the game check for diversity, you would have to give the program some "ideal" proportion of the various professions--and no such ideal can exist.

. . . why not, instead of a discrete, hard-coded innovation leading to such behavior [dwarves studying & spreading ideas rather than working], have the situation put in place by the player (or other entities) facilitate this kind of behavior?  In other words I would like the following situation to be able to happen: if I built a fort to basically be the library of Alexandria and attracted the best and brightest to reside there . . . Why would there need to be some gimmick necessary to allow me to do this and designate people to talk to each other?

That's a very valid point, it's a bad idea for the game to impose restrictions on how the overseer might want to roleplay the fort. I chose to lock this scholarly behavior behind the Academy innovation for one specific reason: It's very undwarfy. It's perfectly fine for little children to learn how to read and study the legends, but once you're big & strong enough for useful, productive labor, why aren't you doing it? You just want to hang around & talk to people, looking at books all day? Who the hell died and made you a baroness?
These are short, sturdy creatures of drink and industry, after all. Encouraging dwarven study is, of course, a matter where we can all have an opinion, and I'm trying to remain openminded, I just feel that overcoming such a strong biological tendency should require a mental leap.

However, it is perfectly realistic for someone to choose what gets invented, at least in a manner of speaking.  For example, let's say someone is inspired to make a prototype of something they wish to invent, and it requires resources beyond their ability to get on their own.  So they petition someone (like you, the player) who does have access to those resources to support their endeavor but they refuse to after considering it.

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned how if an Inspired dwarf lacked access to a specific workshop, or a certain material, or whatever, they would go Conduct Meeting with the mayor to leave a request for the desired item(s). Then, after a month or so, if they still didn't have what they wanted, they would forget about the Inspiration & go back to work. Maybe they would get that same inspiration again later, hopefully after the overseer has obtained the needed workshop & materials. But your suggestion is a bit better: When the moody dwarf makes their request, they can explicitly state what it is that they're trying to invent (if they feel comforatable sharing that infomation, that is). Then, after the overseer has filled in the missing pieces, they can go to the list of "pending Innovations" (if any) and tell the original dwarf (provided that they're still alive) that everything's ready for them now. This, I feel, is the only "Invent This Now!" button to which the player should EVER have access.

and for Inspiration-strange-mood-affected individals to not blatantly steal crap for their project.

Other moods grab tons of random stuff for decorations, only the first item is really meaningful. In contrast, Inspired dwarves mainly take just the stuff that makes sense, they just need more of it. They might still grab an item of two that they think they need (even though they really don't), but that's to account for things not working out quite how you expected (who'd have predicted that the internal mechanisms of watches would require jewels?).

[Andeerz]

As for dwarves, the only non-mood tech development I would suggest is the ability to buy books. If the elves invent Fletching or the humans develop the Rivet, their merchants have a small chance to bring books detailing those inventions to your fort. Once purchased, and read by a dwarf of a relevant profession, these books unlock the same effects & reactions that the Innovation would normally . . . and can, presumably, then be re-sold to a different buyer. The ability to select a book from a merchant's wares (and, by extension, the ability to request that merchants try to bring a specific book next year) is, in my opinion, the only way a player should be able to directly choose what techs their fort has.

This is certainly in keeping with the most recent developments in the game.  I also can envision educators or skilled craftspeople from the outside (or sending your own guys out to get educated) in addition to books functioning in this regard.  And this sort of starts to touch upon how real guilds operated IRL... as well as universities in some regards. 

True, a larger population isn't a guarantee of a filled profession list--heck, even in the largest forts, I think fewer than 1% of us EVER have Wood Crafters or Beekeepers, let alone Wax Workers and Fish or Animal Dissectors. But for the vast majority of forts, once we get above 80 or so adults we've got a good mix of soldiers, farmers, laborers, & craftsdwarves, plus a few administrators thrown in, so that seems good & diverse enough for lots of ideas to get thrown around. Having the percieved frequency of moods tied to population is not only easier to code, it's also far more realistic. For example, consider a city of 10,000 people. If the hospital in that city sees 10 cases of appendicitis a year, that's perfectly normal. But a village of just thirty people getting 10 appendicitis attacks every year, how is that even possible?!? In contrast, tying Strange Moods to profession diversity just seems really clunky. Sure, I suppose you could code something that grants you more moods if you have a fairly even mix of dwarves of every color, but that wouldn't account for the fact that it doesn't make sense to have an even mix of dwarves of every color. You might have 30 Stoneworkers but only one Jeweler, and there's nothing at all wrong with that, but the game might "penalize" your access to Moods if you decide to build a fort that's oriented toward Glassmaking. Or Carpentry. Or Engineering. Or the military. If you have the game check for diversity, you would have to give the program some "ideal" proportion of the various professions--and no such ideal can exist.

