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[Tarrasque]

I am not sure if this has come up before and I looked over the currently developments quickly and did not notice anything of the like. Thus, I am wondering it if is possible for the smithing to be split into Weapon Smithing, Armor Smithing, and maybe General Smithing. Since the skills are already split that way, it would be nice to not have to micromanage things to make sure my legendary armorsmith is the one making all the armor or my metalsmith is only making metal crafts. With them split on the job list it would probrably greatly cut down on a lot of micromanagement since you can just cue up what jobs the dwarves do on their lists and then use the Manager to make armor, weapons, and crafts.

I think this could also be applied to other professions as well that are weird like that. What does everyone think?

[Rooster]

like craftsworking? yeah i like that.
for now making crafts is a task for one dwarf that i have to lock up so that i will get =crafts= but no -crafts- its a time eater to lock a dwarf ^^'

[Merlon]

It's not quite what you ask for, but this works in the current version:

Once you get the manager you can simplify things alot if you set the workshop profile to accept workers of for instance "competent" and better. Then the workshop will automatically choose your dedicated smiths of the required type to make quality items.

[mickel]

I wouldn't mind seeing it split up either. You could go further still, and make every metal a separate skill, as it is to a certain degree in real life. Smithing may be smithing, but smithing copper and smithing iron for example are very different - as it took me several hours of ruined work to discover.

[Tamren]

Well there is a pretty simple solution. Add an option to the manager that allows work orders to be given to a specific set of dwarves. If those dwarves are assigned personal forges. Manager work orders would ONLY be given to those forges. The others would simply sit idle.

Splitting the skills up by metal would not be a good idea as it would simply overcomplicate the system. On the skill screen you could have coloured dots (*) beside each skill. So weaponsmithing with grey and light grey dots beside it would mean that this smith is good at smithing weapons and is familiar with iron and steel.

If you wanted the smith to learn a new metal he would take a bar of it and start crafting with it. Normally this would only take 1 or 2 bars for the smith to get familiar with the metal enough to use it. Later on as he gets better and better with one metal he will gain more dots of that metal beside his skill, up to 5.

Sound good? Iron and steel can probably be combined in that regard because they are not that different from each other when comparing say.. copper to platinum or silver to brass.

[ September 01, 2007: Message edited by: Tamren ]

[mickel]

But then you'd have to keep track of what dwarves are good at what. If you want to go that path, it's better to go with my suggestion with the ability to select desired quality with the manager.

That way the manager would select the dwarves best fit for doing work in that quality range.

[Tarrasque]

quote:Originally posted by mickel:
<STRONG>But then you'd have to keep track of what dwarves are good at what. If you want to go that path, it's better to go with my suggestion with the ability to select desired quality with the manager.

That way the manager would select the dwarves best fit for doing work in that quality range.</STRONG>

That still does not solve the problem of getting the smiths up to the level of competancy or what-not. I would like to be able to select one dwarf for armor, one for weapon, and one for crafts. Then after I have done that(which does not take too long even with six new menu options) I would not have to worry about it EVER again, unless I get new dwarves that are metalsmiths, which, I can turn off if I want. I do not see how that is overcomplicating the system to have a few more specific options for smithing and crafting. IE Bonecrafting, Stonecrafting, woodcrafting.

Those few options would add a great deal of flexability for your dwarves that do smithing\crafting and a lot more specilization. Means you can have workshops working on different things from different dwarves without actually have to lock the damn dwarves in the workshop to get them to train up the specific skill you want them to and be better at it. You will always get those nice items instead of having random spurts of nice and crappy items.

I really do not see a down-side. For learning curve, I think it will actually be less of one. Since the skills of the differing crafts would be actually on the job-list and even new people can sort of get what a Bone Crafting skill is.

[Felix the Cat]

I think what he's asking for is for "armor smithing", "weapon smithing", etc to be split up in the Pref->Labor screen.

Makes sense to me.

[Tarrasque]

Exactly Felix.

[Tarrasque]

Anyone else agree or disagree or have anything to add to this one?

[mickel]

Yea, I would like to see that split too. After all they are separate skills, and if you have 20 craftsmen, it could be nice to let them specialise.

[Tamren]

All good. However there is one thing that should be added.

Being a legendary armoursmith should give a boost to your weaponsmithing skills. Why? Well if you know all strengths of armour and how to apply them, you also know the weaknesses.

*edit: And of course it works the other way too. This does not mean you have to train all of you your weaponsmiths to be legendary armoursmiths to make better weapons. Just having a legendary armoursmith at your fortress would slightly increase the quality of the work produced. Word gets around you know?

[ September 03, 2007: Message edited by: Tamren ]

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by Tamren:
<STRONG>All good. However there is one thing that should be added.

Being a legendary armoursmith should give a boost to your weaponsmithing skills. Why? Well if you know all strengths of armour and how to apply them, you also know the weaknesses.

*edit: And of course it works the other way too. This does not mean you have to train all of you your weaponsmiths to be legendary armoursmiths to make better weapons. Just having a legendary armoursmith at your fortress would slightly increase the quality of the work produced. Word gets around you know?

[ September 03, 2007: Message edited by: Tamren ]</STRONG>

But knowing the weaknesses of armor doesn't automatically mean you know how to smith a weapon that takes advantage of them. I see that applying if you're already a very good weaponsmith too, and with experience of combat as well, because you'd have to know what it's like to actually swing those weapons, and have them swung against you.

[Tamren]

Well true, the idea is to have some sort of "idea swapping" mechanics.

Say a hammer dwarf got kicked in the nuts and his armour didnt help. So he would go to the armoursmith and tell him to add a cup. Later on he gets sacked again but it doesnt hurt at all.

This small improvement would then be added to all future armours. ts like that because until you test your skills or your armour in REAL combat, everything you have learned up to that point is nothing but theory.

The chainmail i make at home is decorative but still has some value as armour. Problem is to test it i have to wear it and get people with real swords to attack me. And i think ill pass  :p, but you get the idea.

[Tarrasque]

I was looking through the recent developements and it looks like Toady did it. 09/05/2007: Made liaison come earlier, made liaison make more robust trade agreements, allowed more item types to be traded, broke up professions to correspond with skills, added new unit types for most job skills and some skill groups, allowed customization of creature personality facet medians and extremes