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[LegoLord]

Did you read the Opening post?  Did you read any of the Replies?  It sounds like you didn't because your not referencing anything but what was in my omnibus reply.  The basic premise of my idea is to divide metalworking skills by metal type rather then by the item type crafted with the exceptions of weapons and armor.  I don't see how that could be missed if you had done your required reading.

Geez, I was just asking.  To answer you're question, though, yes I did read.  I had said I did.  It's entirely possible that you aren't being very clear in you sentence composition; things often come out differently than they sound in your head.  I would have appreciated a polite attempt to have a conversation instead of an arrogant insult at my attention span.

That said, a realistic model of the economy is no simple task.  One does not simply walk into the market.  There is an evil there that does not sleep.  Somewhere on the devlog Toady mentions a mild concern over the sort of disastrous effects that could come about from trying to make a realistic economic model.

[Loyal]

Probably the biggest problem with modeling a realistic economy is that, ultimately, you the player are still setting all production orders, claiming and distributing all goods as you see fit, recruiting and disbanding all military units, and so on. The dwarves would have to be pretty much totally automated, or at least have a system where you, the player, can get 'booted out' for doing a terrible job in their eyes. Like SimCity I suppose.

Dwarf Fortress is an exercise in a utopian (barring all the death, magma, and rampant, depressive alcoholism) Communist state.

[Andeerz]

Yeah, a realistic modeling of the economy will be the absolute most challenging thing for this game to accomplish and will be among the most important features that will set it apart from all other games.  I have faith in Toady (I'm not trying to say you other's don't) in implementing a realistic economy without making the game cease to be a game.   

That said, a realistic model of the economy is no simple task.  One does not simply walk into the market.  There is an evil there that does not sleep.  Somewhere on the devlog Toady mentions a mild concern over the sort of disastrous effects that could come about from trying to make a realistic economic model.

Hmmm... the fear is legitimate, but it must be tried, I feel, and this fear is no excuse for not trying!    A better modeled economy is absolutely key for this game to be an actual game instead of the unfinished sand-box it is now (not to say it isn't fun as-is).  A well modeled economy will allow for meaningful interactions between your fort and the outside DF world, as well as give actual compelling reasons for world events such as wars, founding of cities, mega-beast activities, and for player decisions regarding specialization of a fort's economy and fort design beyond simple survival.

Probably the biggest problem with modeling a realistic economy is that, ultimately, you the player are still setting all production orders, claiming and distributing all goods as you see fit, recruiting and disbanding all military units, and so on. The dwarves would have to be pretty much totally automated, or at least have a system where you, the player, can get 'booted out' for doing a terrible job in their eyes. Like SimCity I suppose.

Dwarf Fortress is an exercise in a utopian (barring all the death, magma, and rampant, depressive alcoholism) Communist state.

I don't think the dwarves would have to be any more automated than they are now.  With their current state of AI (or lack thereof), the place of the player is ensured since they cannot do the things the player can.  Also, I believe the game is not just an exercise in a utopian communist state, but also an exercise in proper economic planning.  The main challenge of the game is setting up as self-sustaining an economy as possible in order to ensure the survival and prosperity of your dwarves.  This will not change with a more realistic economy.  In fact, I think it would make it a more complex and much richer challenge. 

[praguepride]

I think it would be a huge waste of time. Hell, even realistic economies are a pipe dream. A RNG might as well be used to set stock market trends

[Atanamis]

Ok, obviously there are people who think the entire idea of further skill divisions is undesirable. I understand that you have that position, and that you aren't likely to change it. Can you please stop spamming every discussion about how skills could be modeled more realistically now, and allow those discussions to take place? I would suggest that those wishing to discuss this suggestion ignore future trolling from those who feel their own game playing interests are the only valid way. The suggestions forum is FOR discussing ideas that may or may not make it into the game, and there are MANY threads here that delve into things that are never likely to get implemented.

Regarding the specific suggestion, in ancient times it obviously was not necessary for every small village to have 20 metal workers. This strongly suggests that a blacksmith would be able to compete most of the normal tasks needed by such villages. How many truly independent roles were needed to do the kind of things that we see being made in DF? Did blacksmiths normally work weapons as well as iron tools, or were these historically separate roles? I would love to see long term granularity of skills such that I can have a kitchen full of chefs who specialize in different tasks, but I'd first like to understand what roles were historically distinct.

The blacksmith you describe seems similar to the blacksmith we have, with the exception that we would not use Impaler's blacksmith for making things with precious metals. This at least seems very consist with my understanding of what historic metal workers did, and I wouldn't today go to a blacksmith for a golden throne. I see no problems with limiting the scope of metals that a blacksmith can work.