Perhaps I should rephrase stuff a bit about how I would suggest things work.  I do NOT think that inspirational moods should be tied to diversity of professions; they should be tied only to the experiences of the individual, including their individual knowledges, skill levels in relevant stuff (so far we are in agreement here), and their direct and discrete interactions with others (this is where we diverge as I understand it).  How diversity (and by diversity, I do not mean strictly diversity of professions!!!) would (and not always) relate to things would not be some diversity statistic that plugs into some abstract inspiration equation.  I would rather have what you suggest instead of that, though in that case we would be replacing the diversity statistic with some number tied to population (right?).  Diversity per se shouldn't matter.  If you happen to have a more diverse population you would have a higher likelihood perhaps of having an entity that possesses some item of knowledge or other characteristic that then either leads that entity or some other that learns said knowledge or is affected by said characteristic from them to become inspired.  It might sound like a nightmare to code and figure out (which I don't think any one of us, or at least me, is qualified to say for sure), but there are already structures in place in how dwarves interact anyway that I think could be co-opted.  I mean, the dwarves do interact with each other in discrete events, and it is during events like this that knowledge transfer and stuff could happen (and, I presume, will).  And the kinds of interactions they can have with each other will become more nuanced as development goes along.

That's a very valid point, it's a bad idea for the game to impose restrictions on how the overseer might want to roleplay the fort. I chose to lock this scholarly behavior behind the Academy innovation for one specific reason: It's very undwarfy. It's perfectly fine for little children to learn how to read and study the legends, but once you're big & strong enough for useful, productive labor, why aren't you doing it? You just want to hang around & talk to people, looking at books all day? Who the hell died and made you a baroness?
These are short, sturdy creatures of drink and industry, after all. Encouraging dwarven study is, of course, a matter where we can all have an opinion, and I'm trying to remain openminded, I just feel that overcoming such a strong biological tendency should require a mental leap.

You and I have a different ideas as to what is "dwarfy".    No matter! 

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned how if an Inspired dwarf lacked access to a specific workshop, or a certain material, or whatever, they would go Conduct Meeting with the mayor to leave a request for the desired item(s). Then, after a month or so, if they still didn't have what they wanted, they would forget about the Inspiration & go back to work. Maybe they would get that same inspiration again later, hopefully after the overseer has obtained the needed workshop & materials. But your suggestion is a bit better: When the moody dwarf makes their request, they can explicitly state what it is that they're trying to invent (if they feel comforatable sharing that infomation, that is). Then, after the overseer has filled in the missing pieces, they can go to the list of "pending Innovations" (if any) and tell the original dwarf (provided that they're still alive) that everything's ready for them now. This, I feel, is the only "Invent This Now!" button to which the player should EVER have access.

How did I miss this?  I really like this.  Two things this could open things up for which I think are cool:

1. Innovators petitioning others besides the player (like, say, a guild, or a noble, or someone from off the map.  Of course this could be something you as a player could influence (or outright prevent)... but not without its possible consequences if the game should be so sophisticated at some point.    

2. Non innovation-related things being petitioned (sort of like nobles do, but less arbitrary and annoying)... This would certainly require entities to have a lot more autonomy, but I can think of cool examples!  But this is not necessarily the topic of this thread... Oh, but I wanna talk about it!

Other moods grab tons of random stuff for decorations, only the first item is really meaningful. In contrast, Inspired dwarves mainly take just the stuff that makes sense, they just need more of it. They might still grab an item of two that they think they need (even though they really don't), but that's to account for things not working out quite how you expected (who'd have predicted that the internal mechanisms of watches would require jewels?).

