It's a common belief that the current bad thoughts and personality changes attributable to rain are unrealistic. I was on the fence but liable to agree, at least until I watched the reality show Alone set on Vancouver Island, where a group of people who considered themselves accomplished outdoorsmen rapidly succumbed to incessant rain (complicated by starvation, isolation and a lack of proper shelter, granted). Good show with some insight into madness. Recommended. It reminded me that a person who can't remember the last time he got rained on (dashing between a building and a car doesn't count) should probably think twice.
I've never had to work in the rain. If, for example, it started raining on me while I was doing data entry on a computer I would be annoyed. If my boss forced me to continue typing while being rained on it would be worse. If I passed a putrefying rat on my way to work it would be briefly disgusting, if there was one on my desk it would be much worse. Things we wouldn't tolerate we expect our dwarves to shrug off. Context is important, and the impoverished options dwarves have for dealing with chronically unpleasant situations is a big part of the problem (emigration, not just immigration, will be a huge deal), but we know that will be worked and iterated on. I think that having options to allow dwarves to autonomously delay work during rain or miasma would be a good start.
Something like this. P for precipitation and d for disgusting, obviously.
Here's how I envision it. You've toggled the option to let dwarves avoid rain (make it on by default, actually). Your woodcutter is out on the surface chopping down trees and it starts raining. The dwarf automatically, without cancellation spam, starts heading to the nearest shelter. There should probably be a minor announcement like "Urist paused felling trees due to rain" or "Urist sought shelter due to rain" right after the "It has started raining" one. If you've mined out rooms or built a ceiling somewhere, he heads for those, if they've yet to be built maybe he huddles beside a tree or something "avoiding" the rain. Fortress time being what it is, the rain will last seconds and the dwarf will have moved a few tiles before turning around to cut down trees again and the player wont notice. The permission to seek out shelter from rain when he feels like it is the important thing that should mean bad thoughts are minimized, not whether he got wet. Dwarves can't look for rain clouds to inform preemptive decisions (not yet at least). A particularly industrious woodcutter, or one who is otherwise satisfied with life, might ignore the first couple of rain episodes. A dwarf accustomed to working outside might ignore all but the heaviest rain. How cold and windy it is might factor in, and whether they are naked and how hungry they are. How close the job was to being finished. Etcetera and so on. I don't want to get too hung up on the details, the autonomy to pause work is the main thing, but complicating when they pause according to the particular dwarf and their current situation would be nice, with the caveat that it remain mostly clear to the player why, of course.
So isn't this just a complicated way of getting rid of bad thoughts for rain? No, there are trade offs. You are trading slowed industry for better morale. The rainier the embark, the bigger the trade-offs. And there will be times when trading lower morale for faster industry makes sense. It gives you options and deepens the strategy and decision making part of the game. Anything that lets dwarves express their individuality is also good. Certain personalities might thumb their noses at your authority and pause during rain despite standing orders forbidding it, enriching the petty crime and punishment side of the game. It does front load rain as a problem at the start of a fortress embark, but that's mostly when (normal) rain should be an issue.
From here I'll get stuck into more of the context and get hung up on some of the details I mentioned earlier.
Rain bad thoughts by job typeNot all working in the rain is equal. To return to my ridiculous example above, even though I might appreciate being able to stop data entry during a rain storm, I'd still be pissed off that it rained on me in the first place during that type of job. And I don't know much about lumberjacks, but I suspect that they don't get to down tools any time a rain shower passes through (apologies to any lumberjacks if that assumption is wrong). So the bad thought and the accompanying mitigation from autonomous work pausing should depend on the job. This is mostly divided by what I consider would be a job you could reasonably expect would need to be done outside and exposed to the elements. I'm likely wrong on some.
