Print

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

[Qmarx]

Or you can choose to task the dwarf to make an exceptional item, and he'll try and try until he succeeds given the success rate. Any failures are either complete wastes of resources or produce items of lowest possible quality - so there is a significant cost to gaining skill.

I thought this was supposed to make the game *more* realistic.

"So, you asked me to paint the best portrait ever.  Well, I managed to create one after fifteen years... along with three hundred indecipherable scribbles."

[Sean Mirrsen]

Consider a poet that tries to make a good verse. He tries again and again, and every time he thinks he fails, he tears up (or at least crumples) the paper he's been writing on and throws it into the trash. Same with an artisan tasked to make a great statue - if at any point he realises that what he's doing is not coming out right, he'll either just abandon it halfway or destroy it in a fit of rage.

[Spey]

maybe skill should work something like this:

A normal skilled armoursmith is asked to make some +iron boots+, which are above his level of competence.

• Due to the quality level being a bit above the smiths skill level, each attempt takes a little more time than if you had asked for just -iron boots- (to reflect more effort on the smiths part)
• Also due to the quality level being above the smiths skill, the chance of success is less than 100%, lets say a 40% chance he makes +iron boots+ and a 60% chance he makes -iron boots-
• If we say the smith could make -iron boots- with 100% success rate, then he should always produce at least this level of quality unless asked to produce something lower. "Failure" shouldnt mean he wastes all the materials, he simply fails to improve upon what he already is capable of

now later on, the Armoursmith has gained some experience and now he is skilled at smithing. he is again asked to craft some +iron boots+, which he is much more competent at making, although he hasnt yet mastered them

• His speed at making +iron boots+ is much faster, to reflect the fact that it takes less effort than when his skill was lower, but he would produce -iron boots- faster still
• His skill level is enough to craft +iron boots+ with a 90% success rate, though there is still a lingering 10% chance of only producing -iron boots-
• It could also be possible to have the top 5% chance of success produce some *iron boots* instead

"failure" could also be in degrees:

• You ask a dabbling smith to make a pair of ☼Iron boots☼
• This quality level is obviously far too high, so there would be a 0% chance of success. however "failure" could be broken down into 98% chance of plain iron boots, and 2% chance of producing -iron boots-, both "failures" to complete the task, but results within the means of his skill level
• naturally, the time taken to produce any item with this request should take an age to reflect the massive effort on behalf of the smith combined with his next to zero skill level

essentially, the way it would work, is that skill level would be matched up against the desired quality level and would give you a set of percentages of result. a X% chance of "failure", Y% chance of success, and Z% chance of a "critical success" where a higher level item is produced instead. "failure" should just produce an item within the smiths range of skill.

Obviously, the higher quality level an item, the more skill would be required and the lower the success chance to failure chance ratio. as skill level rises, failure chance diminishes and success chance increases.

[Neonivek]

Get enough resources for a legendary blacksmith in 2 years of goblin raids?

Does everyone other then me get Magma forges? There is no way you can get enough fuel in two years for an Legendary Blacksmith assuming you are also using your wood for other projects... such as ammo, beds, and barrels.

As for Spey, I am against "Chosing skill levels"

Also each quality level below isn't "Less time" because it is unintentional. They basically try their best and often don't get what they wanted.

The facination with mass production is largely an industrial phenomina.

[Spey]

They basically try their best and often don't get what they wanted.

thats essentially what i was after.

you would ask for 5 exceptional items, your crafter puts in the effort to make 5 exceptional items, but maybe due to having a low level of experience, he only makes 1 exceptional and 4 superior items

however if you asked him to make 5 superior items, he could probably breeze through those quickly. you trade more time spent crafting for a chance of better items and earning more experience.

mostly i was just trying to propose an alternative for the idea of people failing to craft things and ending up with a load of unusable junk. IE, a failure to produce a masterwork item, would just result in an item the crafter could normally easily make

to be honest though, the current system isnt broken, so i dont think toady really needs to address anything

[Neonivek]

The current system is only broken so far as the Economy supports it BADLY and that there are no alternatives.

