Print

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

[letsdance]

many small things would make the game more enjoyable:

(high priority)
stockpile: different categories for each 'other large tools' and name them
building menu and stockpile: different categories for empty slabs and engraved ones
building menu: different categories for bags and coffers
building menu: sorty by quality (especially levers) and possibly material used [edit: added this line]
allow me to assign custom names or labels to levers (notes are a workaround but cumbersome)
tallow default setting = not cook (or let us choose in init, i use it for soaping only)
let me see a dwarves currently worn equipment in the military-equip menu

currently if i want to quickly dig a few squares on the other side of the map, all diggers run there, dig one square and then run back again. that's annoying. suggestion: let me set a dwarf to do low priority jobs instead of high priority ones, or allow me to define a dig zone as a single job, or all jobs in a dig zone to the same dwarf.

make visitors less annoying (see also the 'automatic visitory petition policy' petition) and probably less dangerous. i turned them off completely, it's bad enough that i can get werebeasts and vampires from immigrants. since visitors bring great dangers, let me choose what types of visitors are welcome in my fortress and which are not, and how many of them (ingame, not in the init).

(low priority)
stockpile: different categories for fat and tallow
stockpile: put the underground plants, seeds and leaves on top or bottom of those lists, not somewhere inbetween. this is high priority for newbies.
stockpile: move empty cages to furniture
stockpile: move empty animal traps to traps
stockpile: make 'prepared food' a category like the rest
give me a tool to build many graves at once. for example a graveyard zone where dwarves build graves when needed (and coffins are available) and where slabs get auto-build after engraving. if that's a separate job category we could have a gravedigger!

[Deboche]

This is the mandatory "That's interface stuff and interface stuff is low priority because it'd need updating with every update and Toady shouldn't waste time with that small stuff"

None of that seems very high priority, though tallow being set to not cook by default would be sweet, also booze. Also, setting a value limit on engraving and decorating - say "decorate until 1000*" otherwise it's a headache.

But maybe some of this stuff is quick and painless to implement and this would be the right time to suggest it since Toady seems to have his hands in the dough, so to speak.

[Putnam]

This is the mandatory "That's interface stuff and interface stuff is low priority because it'd need updating with every update and Toady shouldn't waste time with that small stuff"

no, not really, these are specific suggestions that can be implemented and then mostly forgot about while those suggestions are usually vague "UI overhaul" suggestions

[Deboche]

Nope, there are plenty of UI suggestions ranging from very specific to what you said.

[Orange Wizard]

This is the mandatory "That's interface stuff and interface stuff is low priority because it'd need updating with every update and Toady shouldn't waste time with that small stuff"

no, not really, these are specific suggestions that can be implemented and then mostly forgot about while those suggestions are usually vague "UI overhaul" suggestions

Nope, there are plenty of UI suggestions ranging from very specific to what you said.

This is so disjointed I can't even

[Salmeuk]

Digging priorities are already in, accessible from the designation menu bybpressing +  and -.

Your other suggestions are sound, but most won't be addressed until a larger systemic overhaul of categories and interfaces takes place. I could be wrong, for Toady has been known to include minor usability fixes when updating other things.

[cochramd]

If we're talking about small improvements, here's a few I've come up with:

• Elf Kosher Alert: When ordering something brought to the trade depot, I should be able to tell at a glance whether or not it's elf kosher. I can't count the number of times I've had the elves snub their noses at me because something I offered them was unbeknownst to me decorated with wood
• Assign wheelbarrows to workshops: Even when using linked stockpiles, having to haul stone significantly reduces the productivity of masons, stonecrafters and furnace operators. Allowing them to use wheelbarrows to bring stones to their respective shops would alleviate this issue.
• View by quality on stocks screen: Currently, there are 2 levels of detail in the stock screen. In one, I can see the total number of large serrated steel discs in my fort and order them all melted with one keystroke. In the other, I can see each individual large serrated steel disc in my fort and order them melted individually. What would be great is a third in-between level of detail where I could see how many large serrated steel discs of each quality level I had, and could order all the discs of a certain quality level melted with a single keystroke.
• Improved Instrument Material Selection: Probably something Toady's about to fix anyways, but it's worth saying that being unable to specify which metal you're making instruments or instrument parts with short of using linked stockpiles is very frustrating, as is not being able to make glass instruments or instrument pieces out of clear or crystal glass.
• Option for Monthly Autosaves: At below 10 FPS, a season can take several hours and losing most of a season to a random crash becomes incredibly frustrating.

[Bumber]

• Assign wheelbarrows to workshops: Even when using linked stockpiles, having to haul stone significantly reduces the productivity of masons, stonecrafters and furnace operators. Allowing them to use wheelbarrows to bring stones to their respective shops would alleviate this issue.

Or allow a stockpile's wheelbarrows to used when hauling from the stockpile. Assigning the wheelbarrows to the workshop means they'd be used for every single item, regardless of weight.

You know, ideally dwarves would just automatically use a spare wheelbarrow for any hauling, based on weight and distance to the nearest wheelbarrow. That's not a minor change, however.

[Deboche]

the stuff

Love all of these as well. The "culling on elf" would have been more useful when elves actually brought something a little bit useful. Their caravans now are pathetic.