I like this.  As a side note... perhaps this also could potentially plug into differences in designs, as well, between independently invented things.  I could see, say, a furnace invented by one dwarf incorporating some sort of difference in design reflected by materials used in the initial prototype (which isn't needed but still might have an effect) leading to a furnace that burns hotter than one invented by another entity.  And perhaps this difference could lead to one being able to smelt iron and the other not being able to.  Just food for thought...  And perhaps through refinement of design, people might reduce the amount of stuff necessary to build a piece of technology vs. its initial prototypes to its most necessary components.  For example, if this hotter furnace with the added ingredient to its recipe was adopted by a people who didn't have access to iron, and some furnace builder finds (serendipitously or through playing with the design) that the furnace doesn't need to be made with the additional ingredient to function for their purposes, then perhaps eventually this original hotter furnace design could be lost (if not recorded) as the other simpler, cheaper one supplants it...  This would require designs to be able to be played with and innovated upon after their invention, which might be beyond the scope of this thread... I have some ideas for this, though.  And there is an interesting paper that mathematically models this for the evolution of the steam engine that could be co-opted.

[SixOfSpades]

Perhaps I should rephrase stuff a bit about how I would suggest things work. . . . I mean, the dwarves do interact with each other in discrete events, and it is during events like this that knowledge transfer and stuff could happen (and, I presume, will).  And the kinds of interactions they can have with each other will become more nuanced as development goes along.

That's true. The algorithm should be a bit more sensitive than "Dwarf of Profession A mentions some of the challenges of his job to dwarf of Profession B", however, because otherwise a fort that has just 2 jobs in it would seem just as intellectually stimulating as a true cosmopolitan mecca. It's far too early to be really planning for stuff like this, but ideally a big piece of the pie would be the dwarves having conversations not only with each other, but more importantly with visiting merchants & other outsiders, and examining the objects that they bring. And observing how the goblins fight, and picking through their discarded armor to see if any aspects are worth copying, etc. Then visiting the hospital, seeing how certain dwarves died, thinking about how to prevent that in the fute, etc., etc., etc. . . .
Personally, I'll keep shooting for a "good enough for now" plan, but go ahead & compile a wishlist. That's what the Suggestions forum is about, after all.

As a side note... perhaps this also could potentially plug into differences in designs, as well, between independently invented things.  . . .  This would require designs to be able to be played with and innovated upon after their invention, which might be beyond the scope of this thread... I have some ideas for this, though.

Hm. Different Innovations "competing" for the same niche is something I hadn't considered, though it does sound like it could be a very interesting little wrinkle, potentially working its way up to be a major hassle for anyone seeking to metagame the Innovations system.

[Andeerz]

Right on.

And the ultimate situation would be that in order to metagame, one would actually have to play the game.  And I think if things are properly modeled, that will exactly be what will happen. 

[athenalras]

I don't agree with everything you say as some don't seem possible.

However, I do agree with some things concerning special dwarven artifacts.
It's hard to explain so I'd rather detail an example I have in mind.
Say a dwarf constructs a segmented shield. That particular settlement should be able to construct segmented shields from then on.
Or a dwarf constructs a serrated axe(?). The dwarves should be able to learn how to create serrated battle axes.
Certain details should not be considered an "innovation" like additional rings to shields or something of the sort.

What can be the advantage of such creations? Well, a prefixed item (serrated, spiked, etc) should give a boost to penetration and give a small velocity bonus of some kind.

Armor is more difficult to get a grasp on because that would require the entire armor system to be overhauled and honestly, that's not the greatest allocation of time and effort. Yes, spiked shields are cool but in the current state of equipment stats, spiked shields = shield.



In addition to the suggestion, I'd like to add that it would be interesting to have secret technology be unlocked through moods of some kind. Unique items, to say, that has special properties.

For an outrageous example (that I do not support in any way), let's say Urist the craftsdwarf becomes possessed. He claims a workshop and starts crafting something mysterious.
Voila! Urist crafts an aquifer stone! You can use the aquifer stone to build a well with infinite amount of water! Never thirst again!

You know, basically something that sets one player's dwarvern settlement completely different from another player's dwarvern settlement.

[SixOfSpades]

It's hard to explain so I'd rather detail an example I have in mind.
Say a dwarf constructs a segmented shield. That particular settlement should be able to construct segmented shields from then on.

That's exactly how the plan has been structured. Once an Inspired dwarf successfully completes his mood, all members of the fort can regularly duplicate his results on a regular basis. For the Innovations that create a physical object (and not all of them do), the production of that type of object is unlocked at all appropriate workshops.
No idea what a "segmented shield" is.

Certain details should not be considered an "innovation" like additional rings to shields or something of the sort.

