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[Derakon]

In any event, it's not at all clear that masons should have any workshop jobs. Maybe making stone blocks. Maybe.

[Dante]

Exactly. In logic/realism terms, and probably in gameplay terms as well, I'd swing towards the stonecraft job making all furniture and blocks as well.

[darkrider2]

yeah but carpentry builds beds, woodcrafting doesn't... you'd have to change nearly every job related to craftible materials. what would be the point of the blacksmithing job? to make 100+ squares of iron walls?

keep in mind its not just masonry. Why not just add "heavy construction" as a job that will handle the building of all things from the b > C menu?

this is dwarf fortress people... reality is an abstract dream of a crazy elf.

[Derakon]

Simple:

Stonecrafting takes over all Masonry workshop jobs and gets its own workshop ("Stonecrafter's workshop")
Carpentry takes over all Woodcrafting jobs
The old Craftshop is replaced by a Bonecarver's Workshop
Blacksmithing takes over all Metalcrafting jobs

Did I miss anything? This would make a simpler, more consistent job layout, in my opinion.

[HatfieldCW]

I certainly endorse more rigid skill/shop correlations.  I hate seeing my woodcarver and bonecarver wander around trying to decide whose turn it is to use the shop, and having two shops for them often doesn't help, since the task manager dumps them out such that each one has five bone bolts and then five wood ones, instead of each shop queueing up a different skill's task.

[Starver]

...since the task manager dumps them out such that each one has five bone bolts and then five wood ones, instead of each shop queueing up a different skill's task.

The ability to allow/disallow classes of Task Manager jobs per workshop (as per workers, by identity and/or skill level, but instead by material or even exact product) must already be a Suggested Item, it bothers me so much, at times. 

(Alternately, a "let me know this has finished" or "up to 30x repeat" option in direct workshop job designation, to give me the decent features of the Task Manager that I like without all the bother of chasing all over the fortress to work out that the reason the Bonecarver's workshop near the butchers/bone-pile isn't churning out bolts is because it's preceded by rock mugs that should ideally be being churned out by the workshop dedicated to the stonecarver, having been sited in the middle of the current excavation and even with a hand Stone Mug-friendly stockpile nearby as well...  And my metlworking industry is thankfully never as intensive, because the fuss of keeping the Armourer, Weaponsmith, and other metalworkers working only on their own projects in their own dedicated workshops would be a pain to deal with if I ever used the Task Manager to ask for those copper helms/whatever...)

[Pilsu]

Carpentry needs to be renamed Woodworking if it's combined with crafting. I'm not sure if the merge is appropriate however, carving idols with a pocket knife is quite different from making tables. I think material skill based synergy would suffice

[Dante]

Exactly. The word carpentry tends to include things like: planing, latheing, nailing things together, wainwrighting, shipwrighting, etc. Whereas wood carving, as such, is literally carving wood into things. Generally small things.

However, most (all?) things made in a mason's shop are hewn whole from a single lump of stone, just as all the crafts (except swords) made by a stonecrafter are. The difference is only one of scale.

[Warlord255]

Exactly. The word carpentry tends to include things like: planing, latheing, nailing things together, wainwrighting, shipwrighting, etc. Whereas wood carving, as such, is literally carving wood into things. Generally small things.

However, most (all?) things made in a mason's shop are hewn whole from a single lump of stone, just as all the crafts (except swords) made by a stonecrafter are. The difference is only one of scale.

This may be true, but loading too much onto one job is hazardous. I think the main issue here is that Stone and Woodcrafting are all but dead professions. Even if Stonecrafting is tangentially useful for stone disposal and maybe obsidian (and eventually flint) weapons, it's not exactly worth the slot. Woodcrafting is even more useless since the only useful good that comes out of it - bolts - is already surpassed by bone bolts which come in better stacks.

[darkflagrance]

Carpentry needs to be renamed Woodworking if it's combined with crafting. I'm not sure if the merge is appropriate however, carving idols with a pocket knife is quite different from making tables. I think material skill based synergy would suffice

Yes, going off this, I'd be pleased with a Stone/Woodworking job revamp, as much for efficiency and streamlining as for workshopping. It would be two less semi-useless occupations to scroll through during micro.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Alternatively move both wood and bone bolt/arrow production to the Bowyer, move Stone crafts like ring/amulets/Scepters/Idols to the Jewelers shop under the name "Lapidary Crafts", put Leather crafts at the Leather works under the Leather working profession, likewise cloth & silk crafts should go to the Clothier and its workshop.

