Print

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

[Deimos56]

(Before I get yelled at, I'd like to make a note that the only thread I found related to this one is 2 years old and is a rather different concept.)

Yeah... Anyone else tired of the idea of workshops being in a fixed shape?

I'm thinking that maybe workshops could be built similar to rooms. Perhaps have an option... (R)ooms, perhaps. This could also apply to other rooms, come to think of it. Err... that lets you set them up. Rather than setting them up as zones, I'd imagine they'd be set up like rooms now, where you pick an originating spot and expand it with the +/- keys. At this point, it's really not much of a workshop, though.

Introducing the concept of workbenches, which would be the places where jobs are actually queued, at least for workshops that use them. I'd imagine the dwarves would bring one or two to start themselves up. Presumably, they'd be used as, or as part of, the basic tools for professions like the carpenter, mason, craftsdwarf, and the like. With a knife, or hammer+chisel, a dwarf could then work on whatever the room designation allows. Multiple workbench-type items could be put in one room to allow multiple workers.

More advanced equipment would be required for more complicated jobs, such as a still for distilled booze, as opposed to just fermenting booze in a barrel.

Yes, I know this might make things needlessly complicated. What do you think, though? Please feel free to expand upon it, as I'm almost positive I've missed some sort of important detail.

Statements that this idea is stupid without giving any reason will be ignored as if they aren't there, so don't bother.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Even if its a 2 year old thread it's better to Necro it, and in any case your search should also include checking the Eternal Suggestions system as this idea is their already and ranked #32 (go ahead and give it a bump if you wise), it's linked to this thread that only a few months old

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=26178.0

Also my even earlier thread, in which I list some potential furniture items from which to define workshops that currently get made from any random piece of rock.

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=22288.0

[chucks]

I whole heartedly love this idea, because it would allow you to design the room around furniture and such.  I very much belive that shelves, tables, cabinets, and tool racks should be paramount for all workshops of any variety.  Also, every workshop could benefit from tables and chairs to provide comfort and happy thoughts to your master workers.

still:

• either a barrel, tub, metal still.  some sort of fluid resevoir item to be using for brewing and distilling spirits
• bins and containers for fruit, vegetables, grains, flowers, or any other brewable plant matter
• barrels and casks for storage of finished product

kitchen:

• a tabletop surface for cutting and preparing food
• a fire pit, chimney, stove, oven.  furniture providing a heat source
• bins, shelves, cabinets, larders, etc.  containers for storing ingredients, condiments, prepared and preserved meals
• optional cold storage if you have access to ice or some means of producing ice

butcher shop/kennels

• rope and cages and restraints for restraining animals
• a butchers block for only the butcher shop, obviously
• You get the idea with containers and such by now...

fishery

• barrels or aquariums or some fluid resevoir to hold the raw, live fishes
• a fishcleaning table

carpenter/mason/mechanic/craft/jeweler/bowyer workshops

• Tool rack for the various implements to craft with
• Table to use as a working area

forge/furnace/smelter/kiln

• A heat source.  Wood or coal or magma powered.  Can be a stove, chimney, furnace, etc.
• Bellows.
• barrels for water and oil used to cool and clean the metals
• Anvil for the forge

farming areas and workshops

• fields, obviously
• sheds to storage your dwarven weedwhacker
• tables and chairs and such to process plants in various ways

weavers, dyers, clothiers, and leatherworkers

• looms and spinning wheels for the weavers and clothiers
• buckets and barrels for the dyers
• tables and chairs for the area's worker dwarves to hang out in to sew cloth and leather items together

[Deimos56]

Even if its a 2 year old thread it's better to Necro it, and in any case your search should also include checking the Eternal Suggestions system as this idea is their already and ranked #32 (go ahead and give it a bump if you wise), it's linked to this thread that only a few months old

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=26178.0

Also my even earlier thread, in which I list some potential furniture items from which to define workshops that currently get made from any random piece of rock.

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=22288.0

I... probably used the wrong search terms.  If I'd found one that had related to this, I'd have used it. I'll be sure to do a few searches with different wording next time.

In other news, Chuck's post is the sort I was hoping to see. It's the kind that gets the ball rolling.

[Dwaref]

It'd be like the sims! Wholeheartedly support!
Anything to make current workshops less modular is okay in my book!

Now we only need separate tools, and dwarves fighting with them over who gets to use the legendary workbench.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I... probably used the wrong search terms.  If I'd found one that had related to this, I'd have used it. I'll be sure to do a few searches with different wording next time.

Your right those threads arn't easy to find with the search system (I tried it myself), the problem is "workshop" and "room" are incredibly common words for people to use in posts and the search dosn't seem to prioritize the thread Titles so you get these long posts were someone just happened to write workshop or room 500 times rather then the threads that are actually ABOUT the room-workshop concept.  So don't feel bad you didn't find it, this is one of those rare situations ware searching doesn't actually find the relevant material.  Your only chance was the Eternal Voting suggestions so just remember to do a quick check their in the future.