The relative magnitude of what should & shouldn't be an Innovation can be fine-tuned later. The setup I'm working on now can be considered a bit bare-bones because, for simplicity's sake, some Innovations are combined--for example, Furnace Operators can (and will) discover multiple alloys simultaneously. I will almost certainly correct that before I consider the project "done". But, all in all, the magnitude of what constitutes an Innovation (and, consequently, how many there are) is determined by gameplay balance: Innovations should be small enough, and numerous enough, to ensure that any one fort would have to survive for many, many hundreds of game years to discover them "all" . . . and yet not so small and so numerous that the average fort is abandoned to FPS death without once having discovered anything cool.

In addition to the suggestion, I'd like to add that it would be interesting to have secret technology be unlocked through moods of some kind. Unique items, to say, that has special properties.
 . . . Voila! Urist crafts an aquifer stone! You can use the aquifer stone to build a well with infinite amount of water! Never thirst again!

Toady has been hinting that artifacts will (or at least can) have various magical properties. This could very well be one of them. But let me repeat: I've decided that Inspiration moods, even those that create items, will not be magical, and will not create artifacts. So, by adjusting the setting in the Init file that determines the % chance that a Strange Mood will be of the Inspiration type, the player can influence the overall balance of Science vs. Magic in each fort.

You know, basically something that sets one player's dwarvern settlement completely different from another player's dwarvern settlement.

That is very much the point. One of my goals is to help make sure that each fort gets a "Common Core" of basic, fundamental skills (without which life would pretty much suck), and also a very broad range of more advanced and refined items & practices for a fort to potentially discover--so many of them, in fact, that if 2 players each had their own copy of the exact same embark, they could each run their own fort for 50 years, and then compare notes to find out that the number of Innovations that they had both unlocked was about . . . 40%.

[hatesdigimon]

PTW. i cant wait to see toady's idea of all this. lol. Although i think if he was outright against innovation he would've spoken up LONG ago.

[Timeless Bob]

But how would a drwaf obtain copper without a pick?

The humans who first discovered copper found it alluvially, ie they found some hot, melted stuff on the ground and experimented with it. Afterwards, when they used copper to mine out stone, they found veins of native copper and various other ores.

No no, I get that. In life things like this occur naturally. You can even find glass from thunderstikes in the seashore.

Im just saying that in Dwarf fortress this is more or less impossible. You need metal to make a pick(unless there is a substitute, and usually there isn't), you need a pick to get metal. both are needed, the pick and the metal to mine, to obtain either. To go past this, the game would require some slight tweaks so that you can find ores just lying around, or that you can dig without tools, or have temporary weak materials to build pickaxes out of. I mean, this isn't minecraft. Dwarves can't just punch trees to get wood or hit the dirt to dig it.

Native copper is essentially pure(-ish) copper metal. You can take a chunk of native copper and hammer it into a flat shape with a rock, then grind a rock along the flat piece's edge, and with that you will have a copper axe. A prehistoric native copper axe was found in Germany, sooo...

Also, What is currently impossible in the game is not relevant. This is the suggestions board, and it was possible IRL, so I'm suggesting it be possible for the dwarves to advance like prehistoric man did IRL. Hitting a tree with your fist won't provide usable wood, but breaking off a branch will. Basically, the ideal future of Dwarf Fortress in my mind is a procedural simulator for whatever the hell you feel like simulating. Anything you can do in real life, you should be able to do in Dwarf Fortress.

Tanning
Requires: Skins
Skill: none
ID spends a long time messing around with animal hides, and eventually builds a small workshop that can tan a hide every month or so. Tanned hides are treated the same as raw hides, except they don't rot away nearly as fast.
Unlocks tanning.

Did you forget the ID pissing over the skin/soaking the skin in his own urine? Speaking of that, I wonder about the mental stability of the first person to tan a hide (they used dog urine and chicken droppings in medieval times, right?)

Actually, the key to tanning is tannic acid, obtained by soaking the hides together with lots of chips of oak bark. As few sites will have oak trees, I think we're safe in just making the reaction require a couple of generic "sticks". The wiki says that the urine is only used to help separate the hair from the skin--which might not even be desirable, in Cold climates.

I did more research, and tanning has been replaced with primitive rawhide making in my list. True tanning will come later.