Digging priorities are already in, accessible from the designation menu bybpressing +  and -.

Your other suggestions are sound, but most won't be addressed until a larger systemic overhaul of categories and interfaces takes place. I could be wrong, for Toady has been known to include minor usability fixes when updating other things.

I think he means that you should be able to assign a single miner to a specific chunk of mining. You might need something mined quickly but you don't want all your miners to stop what they're doing somewhere else, possibly very far away.

[Niddhoger]

Love all of these as well. The "culling on elf" would have been more useful when elves actually brought something a little bit useful. Their caravans now are pathetic.

*shrugs* Elves can bring domesticated war-trainable animals.  Who doesn't like war grizzlies and war tigers? They bring additional food, and wooden items, and cloth.  If I wind up in a wood-poor environment, I can forbid all wood stocks in spring and let the elves bring me a ton.  I'll also buy small things I don't care about the quality of, like buckets, barrels, and splints.  Thus, I can save even more wood for charcoal (which you still need for steel even with magma).  Buying more cloth items means growing less.  I prefer to just import cloth (and undecorated clothing) for the first few years until I have enough spare dorfs to dedicate to a self-sufficient clothing industry.  Pity they don't bring leather.  The odd foreign instrument to jump start your tavern also helps, instead of setting up 4-5 different industries to make each of the parts yourself. 

[letsdance]

Digging priorities are already in, accessible from the designation menu bybpressing +  and -.

I think he means that you should be able to assign a single miner to a specific chunk of mining. You might need something mined quickly but you don't want all your miners to stop what they're doing somewhere else, possibly very far away.

yes exactly. if i set a high (or actually low in terms on numbers) digging priority for a couple of chunks, all of my miners will run there. i want a method to make sure only one of them does it. currently the only workaround i know is burrows, but that's too cumbersome. assign a worker to do low priority work instead of high priority would be an easy solution, if it was possible.

• Assign wheelbarrows to workshops: Even when using linked stockpiles, having to haul stone significantly reduces the productivity of masons, stonecrafters and furnace operators. Allowing them to use wheelbarrows to bring stones to their respective shops would alleviate this issue.

Or allow a stockpile's wheelbarrows to used when hauling from the stockpile.

oh yes, these would be great.

some sort of elf trade warning would be nice, but low priority. usually i don't trade with them anyways...

[Starver]

yes exactly. if i set a high (or actually low in terms on numbers) digging priority for a couple of chunks, all of my miners will run there. i want a method to make sure only one of them does it. currently the only workaround i know is burrows, but that's too cumbersome. assign a worker to do low priority work instead of high priority would be an easy solution, if it was possible.

You've already mentioned it as 'cumbersome', but the burrow method is very simple (assuming you aren't already doing anything complicated that clashes much with it).

Set the digging/etc as the said low-priority, with high-priority jobs where you the other digger(s) to continue.  Sufficiently surround it by a burrow square (or cube, if across levels) and then assign your least/most favoured dwarf to that burrow.  When finished, just delete the burrow.

You can finesse this, and may have to in some of the more complex cases, but it can be as simple as set-dig-rectangle, set-burrow-rectangle, add dwarf, <wait>, remove dwarf.

I admit it might be nice for you if you could assign dwarves to dig-priority in some sort of thing like the workshop method of restricting workers based on upper/lower skill-ranges, but I suspect that the level of micromanagement won't be less.  (If you keep the dwarf a "5->7 priority" digger, you'd have to go in and set other digging squares to 5-to-7 priorities to keep them busy.  Removing the limit, then re-adding the next time, could be more key-intensive than a simple burrow-assignment.)

Maybe wrap-around?  Default dwarf aims for 1s, 2s, ... 7s, in that order; But you can set a (different)dwarf to aim for 4s, ... 7s, 1s ... 4s, the first few in the list first, to spread the load?  (But don't forget you've done this, then use dig-priorities to 'prevent' cave-ins - the two together thus creating them...)

[letsdance]

the problem with the burrow is that you have to monitor the work, to delete the burrow after completion. and it's easy to forget and find a dehydrated dwarf later.

[Starver]

the problem with the burrow is that you have to monitor the work, to delete the burrow after completion. and it's easy to forget and find a dehydrated dwarf later.

Firstly, keep an eye out for no-job dwarves.  (I try to never have any idlers, if I can help it, and with the Miners it's quite easy to have a quick check at the top of the dwarf-list and then out, every other minute, without too much time game-paused.)  When that dwarf has nothing to do, it has completed that special-priority job and you can delete it.

Secondly, for a big burrow-job (this one sounded like a handful of digging-squares, that the first point easily picks up on the point not far down the line that it can be deleted), also paint a bit of the special-priority burrow over a pile of food and drink, if not places like the dwarf's bedroom as well, so that they can deal with such needs as they arise and then head back to the coal-face (or the microcline one) without any need for you to do anything more.

[letsdance]

Firstly, keep an eye out for no-job dwarves.  (I try to never have any idlers, if I can help it, and with the Miners it's quite easy to have a quick check at the top of the dwarf-list and then out, every other minute, without too much time game-paused.)

that's what i call cumbersome. annoying might be a better word.