No to Minimal bad thoughts when exposed to rain if allowed autonomy:
mining (I'm thinking channeling for moats and such where you can get rained on and mining is also DF's de facto quarrying), wood cutting, hunting, recovering wounded, beekeeping, farming fields, plant gathering, tanning hides (an unpleasant job that benefits from being exposed to the elements due to stench, right? Dunno, they might still appreciate a roof), fishing, hauling, architecture*, all construction*, all military**
Low to Moderate bad thoughts when exposed to rain if allowed autonomy:
everything not mentioned in low or high
High to Extreme bad thoughts when exposed to rain despite autonomy:
surgery, setting bones, suturing, dressing wounds, cooking (maybe? Depending on how pedantic the chef is about their soup being diluted by rain? tentative entry here, maybe better in the average group above), all of the skilled crafting jobs as follow in case I miss some (the idea is along the lines of "You expect me to craft well in these conditions?"), carpentry, crossbowmaking, weaponsmithing, armoring, metalcrafting, gem cutting and setting, leatherworking, wood bone and stonecrafting, glassmaking, weaving and clothesmaking, pottery and glazing, wax working, siege engineering and mechanics (creating mechanisms, not loading cage traps), book keeping and job management, caravan trading, mayor meetings, diplomat meetings
The higher bad thought penalty that comes with no autonomy should also follow the same grouping. So being forced to fish in the rain is still a milder bad thought to being forced to host the human diplomat in the rain. All of the jobs in the high group are the sorts of things that a dwarf might expect to be of low priority before suitable shelter is available. "Why am I sitting in a puddle cutting chrysoberls when I could be putting up a roof, chief?" Or it's a job that would be exceptionally demoralizing in the rain, such as surgery or noble posturing.
*Regarding architecture and construction, I know that in reality people working on houses and the like will stop for rain but in DF it's a chance to address the difficult concept of context. If your dwarves are complaining about the rain, they shouldn't be getting a bad thought from constructing a roof to keep them dry. Because of the infinite scope of construction in DF you wont know if the player is actually making a roof to protect the dwarves from the rain or an irrelevant giant phallus, but because knowing the context of that is basically impossible I think it best to lean toward assuming all construction is in good faith as it pertains to rain thoughts. You could try and make it depend on whether the construction is underground or if it's already been years on the embark, but there will always be edge cases and valid reasons so I think rain bad thoughts for any construction should be in the minimal group.
**Military kind of goes without saying except that I'm doubtful that it should even be part of the rain autonomy orders. It would be hilarious (or not) to have your dwarves routed by drizzle while fighting a goblin siege. The scope for bugs and edge cases is large when it comes to military rain autonomy.
Miasma bad thoughts by job typeWhere as rain thoughts was mostly about whether you were outside or not, and then the job, I think that miasma should be mostly about whether you are passing through or standing in it, and then the job. For example, a cat kills a rat in a brewer's workshop and it soon starts stinking up the place. Dwarves can't yet just kick it to the other side of the room and keep going, and the haulers are all busy, and he doesn't have hauling enabled himself, so his workplace is engulfed in a purple cloud. That should be worse than if he incidentally passes through a miasma cloud to fetch a barrel for the next job no matter how many times he walks through fetching barrels. Both miasmas are encountered while brewing, but one is obviously worse than the other. The difference to working in the office with a dead rat on your desk as opposed to a dead rat by the water cooler. If the permission to avoid miasma is enabled the brewer could wander off to the tavern or his room until the offending creature rots away completely or is hauled to the refuse pile.
No to Minimal bad thoughts when exposed to miasma if allowed autonomy:
butchery, tanning, dyeing, fish cleaning and dissecting, animal handling, sheering (basically any job that is already dealing with blood and guts and/or nasty smells and fumes other than wood and coal smoke)
Low to Moderate bad thoughts when exposed to miasma if allowed autonomy:
most things
High to Extreme bad thoughts when exposed to miasma despite autonomy:
surgery, setting bones, suturing, dressing wounds, cooking (again maybe should be in moderate, but it seems like it would be upsetting having rotting refuse where you're preparing food, despite how common it is in restaurants), caravan trading, mayor meetings, diplomat meetings
Rain bad thought severity should depend much more on circumstances other than the rain itselfThis is mostly informed by the show Alone that first got me thinking about rain in DF. There you had guys who thought they were tough survivalists but after a week or two of incessant rain there were tears and most of them had called it quits. It obviously wasn't just the rain. Fear of starvation was a big part, freezing in the cold and the difficulty involved with starting and maintaining a fire was probably next most important, being completely alone didn't help, fear of bears and cougars and wolves was overblown for a couple of them, you could spot the ones who wouldn't be comfortable going to their own bathroom at home without a gun, but I suppose DF worlds are realistically more dangerous so it applies. Anyway, a constant theme from each of them was how much the rain beats you down when you are in a bad situation. So the suggestion is that rain on it's own should usually be a mostly trivial thing (depending more or less on job and autonomy as described above) unless there are compounding issues. If rain had been the only problem on Alone, none of them would have tapped out. So if a dwarf has his own room, the fort has a great tavern, there's a temple for him to pray at, he has a wife and kids, he has all the booze and food variety he could ask for, he's well dressed, he doesn't have to sleep in miasma etc then I think that even a lot of heavy rain while working outside shouldn't be much of a problem or cause terrible personality changes. Once you start stripping back the benefits mentioned, though, then suddenly even minimal exposure to rain should be a big problem and lead to the problems players are complaining about now. Especially when things that currently aren't properly factored into rain misery, like how cold the weather currently is, are added.