Skullsploder, you'll be the one covering most of clothing creation, so here's my plan: All clothing Inspirations are Common Core, until an item of that type has been invented. (If everybody's barefoot, somebody WILL invent shoes--but once you have 1 type of shoe, there's little need for another.) So each civilization will come up with 1 or 2 "native" examples of each type of garment, and that will be their style. But if clothes (weapons, armor, etc.) from a different civilization are owned by your fort, then the Inspiration for that particular item becomes Common Core again. So if you kill some goblins and they like high boots, you've got a chance to develop high boots for yourself (eventually). So the full list of clothes, weapons & the like will be part of both lists--until it becomes one unified list.

This is a good idea. +1 to that.

And names. I realized last night that it would be pretty dumb to have a Stone Age dwarf whose name translates to "Abbey Theaterfountains", given that none of those things will exist for thousands of years. Good thing the language_SYM file has a "Primitive" section.
Also, at some point, some dwarf is going to be Inspired to Honor Dead. You (almost certainly) can't make coffins or slabs, but you could probably bury the fellow by . . . um . . . hm.

I completely forgot about burial rites. But I did initially spend 15 mins typing a ramble about names that didn't quite get off the ground, so I scrapped it for later Lemme work on that now.

I forgot, before the advent of real axes, a common method of felling trees was fire: slow, smoldering fire around just the parts of the wood that you wanted to remove. Dugout canoes are still made in this way.

Definitely going on the list.

That god of scholarship, poetry, and discipline is going to be twiddling his thumbs for an awfully long time. Becoming a devout worshiper makes sense, but just make sure not to drag the Religion Arc into this--we've already got more than enough to chew on as it is.

Yeah, I figure we can just do our thing and religion can be dumped on top when it arrives.

Pretty much, yeah. As long as you make sure that every civ is pretty much guaranteed to be able to provide all the basics for a "classic" DF embark, we should be good to go, so . . .
Food industry, including some forms of food preservation and storage
Liquor industry, including storage (Should this be optional? I think a civ that lives on water alone should at least be considered as a possibility, and you can't transport beer anyway, not without refrigeration.)
Clothing industry, covering at least the bare bones (what an apt turn of phrase!)
Husbandry industry, everything from Capture Animal to Pack/Draft Animal
Vehicle industry, everything from Wheel to Wagon (Wheelbarrow, Minecart and Chariot all optional, however)
Blacksmithing industry, including Iron Casting (for anvils)
Weaponsmithing industry, including copper or iron picks & axes.

There's surprisingly little between wheel and wagon. It goes almost directly from wheel to axle to hand-drawn cart to animal-drawn cart.

The development of agriculture is optional, surprisingly. Sure, it would take a hell of a lot of meat and wild plants to sustain a reasonably-large population for any reasonably-large length of time, but it's technically possible. Figuring out the seed->plant connection should not be an absolute requirement, particularly for a nomadic people (which dwarves, admittedly, are not).

I am trying to make it possible for a civilisation to take a completely aggressive/nomadic route to technological advancement. It's be difficult, and require actively rejecting farming, but possible nonetheless.

Seems a solid enough idea, but will the player be able to check how advanced his gluemakers are, or will he just have to remember how many glue-related innovations there have been? And I'm not dumping on incremental improvements by any means, it's just that looking at an arrow and seeing that it's a, say, "Hollow-shaft Broadhead with Rifled Fletching" feels more real to me, while looking at an arrow and seeing that it's "Level 9" is way more gamey. That's why I've been pushing for the major advancements having names & their own unlockable reactions in the RAWs, while subsequent moods (that don't research any new tech) cause improvements in the quality.
On another note, animal glue is made from skins & connective tissues, not the fat.

Whoops, I did absolutely no research for that section. The naming thing was bothering me too, but then I had an idea about how to fix that and keep it a valid raw system.

[ADVANCE:1:1:FLAVOUR:1:" Fletching! Now your projectiles will fly straight and true(-ish)!":DESCRIPTOR:ITEM:ARROW:" is fletched with two feathers":"":DESCRIPTOR:ITEM:ALCATL_DART:" is fletched with two feathers.":none]

This tag would add the possibility of this set of flavour text being used for the first to first (so just the first) innovation in fletching, the discovery.
The number after FLAVOUR indicates the weighting of this set of flavour text for selection.
The text string after that is the text that will be displayed on the screen when the innovation is finished. The screen will automatically have "Urist McInspired has discovered", and after this is where that first string goes. This can be all you put in the tag, if you want, but the main idea of it is to include the DESCRIPTOR tags. These will add the first string after the item selection tags to the list of descriptors for the item selected. The descriptors are displayed as:

This is a [material] arrow. The arrow[descriptor1] The arrow[descriptor2] The arrow[descriptor3] and so on.