The red smith was something I had to do a little reading about (not much). It seems that in the middle ages In Britain the Anglo-Saxons, who were skilled woodworkers, especially in oak, and also highly skilled blacksmiths, took little account of metals other than gold, silver and iron. During many centuries their basic currency was the silver penny, although a few copper coins were occasionally struck, notably in Mercia during the 8th Century. Inevitably in this period the art of coppersmithing declined, even on the Continent.  The term still sees some use today: Examples of objects made by modern coppersmiths include jewelry, sculptures, plates and cookware, jugs, vases, trays, frames, rose bowls, cigarette boxes, tobacco jars, overmantels, fenders, decorative panels, and challenge shields, tea and coffee pots, awnings, light fixtures, fountains, range hoods, cupolas, and stills. Interestingly, much copper work does not require heat, which could be useful in places without magma or wood. I don't think any fortress would REQUIRE a redsmith, but it would add an interesting new industry if it were added. Copper should DEFINITELY not be handled by blacksmiths in forges though, since it is clearly a nearly completely unrelated skill. We might as well bundle all metalworkers together if we are concerned about ease of play rather than providing interesting play options.

Whitesmiths almost seem to be metalcrafters. They make Whitesmiths make things such as tin or pewter cups, water pitchers, forks, spoons, and candle holders. Metalcrafters should probably be restricted to these soft metals, which they can use to make the same kinds of crafts as other crafters. I don't think we really need a new skill here, or a new profession. It seems like something represented closely enough already.

I'd actually like to see Brightsmiths integrated into the Jeweler's shop, and have it be something that is done entirely without heat (as specified by Impaler). This is CLEARLY not a skill in any direct way related to blacksmiths, and who seek an entirely different goal. Again, there is basically no need for this skill in the operation of a fortress and little overlap of skill. If anything, it could be done by a metalcrafter (rather than a forge using blacksmith), but I'd really rather see jewelery and fine metals handled at the jewelers shop rather than a craft workshop.

[BlckKnght]

Regarding the specific suggestion, in ancient times it obviously was not necessary for every small village to have 20 metal workers. This strongly suggests that a blacksmith would be able to compete most of the normal tasks needed by such villages. How many truly independent roles were needed to do the kind of things that we see being made in DF? Did blacksmiths normally work weapons as well as iron tools, or were these historically separate roles? I would love to see long term granularity of skills such that I can have a kitchen full of chefs who specialize in different tasks, but I'd first like to understand what roles were historically distinct.

One thing I think we should not forget in this discussion is that a single dwarf can be given multiple labors, even if the skill system isn't changed.  So if smithing is split out into two or more skills, it would still be easy to have a single smith doing all of the work, just by enabling all the different smithing labors in his preferences. The only gameplay difference would be that such a generalist smith would gain skill less rapidly than a specialized one.

Probably the biggest problem with modeling a realistic economy is that, ultimately, you the player are still setting all production orders, claiming and distributing all goods as you see fit, recruiting and disbanding all military units, and so on. The dwarves would have to be pretty much totally automated, or at least have a system where you, the player, can get 'booted out' for doing a terrible job in their eyes. Like SimCity I suppose.

Dwarf Fortress is an exercise in a utopian (barring all the death, magma, and rampant, depressive alcoholism) Communist state.

I don't think the dwarves would have to be any more automated than they are now.  With their current state of AI (or lack thereof), the place of the player is ensured since they cannot do the things the player can.  Also, I believe the game is not just an exercise in a utopian communist state, but also an exercise in proper economic planning.  The main challenge of the game is setting up as self-sustaining an economy as possible in order to ensure the survival and prosperity of your dwarves.  This will not change with a more realistic economy.  In fact, I think it would make it a more complex and much richer challenge. 

I think Toady has a lot of plans for increasing the "manager" role that already exists to make complex fabrication tasks easier (soap is the current example).  If you want to forge a steel platemail, the manager would add tasks to smelt the steel from ore if needed.  If you didn't have enough fuel for the smelter or forge it would add a charcoal burning or coke smelting job too.  With high-complexity items, this could go on for several levels of sub-products.  Eventually when you order 5 bars of soap, the manager will deal with getting wood burned to ashes and then turned into lye, and also order animals butchered and their fat rendered into tallow.

Indeed I think there are a lot of opportunities for management type jobs that would be very helpful at making the game run smoothly.  A "foreman" role for example might automate some of the hard bits involved with making large constructions.  He'd assign a stockpile for building materials and then specifiy the order walls should be built in to ensure that nobody got trapped in an inaccessible spot.  For some constructions he'd might even order the construction of scaffolding structures and then order them torn down when the rest of the work was done.

This sort of thinking is why I'm not worried about adding barrel hoops and three different kinds smiths.

