However, I'm considering starting up a notion of "knowledge" as opposed to skill...
I'm assuming we will see this filtered out to other professions eventually? Seems like this would be a nice way to ease into apprenticeship and teaching/learning.
Is the distinction between the two something like this below, or do you have something else in mind?
Knowledge: Knowing how to do some action, or how to identify something. (So basically like wisdom/experience. Strictly mental)
Skill: Ability to perform some action (strictly physical)
So you may know how to remove an arrow that has punctured the lung (sufficient knowledge), but lack the dexterity to do so (insufficient skill).
Something like that. I wouldn't say strictly physical for skills. The main goal is to split out things that a creature shouldn't just be able to stumble upon with a little tinkering. It perhaps falls in line with "technology" and would probably be stored at both the individual and civilization level. It should also be able to capture notions like misinformation, so each of the most finely-grained concepts could say, have 32 bits worth of unspecified "facts" and a book could carry both information and misinformation for each bit, if things need to be kept concise. I haven't sorted it out yet, but those are some of the things that need to be captured. The more I think about what I need for the system to model what's needed, the less likely we'll see it for this release I think.
Using terms like "doctor" or "surgeon" bothers me somewhat. I'd use a more archaic term that doesn't have so strong link to modern medicine. Chirurgeon? Barber surgeon?
Or then have "progression" for the titles: healer -> bone-mender -> doctor -> chirurgeon
etymonline.com (which I don't know well, so won't vouch for) says "chirurgeon" is a "failed Renaissance attempt to restore Gk. spelling to the word that had got into Eng. as surgeon; now, thank the gods, archaic", while a few dictionaries say "chirurgeon" was alongside "surgeon" in middle english. I try not to use words with modern origins (let's ignore items for now...), but "surgeon" isn't modern. If a word is still in use, it doesn't bother me. "Doctor" is also an old word, which supposedly gained its medical meaning ~1377 (though this wasn't common until the 1500s) (etymonline again).
You can set all unit names in the raws now, so you can change the words I use (aside from any practioners that aren't linked to an entity, which shouldn't happen here except possibly in adventure mode).
Will there be other ways to make casts if you don't have Gypsum (or trade access to it)? If not, maybe traders could always be able to bring barrels/bags of plaster?
I'm not sure if you'll be able to trade for plaster. You should be able to, but I can't guarantee anything. You'll always be able to make splints (unless you've really hamstrung yourself).
Don't traction braces require knowledge of algebra and Cartesian geometry? Research shows, that in fact, it was developed in World War I.
Isn't that kinda out of period?
On the use of plaster, casts were stiffened with other materials such as starch, wax, resin, or egg in the medieval era. Plaster casts only were invented in the early 1800s, and it took longer for it to be adopted.
Hippocrates had traction. SirHoneyBadger had this link,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scamnum, and my own History of Surgery book has another picture of romans using a similar contraption that Hippocrates invented (with accompanying descriptions of course... the pictures aren't that important). They were pretty good at dealing with overlapping fractures and otherwise setting bones, and it has a very dwarfy feel to it, so the dwarves get to mess with it too.
The 10th century Persians had plaster casts (SHB sent this reference,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muvaffak, but I don't have others offhand). I don't know about the spread or independent discoveries after that. Again, it's in period, and since plaster is derived directly from a common mineral, and from a pretty simple process (unless there's something weird I don't know about it), it's very dwarfy.
If you disagree, you can strip it out as soon as I get the knowledge stuff into the entity raws. Overlapping fractures will probably then require an amputation or just leaving the dwarf alone, but you'll still have splints in place of casts.
What is going to happen with dwarves with horrible spinal wounds? Is there any care in mind for them? Or are they still going to lie around in bed being helpless forever?
Maybe they could do some basic crafts? Boneworking/stonecrafting/woodworking, perhaps? Although I guess that would need to be more long-term, since someone would have to bring them the raw materials.
It'd make sense to let them keep working, but yeah, if they need stuff, it'll have to wait. I couldn't find any evidence of self-propelled wheelchairs (rather than having somebody else help, which was common enough way back when it seems). Anything that fits can be used.
whit different healing rates for tissues, as well as the bodypart growth and such, how flexible will the speed of that be?
Could you for example have: A borgles borgle is a few centimetres long until age 20, at which point it grows into a massive thing 2m in diameter over just a few days? A creature who's skin heals within minutes without scars, but the muscles and organs take normal time to heal? a creature whit slow metabolism that take a thousand years to heal a wound a dwarf would heal in one year? a poison that seems to do nothing at first, but enlarges the spleen to double it's size every year, so after a few decades the entire creature is an immobile tortured ball of spleen tissue?
I think I mentioned somewhere long ago that there's currently only one rate slot available per tissue layer, though you can set the stop/start point and the rate. This goes for healing or growth or whatever else. Healing rates are measured in tenths of seasonal ticks, I think, which have a resolution of something like 1200 per day, so you could heal up a full fracture in 2 hours I guess, at the fastest. That could be amplified easily with an additional variable (so that it heals more than 1% each tick at the fastest rate, leading to perfect healing in 1/1200 of a day if you like), but I don't want to get bogged down this time around. Growth rates are grainier, but they also have the extra variable, so you can have things grow a lot each day, but a day is the finest scale here (speed thing for now, can tweak it later if there's room).
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Topic: Future of the Fortress: List of Remaining Items (Read 3665657 times)