[HatfieldCW]

That makes sense.  I think the Craftsdwarf's shop in general is a little unintuitive.  What kind of tools do they have in there?

Expanding on the idea, I'd like to see more options for shop management, so that we can adjust not only the sort of dwarf that can use it, but the sort of jobs for which it can be used.  Set up a mason's shop that will only be used for making blocks, instead of the clumsy "nine suspended jobs and blocks on repeat" workaround we have to use now.

That way, we could make specialized shops on the fly, like we can make specialized stockpiles now.  Set up four mason's shops to produce chairs, tables, doors and cabinets concurrently, and you'll be able to avoid the "87 jobs before they start on tables) problem that the task manager causes and the "Holy shit, are they still making buckets?" problem that comes up when you manually set repeated tasks at a workshop.

[Bricks]

Spoiler: Off-topic intro (click to show/hide)

As far as job division goes, I'd like to see (at least at the code level) a lot of smaller divisions.  For example, maybe you end up with a dwarf who is really talented at making swords, but this has only provided him with the basic knowledge to make an axe.  Jobs could be far more abstract and player-defined, although the predefined jobs should still exist for new players and young forts.  There could be a lot of tie-in and overlap for skills - maybe smelting makes you also gain some woodburning skill, or long years as a surgeon makes the transition to butchery a snap.

Following that line of thought, construction could be split into a number of jobs - I'm not sure what you would call them, but there are wood constructions, stone constructions, and metal constructions to consider.  Someone has probably mentioned some others, but those seem to be the major distinctions.  You could have one "construction" job that encompasses all of that, and indeed, gaining skill in one type of construction would have benefits in other types.  In addition, building stone constructions could give masonry skill (or something simpler, like skill in cutting stone blocks); wood constructions could give carpentry (or perhaps even woodcutting) skill; metal walls... could give something too, I'm not a metalworking expert and I know there are a number of possible divisions there.  All of them could provide architecture skill - surely long experience of building should give a dwarf some knowledge of architecture.

Spoiler: Off-topic wrap up (click to show/hide)

It's a complicated system to implement (and one that I'm sure has been suggested before).  Still, it has a strong logic to it, and it would make trade skills in adventure mode much more realistic.  Instead of wiring each skill to one another, there could be a "knowledge" system that translates directly into skill, such that even seeing or reading about a trade could result in skill without ever picking up a tool.  I'm not really sure how that would be implemented.  This could also give more character to the races in the game.

[HatfieldCW]

Bricks, you're hitting on something that's always been very appealing to me, but you did well to spoiler it and flag it as off-topic, because it just might not be within the realm of possibility.  One of the things I love most about DF is the deep skill matrix, how a soldier's ability is derived from his skills at wrestling, shields, armor and whatever weapon he's using, further combined with his base stats, which he can get by training in the barracks, operating a pump, updating stockpile records or telling jokes in the statue garden.  That kind of rich character development, even in the abstract, makes the world so organic and lively that I can't stop loving these little guys.

Further linking certain tasks to certain skills would be neat.  How about if making swords actually gave you insight into their use, and knowing how to fight with a sword informed the manufacture process?  Any time you take your saxophone to an instrument repair guy to fix a dinged-up key, the guy will fix and will then test it by playing the instrument with some measure of skill.  Surely a legendary weaponsmith, in order to attain such expertise, must know which end of the hammer to hold on to.  A builder of serrated blades should have a little mechanical background, so he knows how to make them just right for traps.

If I had my way, I'd even add a new suite of stats, which would come up as "lore" stats.  Goblin Lore is obtained by interacting with goblins or talking to neighbors with a high stat, and it informs any and all operations dealing with goblins, which is mainly murdering their faces.  Elf lore could help kill them, or help trade with them, or help negotiate with them, same as human lore.  Vzrious types of animals would each have a body of knowledge modelled for them, so a hunter who knows a lot about deer and knows a lot about crossbows and knows a lot about dogs will get a considerable boost to certain professions and situations.

THere's a lot here, but I don't think it's even on the dev log, so I'll probably just have to wait for some other game to do it.

[Bricks]

There are a few bloats about knowledge of creatures, trees, and geography.  Not a whole lot to build on.  If adventure mode skills are ever to be more than a side task, some sort of development in that area is necessary.  I think it would add some real personality to individuals, both in fort and adventurer mode.