[praguepride]

I'm actually not opposed to seperating metal working into some sort of "high heat" "low heat" situation.

That actually would have a logical impact on the game (more so then coopering). I don't know how you woudl divide it, I think the divisions proposed might be a bit over-the-top in the realism war, but something simple (as suggested) being that low heat metalworking would require only a single bit of fuel and should be easy to get up and running.

High heat would require magma or have heavier resource demands (multiple fuel being used?). It shouldn't be limited to magma only, but it should be difficult/expensive without magma.

As for dividing up gold work, perhaps crafting should be broken up. Some items, like gold jewlery could be made at a jewelers and be more integral into the adornment process.

So instead of just randomly getting decorations, you would build a gold ring and cut a diamond, and then be able to combine the two into a diamond ring.

Other things though, like a gold statue, should require a forge & smith due to the size and scale of the work to be described.

[Loyal]

Going off topic for a sec:

Can you please stop spamming

ignore future trolling

now stop spamming the thread.

Please refrain from using words whose meaning escapes you.

Discussion against an idea is still discussing an idea. It wouldn't be a discussion at all if everyone only said "Yes, what a wonderful idea, I agree". Subskills/Interface discussion are related topics that could go in a new thread, but work just as well here, because the splitting of preexisting skills brings up the problems of overspecialization and skill-clutter, and excessive micromanagement and overburdening data respectively.

Furthermore:

The suggestions forum is FOR discussing ideas that may or may not make it into the game, and there are MANY threads here that delve into things that are never likely to get implemented.

The idea of suggestion threads is to bring forth ideas that players might like to see implemented in the game, or for the development of said ideas into something workable that CAN be implemented. This subforum would be barren if people limited threads to subjects whose implementation was a foregone conclusion.

Back on topic:

One thing I think we should not forget in this discussion is that a single dwarf can be given multiple labors, even if the skill system isn't changed.  So if smithing is split out into two or more skills, it would still be easy to have a single smith doing all of the work, just by enabling all the different smithing labors in his preferences. The only gameplay difference would be that such a generalist smith would gain skill less rapidly than a specialized one.

While true, the experience gain on each would have to be scaled up to compensate, simply because it'd be near impossible to have a decent metal-goods trading industry otherwise. Even now it's a pain in the butt to get a metalcrafter above competent without a Mood.

I'd actually like to see Brightsmiths integrated into the Jeweler's shop, and have it be something that is done entirely without heat (as specified by Impaler). This is CLEARLY not a skill in any direct way related to blacksmiths, and who seek an entirely different goal. Again, there is basically no need for this skill in the operation of a fortress and little overlap of skill. If anything, it could be done by a metalcrafter (rather than a forge using blacksmith), but I'd really rather see jewelery and fine metals handled at the jewelers shop rather than a craft workshop.

Well, the jeweler's shops DO need some more excitement, and giving them gold/silver would help with that.

[Andeerz]

I think it would be a huge waste of time. Hell, even realistic economies are a pipe dream. A RNG might as well be used to set stock market trends

How so?

[praguepride]

I think it would be a huge waste of time. Hell, even realistic economies are a pipe dream. A RNG might as well be used to set stock market trends

How so?

Define a "realistic" economy

[NW_Kohaku]

I think it would be a huge waste of time. Hell, even realistic economies are a pipe dream. A RNG might as well be used to set stock market trends

How so?

Define a "realistic" economy

Something on a recent Daily Show interview, discussing the book "Quants", Jon Stewart was talking to the author of the book, who had written that the people who had built the systems that Wall Street now runs on had to take a new "Hyppocratic Oath".  It went something along the lines of: "I did not create the universe, and I cannot force it to follow my models."

People don't know how the economy works in real life.  There are a huge number of incomplete, somewhat accurate models out there that war for dominance, but none of them accurately reflect reality.  "The economy" is nothing less than the sum total of every human interaction in an entire global community of billions of people.  We aren't going to realistically comprehend, much less model that.

Ok, obviously there are people who think the entire idea of further skill divisions is undesirable. I understand that you have that position, and that you aren't likely to change it. Can you please stop spamming every discussion about how skills could be modeled more realistically now, and allow those discussions to take place? I would suggest that those wishing to discuss this suggestion ignore future trolling from those who feel their own game playing interests are the only valid way. The suggestions forum is FOR discussing ideas that may or may not make it into the game, and there are MANY threads here that delve into things that are never likely to get implemented.

So, let me get this straight: We should ignore people who believe that their own play style is the only valid one... while anyone who you percieve to disagree with you on the subject of skills must be "trolling", because they clearly have no valid input of their own, and are simply trying to grief or frustrate others.

