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[Birchleaf]

This is, I hope, a relatively simple suggestion. Basically, we can now choose what materials to make items out of, and even dictate designs, but we have relatively little control over quality (except to make sure a more experienced craftsman is working on the shop).

My suggestion is to have a Quality Control tab where the overseer can determine that the Fort will not accept items below a certain quality, say, *Superior*.

The way I would envision this working as that once your Fortress has produced a certain number of items of the desired quality, the overseer can dictate that items not of that quality will not be accepted. If a crafter produces an item below that quality, it will be discarded. If metal, it will be scheduled to be melted down, if wood, to be used as fuel, if cloth it will be sent to the loom to unravel. Engravings will be smoothed out and re-engraved. Buildings will be deconstructed and reconstructed. If the raw materials cannot be reused, they will be thrown away. This will ensure that your fortress only produces the highest quality items.

I would humbly suggest the following settings:

By item: quality control of specific items, like furniture or doors.

By material: quality control of specific materials, like metal or steel.

By profession: quality control of everything produced by one skill, such as masonry.

By workshop: quality control of a specific workshop profile.

Henceforth: all items of the specified type produced from the time of the order onwards must be of the proper quality.

Retroactive: any items of the specified type not of the requested quality currently in use will be gradually replaced by items of the requested quality, as they are produced. Basically an auto 'upgrade'. Job orders for any items in use not up to code will be automatically generated. Perhaps this can be further set to either prioritize, exclude, or customize what sorts of Dwarves get their stuff (gear/rooms) upgraded: e.g. Nobles, Soldiers, Legendary Dwarves, or everyone.

To enact quality controls, you would need an active Manager (perhaps requiring a certain level of Organizer?), and your Bookkeeper to have all counts accurate. It would slow production. Perhaps a Manager with really high levels of Organizer could reduce waste (by running around checking on the artisans and making sure they are performing to standards).

Any thoughts?

[Azerty]

Could they be localized? For exemple, I would want a workshop, to be occuped by craftsdwarves Master and better, to produce high quality items.

[Schmaven]

I try and accomplish the aim you have here: having everything in the fort of the utmost quality.  Stockpiles can be configured to accept only items of a certain quality threshold, so I have regular stockpiles for the workshops set to only accept high quality items, while the rest go to a giant low quality stockpile next to the trade depot to be donated to the next caravan.  Having the ability to search through already built items such as doors, workshops, tables, chairs, etc. would be useful for rotating these out for higher quality items. 

I fear that automating the process entirely would make it all too easy to have a fort filled with masterwork everything and would take away from the challenge.  Although I can imagine situations where this might not be true - such as building a fort of tremendous splendor to then fold into adventurer mode.  In this case, what about a script of some kind that automatically changes the item quality of everything to masterwork? 

Similar to the debate over quantum stockpiles, I don't think there is a wrong way to play the game (except perhaps the exploits of he who must not be mentioned).  So I support this idea.

[Birchleaf]

Could they be localized? For exemple, I would want a workshop, to be occuped by craftsdwarves Master and better, to produce high quality items.

This is a good point. I will add it. Thank you for the suggestion!

I fear that automating the process entirely would make it all too easy to have a fort filled with masterwork everything and would take away from the challenge.  Although I can imagine situations where this might not be true - such as building a fort of tremendous splendor to then fold into adventurer mode.  In this case, what about a script of some kind that automatically changes the item quality of everything to masterwork? 

Thank you for the comment! A lot to consider here, but in my view automating the process would not make things that much less 'challenging', so much as just massively reducing the need for micromanaging. This game requires a dizzying amount of that. Though I suppose the ability to smooth out and re-engrave walls, burn wooden goods as fuel, and unravel cloth garments are all new.

And of course the final goal is a fortress of ☼Masterwork☼ everything, no matter the cost in labor a d materials! But such a fortress should probably be the envy of... well, all the nasty things in the world. Maybe even draw the ire of gods once they are more active. Ultra super mega fancy fortress cursed by the gods for hubris would be nicely archetypal.

Of course, that sort of thing is beyond my suggestion.

[anewaname]

I don't see that having the game enforce quality level at the "fort level" would be a good thing. Maybe in the job manager, you could specify "quality level or greater" so that, when you want "10 obsidian rock pots" crafted, you could specify "10 <quality level or greater> obsidian rock pots" so that the job would continue until 10 pots were created at that quality level.

Having the game manage the rejected goods would also be not right. It should be the player's job to build the systems to manage things, so that the player does not need to micromanage.

In some forts, I managed non-masterwork items by minecart-dumping them into a pit that was only accessible when a door was unlocked (so the goods could be hauled to the depot...).

[GoblinCookie]

I do not think scrapping goods would work in all instances.  It would probably be better to have a fortress level 'scrap goods' function separate to the production.

The way I envisioned this working is actually time and skill based.  It takes a lot more time to make goods of a guaranteed skill quality and it would require those who are making the goods to have a minimum skill level.  Both limitations would increase exponentially, so it would not take much to guarantee well-made goods but it would to make masterwork goods.

[thompson]

You can automate it completely with DF hack. Just separate low quality junk into a separate stockpile then use autotrade/automelt/autodump (as appropriate) to dispose of it all. You can also set minimum dwarf skill levels in the building manager.

The full list of suggestions can be implemented through some combination of workshop profiles, setting stockpiles for a workshop to give stuff to or take stuff from (if you want to control reagent quality) and the aforementioned dfhack functions.

It's easy to do too. Once automelt is enabled in the dfhack console (the Lazy noob pack foes this by default, I think), just select the stockpile with metal junk in it and press "M". Autotrade is "T". Dump "D".