I don't want to look for ways of mass production...

I just want ways that allow me to keep Dwarves from being destitute. Yes I realise that these beds are the envy of royalty but I don't want to train up another dwarf and I don't want to cheapen the game by making my Legendary Crafter suddenly churn out Mugs

This is possibly a GREAT benefit to the whole "Break through" system some people purposed. Where dwarves who get to a certain stage in their training must go to greater lengths to gain even more skill.

Anyhow Spey... Your system is kinda broken on recollection. Other then for moods... it seems like you would go for the highest level everytime.

[Random832]

No, it really isn't. I can get a legendary blacksmith for about 2 years of gobbo ambushes, or about 5 years of trading by choosing items that recover well with melting. That's not so bad, really.

But my point is, _all_ items should 'recover well with melting'. Conservation of matter. People just object to it because then you get to level up skills "for free" (which won't be as much of a problem once magma is balanced)

[Neonivek]

It is kinda difficult to perfectly convert used Iron material back to a perfect amount of Iron.

Though I seriously wonder if the current rate is a bit exagerated. Then again I know nothing of medieval recycling.

[G-Flex]

No, it really isn't. I can get a legendary blacksmith for about 2 years of gobbo ambushes, or about 5 years of trading by choosing items that recover well with melting. That's not so bad, really.

But my point is, _all_ items should 'recover well with melting'. Conservation of matter. People just object to it because then you get to level up skills "for free" (which won't be as much of a problem once magma is balanced)

Aside from the fact that magma's heat in DF never actually dissipates, there's another reason it's unrealistic.

In the real world, if you're smelting ore, you need a reducing agent (carbon). You would never be able to just heat up hematite with magma and extract the iron out of it.

I assume this would also apply, to some degree, to metal recycling, since most metal that's been used and exposed to air will get at least slightly oxidized and therefore would probably make poor metal stock.

[Fieari]

I didn't think economy factors with regards to skill and quality were up on the dev list?  Maybe you should take the discussion to the suggestion forum (where it has already been discussed a number of times before)?

[Martin]

I didn't think economy factors with regards to skill and quality were up on the dev list?

I don't think they are. I think that balancing out skilling requires balancing it with something, and item quality and output are reasonable things to balance it with. It'd either require putting some of the changes off to later, or just setting up the skilling framework with this in mind to finish later. That's all.

[LegacyCWAL]

The reason I'm against making item melting more efficient than it already is is game balance.  Realism is all well and good, but only if it doesn't completely screw up the game.

Right now, melting keeps that part of smelting more or less balanced.  If it were to be made more "realistic" (such as the perfect or near-perfect recovery rates that some people suggest), then something else must be made more "realistic" that compensates.


Also, I would like to be able to tell my craftsdwarves - or at least carpenters and masons - to be able to produce lower-quality items.  Make it much, much faster than a normal order, or give them a chance to create additional items on top of it (the latter representing the worker doing so well that he has time and material left over for an extra...or something like that).  It's a serious bitch to try to outfit low-rent rooms when all your carpenters and masons are legendary.

Fixing the economy would help, but no matter how well it works, there will still be relatively poor dwarves who need a relatively cheap place to sleep.

[Spey]

Anyhow Spey... Your system is kinda broken on recollection. Other then for moods... it seems like you would go for the highest level everytime.

well i was trying to say that if you were to pick a task that was very difficult, your dwarf would spend a lot of time crafting.

so if you were capable of making normal quality items, ordering 10 normal quality items would be quicker than ordering 10 masterwork quality.

the crafter expends more effort (and thus time) trying to make masterwork items.

but anyway, like i said it isnt really broken right now anyway so it doesnt need fixing

[Neonivek]

Production speed is fantastically unimportant. Rarely are you crafting against time.

As for weapons and armor... you are going to go for highest quality everytime.

[umiman]

Production speed is fantastically unimportant. Rarely are you crafting against time.

As for weapons and armor... you are going to go for highest quality everytime.

This is true.

However, frail human patience doesn't really allow for it.