"Hello, kettle?  This is pot.  Your dark pigmentation is an affront to all that is good and decent in the world."

edit: whoops forgot to complete the post...

[praguepride]

Funny enough, wikipedia doesn't have a "realistic economy" definition. In fact, all it mainly links to is other games and buzzwords.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=realistic+economy&go=Go

It has a "realistic economy." That's about on par as "leveraging synergistic energies" 

So I went further and looked up "Economy." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy

An economy consists of the realized economic system of a country or other area, the labor, capital and land resources, and the economic agents that socially participate in the production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area.

Dwarf Fort already does this. We produce good, exchange them with traders, have to have distribution vectors (i.e. stockpiles) and there is definite consumption of goods and services (read booze & food ). So what about the dwarf fort economy is "unrealistic?"

So I dug deeper into Economic Systems, market models etc. and the point is that there is no definition of what a "realistic" economic system IS.

[Hyndis]

DF also is not a capitalist system. It is a communist system.

The state controls all but a few resources. The state orders citizens to produce and all goods produced are owned by the state with the exception of just a few items, and those are mostly just the meals the citizens are currently eating.

[Impaler[WrG]]

How did the economy get into this thread?  Economics is the process of exchanging goods and services, this thread is about the skills necessary to create items, their is no relationship between the two in game and a very tenuous one between them in reality.  Please get back on topic.

I'd actually like to see Brightsmiths integrated into the Jeweler's shop, and have it be something that is done entirely without heat (as specified by Impaler). This is CLEARLY not a skill in any direct way related to blacksmiths, and who seek an entirely different goal. Again, there is basically no need for this skill in the operation of a fortress and little overlap of skill. If anything, it could be done by a metalcrafter (rather than a forge using blacksmith), but I'd really rather see jewelery and fine metals handled at the jewelers shop rather than a craft workshop.

If Brightsmith existed it would be arguable that it should absorb the profession know as Gemsetter, after all gemsetting really just consists of forming a piece of gold/silver around a gem.  In modern large scale Jewelry production this is a separate profession/task but I would imagine it was done by gold and silver smiths in antiquity.  Though I imagine their were Bright-smiths that only made items of metal (such as a plain ring) and those that made rings with gems I'm very doubtful that the Jeweled-ring maker would have been dependent on someone else to make the ring, rather they would make the ring AND set the stone not only because the skill was similar but that their wasn't the scale to allow a separation until the modern era.  Can you really imagine having enough Gems in your fort to keep a dwarf occupied with just gem setting.  If on the other hand Gemsetting as a task is made to take longer or more gems are made available for them to work with I could see it being retained mostly for continuity purposes.  Also moving Bright smith into the Jewler skill family would be perfectly reasonable and probably preferable with or without the elimination of GemSetter.

I'm actually not opposed to seperating metal working into some sort of "high heat" "low heat" situation.

That actually would have a logical impact on the game (more so then coopering). I don't know how you woudl divide it, I think the divisions proposed might be a bit over-the-top in the realism war, but something simple (as suggested) being that low heat metalworking would require only a single bit of fuel and should be easy to get up and running.

High heat would require magma or have heavier resource demands (multiple fuel being used?). It shouldn't be limited to magma only, but it should be difficult/expensive without magma.

As for dividing up gold work, perhaps crafting should be broken up. Some items, like gold jewlery could be made at a jewelers and be more integral into the adornment process.

So instead of just randomly getting decorations, you would build a gold ring and cut a diamond, and then be able to combine the two into a diamond ring.

Other things though, like a gold statue, should require a forge & smith due to the size and scale of the work to be described.

I'm not sure if High/Low heat is really enough granularity to make it worthwhile though, at the least a 'No heat' level for gold/silver would be needed in my opinion. 

Also we will need a finer division of fuel for any such system, the current 1 tree = 1 charcoal = 1 forged item (not counting smelting) is more then should be needed even for the high heat metals, the low heat metals should melt with a mere campfire, only once their a smaller units of fuel would I be ok with doing something like a using multiple units for a higher temperature forge.

I'm still not seeing a good reason to divide up any crafted object by its size.  Unless your trying to describe the process of casting metal which is admittedly different from working the metal when its solid, I'm not quite sure ware I sit on casting as the game doesn't even allow it (yet?).  In any case don't see size as a legitimate division because a large item is usually assembled from smaller pieces and even if its not the same skill is going to be used in creating it.  In other words SIZE DOESN'T MATTER.

[praguepride]

Well, if gold & silver crafting is absorbed into jewlery, then you wouldn't need heat for it.

Obviously silver weapons and coins would still need to be forged, but gold/silver crafting would take place at the jewelery so there already is a "no heat" option.