The second string in the descriptor bit is a descriptor that this will remove. As in, after adding the specified text to the list of descriptors for the item, the tag will search for a descriptor whose text matches that in this second string, and remove it if it finds it. If it doesn't find a matching descriptor, nothing happens. This is so that you can remove a descriptor like " is fletched with two feathers" when some bright cavedwarf decides to add a third feather. You can add as many DESCRIPTOR:TYPE:THING:"text":"text" tags as you want to an advancement flavour tag, which can be necessary when a single advance makes many others obsolete or something, but each new flavour set requires its own tag.

So what you'll start with is:

This is an obsidian arrow. The arrow has a knapped stone tip. The arrow's parts are held to the shaft by raw animal tendon. The arrow's parts are held to the shaft by hardened plant sap.

And what you'll end with is:

This is a steel arrow. The arrow has a hollow shaft. The arrow has a broadhead tip. The arrow has rifled fletching. The arrow is fletched with three feathers. The arrow's parts are held to the shaft by woven plant fibre cord. The arrow's parts are held to the shaft by a glue of boiled leather.

Also, I've thought of a way to work new items into the civ's raws slowly: If a dwarf thinks of a slight change for a stone arrow, the raws for the stone arrow are copied and the changes are applied to the copy. All of that civs reactions to produce stone arrows are changed to reference the improved version's raws, and when no instances of the old version exist anymore, its raws are deleted from the civ's raw set.

They do, however, still exist in the raws of every civ who possessed that same variant of the stone arrow.

Thoughts?

As to language and names. Here's a procedural engine for you:
Once an early dwarf decides to assign a particular grunt noise to a particular object, the engine gets in gear. Dwarves will gain first names only at this time as well, but they will all be individually formulated and unique noises. Children will be named after parents, friends of parents, family, or favoured objects of parents. Additional names based on profession, family/clan, and birthdate are all separate innovations, with each one getting less likely depending on how many have already appeared.
In the beginning, there is a list of all possible vowel sounds. (a, e, i, o, u, ou, ee, ay, oy, ui, ow, etc) and all possible consonant sounds (b, s, z, soft g, Germanic g, etc), split into soft and hard consonant sounds. When a dwarf sees a new thing, be it a newly invented creation (rock on a stick!) or a natural terrain feature (like a tree), he assigns it a name, made up arbitrarily of vowel sounds and consonant sounds, following these rules:

• There are no restrictions on placing vowel noises next to each other. The game will simply place an umlaut over the first letter of the second and any subsequent vowel noises.
• A maximum of three consonant noises can be consecutive, but only if the first of the three is a soft consonant sound, and the group is both followed and preceded by a vowel sound.
• A maximum of two hard consonant sounds or two soft consonant sounds can be adjacent to each other.
• A brand new thing can not be given the exact same name as a pre-existing thing. They may, however, mutate over time
  
• The game will draw a maximum of half the syllables (not sounds) that make up a newly discovered object's name from other objects within its sphere. There will be a good chance that the thing's name includes, includes part of, or is the ID's name if it's an invention, depending on the self-centeredness of the inventor.
• When a different civ brings a new object to you peacefully (i.e. you don't take it from their cold, dead fingers, at least until you've chatted a little about it a little), your civ will develop a word for that object that is a slight mutation in the sound of that civ's word for it, and vice-versa.

Every few years, the game will check how often an object is used by a civ. This can be a accumulation of reference in artworks, overall civ alignment with the object's sphere, how long the object has been present in the civ, and so on. The total use-frequency score for an object determines the chance that the language engine will shave off a syllable or some superfluous sounds from the civ's name for that object, trying not to turn it into the same word as something else. The chance of shortening a word is modified by the square of its length in sounds: a 4-sound word (like s-p-ea-r) is far less likely to be shortened than a 7-sound word (like e-l-e-ph-a-n-t), provided equal usage. A modifier of 16 versus one of 49, and shortening is fairly rare overall.

I think that this system will allow civs to develop distinct languages and dialects in a way that actually makes sense. The more of their formative years that two civs spend trading tech with each other, the more similar their languages will be. There will be a tendency over time to shorten common words, and thus connections between two words can be lost.

Brilliant Language creation engine  - Breadcrumbs!