[Silverionmox]

It'd be like the sims! Wholeheartedly support!
Anything to make current workshops less modular is okay in my book!

It would actually make them more modular, since you can combine different furniture in the same room. But I suppose you mean less prefabricated?


The pre-post search routine is the consolidated dev pages, eternal suggestions, forum. Even if it has been suggested already... Reinventing the wheel isn't useless, or we wouldn't have rubber tires or spokes. You only need a fresh take on it.

[Tenebrais]

I think the best solution is to have as few different pieces of furniture as possible, to keep things simple. Each should really have one unique item (be it a piece of furniture or a tool) to distinguish it as a workshop, and that be all.

So, for instance, generic pieces of furniture could be:
Workbench, stool, tool rack, furnace, barrel, firepit.

Individual items:
Chisel, saw, wrench, spinning wheel, loom, needle, vat, hammer, glassblowing pipe... and so on. You can probably guess what each are for. Some tools would no doubt be used by two or more workshops - the chisel is useful to masons and jewellers, the needle to clothiers and leatherworkers - but you get the idea.

The major problem with this idea, really, is it makes the game even less accessible to newcomers who don't know which combination of items produces which workshop. There'd need to be an accessible guide somewhere.

[Silverionmox]

In the raws, there should be a list of tasks, and the furniture and/or tools needed to perform them, as well as the furniture/equipment that is helpful, but not essential. When you define a room and have declared it a workshop, you should be able to indicate which tasks are to be done at the workshop, and which not. The game should then indicate which furniture you need for that group of tasks (the essentials in red, the helpful stuff in yellow). Useful if you only have a single piece of equipment that needs to be shared between two workshops.
Templates are also handy, and they would group a lot of tasks much like the workshops do at the moment. Then you can define your own ones, eg. if you like to combine the butchery and tanning operations to avoid rotting skin, etc.

(Defining a room should preferably happen from a point on the ground, not a piece of furniture: you don't need to wait for the furniture to be placed then, and can change the type more easily)

[chucks]

To combat the steeper learning curve and workshop tools micromanagement, you could define the minimal set of tools and furniture necessary to create a workshop.  Also, having a bare minimal to tools and furniture would reduce the hell of embarking in a new area.  You should be required to bring a few tables and barrels and tools and whatnot with you, but keeping this limited to the absolute minimum required to start an outpost is of the utmost importance.

• A still would require a brewing container.  Barrel, tub, still, etc.  Maybe a ladel as a tool, but that might be too much.
• A kitchen would some heat source (firepit, stove, oven), and a knife.
• A butcher shop would require atleast one rope or chain to restrain livestock, and a cutting tool (either a knife or a cleaver).
• A fishery would require a barrel or some fluid container to act as a livewell, and a knife.
• A carpenters shop should require a hammer and a saw.
• A masons and a jewelers shop should requiire a hammer and a chisel
• Hard to say for a mechanics shop, but I would saw atleast a screwdriver, hammer, maybe a chisel?
• A bowyer and a craftsdwarf shop should really only require a carving knife.
• A forge requires an anvil as always.  A furnace, smelter, and a forge should all require a heat source and maybe a bellows.
• A farm should really only require a field
• and so forth...

The nice to have items could give bonuses to speed or quality of the tasks performed in the workshop.

[QuakeIV]

Well im going to step in and say i love this idea, because now i can make workshops more manageable structures, whitch is another thing i can enjoy designing.

[Dwaref]

I suppose you mean less prefabricated?

Something like that. But i mean modular! I mean a module like a workshop, where every means is summarised in one solid block, rather than placed around. I like the 'sims' modularity better where you go counter-mixer-oven-counter or something similar, as suggested in ths thread.

[Silverionmox]

I suppose you mean less prefabricated?

Something like that. But i mean modular! I mean a module like a workshop, where every means is summarised in one solid block, rather than placed around. I like the 'sims' modularity better where you go counter-mixer-oven-counter or something similar, as suggested in ths thread.

It's a matter of semantics, but I interprete "modular" as "composed out of modules" rather than "in one piece". We're agreeing anyway.

[Hyndis]

It definitely would be nice, also because you could have more than one dwarf working out of the same meta-workshop.

While you can currently simulate this reasonably well by building 4 or more workshops in a single room, and then ordering items to be produced with the fortress manager, its not quite the same.

[Dakk]

Lovely idea, definitly something to keep tabs on. It'd be so great to design a huge megaforge, with magma moats covered by grates, and a big anvil in the center with magical runes carved on it, only for legendary black/metal/armor/weapon smiths.