Mayor warning if lack of autonomy is becoming a problemA lot of DF's difficulty comes from not letting people know about bad things happening while they are happening. Sure, a letter might show up informing you that there's a report but that could be any number of frivolous things, and you're likely busy focused on something else. There are many things players might appreciate a pause and zoom for that just don't pause or zoom and that's part of the design ethos. I recently watched Nate's video where he wanted to finish the Basement of Curiosity. The game warned him when his dwarves encountered warm stone but explicitly did not warn him when one of his designations caused magma to start flowing where he didn't expect it to. He only noticed on his own later while scrolling and it was already too late to save the dwarf trapped in a room by advancing lava. That's a deliberate design choice and fair enough. If you're new, it's fun, and if you've been around you're used to it.
But if you want to put in something like this suggestion where you get to hit a toggle and start forcing dwarves to work through unpleasant things like rain and miasma and thus rack up the bad thoughts, I think there should be a mechanism for warning the player that they are reaching a tipping point. I think it should be via the expedition leader/mayor. Lets say you really need to up steel production for some reason. You're in a jungle so wood supply is no problem, but it is raining constantly and your woodcutters are often retreating to the tunnels to keep dry. You can't give them the luxury to stay out of the rain right now so you change the standing order to make them work no matter the rain. You get the wood and use it to make fuel to make the weapons to help fight the Forgotten Beast that is bothering you. All good, only you're having so much fun that you forgot to toggle the order back even though you fully intended to. Now, maybe it's proper DF to say "Haha! Got you, just wait until those axe dwarves flip out and behead their own children to express how dissatisfied they are with their work conditions" but I think in this instance a warning would be better and even a bit more realistic. Workers will generally try to complain about something, especially if it's a new and unusual change that they understood was important but were promised was temporary. So the woodcutters would chop in the rain and grumble a bit, and it would slowly mount as the order stayed put, until eventually, instead of flipping the switch straight to murder, they instead flip the switch to going and having a chat to the mayor. Then you can get a little pop-up window along the lines of "The woodcutters have informed the mayor that they are thoroughly upset at being forced to work in the rain for an extended period. They warn of dire consequences if their demands are not met!" Hopefully in a more sophisticated future the sort of dire consequences are more along the lines of extended labor strikes or something, and less physically lashing out, which should be closer to the end of the list of options than the beginning. But anyway, the warning from the mayor is the important bit and you'll say to yourself "Oh yeah! I meant to do that, what an idiot" and then even better, the message warning you about the future problem could have a little Y/N option within it letting you toggle the rule back without having to go into the orders menu. If you instead decide to keep forcing them to work in the rain for your own reasons you've accepted the risk and will happily abide by the consequences. Perhaps you want to go full Caligula so the mayor's message could also have an option to not only ignore this complaint, but automatically ignore all further labour related complaints. Could be fun if you want a "let them eat cake" roleplay fort. And then these complaints and how they are dealt with can become historical notes in legends if they set off or are part of a noteworthy incident. Which is straying dangerously close to a suggestion that could do with its own thread.
Make degrees of severity for bad thoughts and reason(s) clearer to playersI'll keep this one short, this entire post has already dragged on too much. Basically it would be nice if the severity of the rain/miasma bad thought was clearer to the player when checking a dwarf's thought page if it's to be complicated by autonomy. Something like "He was only slightly put out by rain while working recently because he was allowed to seek shelter from the worst of it" as opposed to "He was furious at being caught in rain while working, this has been compounded by his dissatisfaction with other aspects of his life". Maybe add in something like "He was caught in rain but accepts that a farmer must deal with that from time to time" or "He was caught in rain while hosting a diplomat, as a baron he was deeply humiliated" if the severity by job type stuff is implemented. Oh! Lastly, I just remembered, dwarves should have something like "Fleeing from rain" or "Avoiding miasma at work station" when a player inspects them to avoid confusion.
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Topic: Standing Orders option allowing dwarves to autonomously avoid rain and miasma (Read 981 times)