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[G-Flex]

Before you look at this, allow me to emphasize that
- You can change the font.
- This is still glitchy. The real thing might look better in many ways.
- If you don't like it at all, you can turn it off and get the old behaviour.

That said, a sneak peek:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wow

You may not be able to tell, but for once I'm not being sarcastic.

The dwarf icon (and animal "A") are presumably being pulled from the creature/tileset font and not the TTF, right? I noticed that the "A" looks kind of funny and that there's antialiasing applied to them both, which makes them look rather weird to me; will that be optional? The anti-aliasing, I mean, of whatever sort is being applied there. The tileset font(s) tend to be sort of pixel-arty, so (in my opinion) they're better off just being sharp.

[tfaal]

Well, if we are going to have, say, poisons we apply to weapons, we need to have a way to tell our soldiers when it's appropriate to use them or not.  Same with drinking a strength potion, what enemies are worth using it on?  Having an alert status you can trigger fairly easily that says "big enemy coming, use all your expendables" would be a relatively quick, painless way to make all your soldiers start poisoning their blades and downing elixers of maddened boars.

Also, if we are going to have alchemical concoctions that are difficult to make, and not just candy dwarves can pop whenever the way that they currently go through alcohol, we need to have ways of restricting when they use an item.  Maybe some alchemical drugs are just coffee, but many should be fairly costly to create. 

Further, if dwarves "just know how to use them", that means that the burden of when a dwarf uses an item needs to have a specific set of lines for it hardcoded, with raws that declare what set of lines to use - this can dramatically reduce how much ability modders have with the raws if alchemy can only be used in a specific set of pre-defined conditions for a specific set of pre-defined effects.

Wouldn't it be simpler to have the ability to just say "use this specific item/an item from this stockpile" to an individual or squad? I don't see how the alert status is much of a time saver here, since it's a concern that varies a lot from one encounter to the next. In general, I prefer to have the ability to give specific commands to my dwarves. I'm all for setting up schedules -- especially in the case of workshops -- but making them the only way of managing your dwarves is rather cumbersome, especially for infrequent or one-time requests.

[Mel_Vixen]

As for AI and potions, having a dwarf magically know what effect it has and what he needs should shortcut it a bit. Save for impractical superspecific adventurer type magics, which are hard to make AI use in any context, simple status effects and their cures should be possible to enable.
Not advocating a strict binary poisons and anti-potions system, but rather a syndrome/statuseffect decision mechanic.

e.g. dwarf is thirsty: looks for potion that reduces thirst (eg water, booze, milk, potions of slackening)
dwarf is tired: search for coffee if he is very driven, dwarf is in pain: search morphine or tincture of willow etc. that reduces pain.

Character traits should obviously have some effect on decision making: Urist does not trust alchemy.

Well for thirst and hunger you could use values on the drinks which one satisfies the thirst the best. Mix that a bit with likes and dislikes and you get a good drinking system.

For Potions - especially the more complicated ones - you need to go a bit further. I would assign "values" to each effect so you can make a pro/contra table. Lets take the happiness juice that gives you blisters and makes you fly. You could say happyness is a pro of 15 flying a pro of 10 and itching blisters a contra of 15. So you get a pro of 25 to a contra 15. Now you can introduce Situation modifiers say being in a tunnel where flying is useless or being in a fight where the itching would lower your concentration etc (not to mention that the act of drinking takes time). In such a case you change the pro/contra ratio by saying that say the contra gets doubled thus you would get something like 25 to 30 which would indicate that the dwarf does not use the potion.

[NW_Kohaku]

Wouldn't it be simpler to have the ability to just say "use this specific item/an item from this stockpile" to an individual or squad?  I don't see how the alert status is much of a time saver here, since it's a concern that varies a lot from one encounter to the next. In general, I prefer to have the ability to give specific commands to my dwarves. I'm all for setting up schedules -- especially in the case of workshops -- but making them the only way of managing your dwarves is rather cumbersome, especially for infrequent or one-time requests.

Well, I'm under the impression that it's part of Toady's game design philosophy that we can't specifically give a "Hey, you! Do ____ right now!" order.  The fact that we have to manually disable every other labor, and functionally wrestle with a dwarf's bodily needs to get them to start trading or meeting with the liason is part of why we have Job Priorities so high on the ESV in the first place.  (Besides, direct orders to find and use certain objects in certain ways would require an entire new interface/menu on top of the ones that would be required already...)

The best way to prevent this would be to either make and use a general priority script that would not involve "single use" items, which would probably be fairly unusual, anyway.  DF is the sort of game that generally relies upon mass production, (even if DF in particular likes to be specific and have named legedary weapons,) so something like poisons that we want our dwarves to put on their blades shouldn't be something so uncommon that putting it in an alert, which doesn't take very long to toggle, should be perfectly suitable. 

Alternately, if we have that inport/export to a .txt file function, we could just make a new list of priorities where the only priority is to use that one item once, save your old priority list, load the single-use priority list, let it run once, then reload the previous priority list.  The latter may not be terribly graceful, but it's not much worse a workaround than most of the others we've grown used to.  (Such as the "disable all other labors" thing...) Especially if it's something that you would almost never do, something a little awkward like this shouldn't be too terrible.

For something like making an unhappy dwarf take some Happy Juice, you might just make it a part of the general or default priorities that you give your dwarves.  I mean, if it stops a tantrum, and you have enough to drug up a handful of problematic dwarves, then why not apply it to everyone, and just let it run as a passive check?

[Areyar]

On most items i agree with kotaku.
Especially that the inbibing system be dwarfdriven, not manual. That would be very jarring.
That potions have a mixture of effects and those a value was a given, as Toady himself used it as an example.

Except for assignments to squads, which can be as specific or general as one likes.
Like the equipment settings for squads (and a potion taken before battle or whenever, by a squad would be equipment.), equipment can be specified on general properties like material or as a specific item.
Though potions would probably be more applicable in the supplies page... also their use/application settings/conditions. (which would require a list of situations a dwarf can recognise.) Seen enemy+attacking, severely wounded, ordered to move, etc

...
Also, I got the feeling potions are going to be one use items, but created in batches like bolts. Not like a barrel full that dorfs can take a flask full of. (Like Asterix's magic powerpotion)

[DalGren]

Like Asterix's magic powerpotion

That small dwarf and his obese companion are sending all Roma....err, goblin soldiers flying seven z-levels high!

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, what we really need is a sane way of forbidding drugs when we don't want most dwarves to use them, where unforbidding them doesn't just result in a flood of dwarves all trying to take the same pills. 

Aside from rolling it in with the priorities list and expanding alert status (possibly, just making alert status some sort of easy-toggle set of job priorities list), which I think should be fairly decent, as it means that, while it may be a little trouble to give a "just this once" order, it would have the benefit of streamlining the interface.  Being as a glut of overlapping interfaces is one of those problems DF has, trying to keep the interface streamlined when adding new things should help.

The other option, if you really must add in a new menu, would be, perhaps, a "Pharmacy" menu, where Dr McDoctor could perscribe potions and pills and tinctures, along with an order for when to use them.  (This would potentially make the dwarf put in charge of the pharmacy the equivalent of an arsenal dwarf, as well.)  That way, "when depressed, take two Happy Juice, and call me in the morning" could be a standing order.  Something like "poison your blades" or "drink a Maddened Boar" would still require alert status, though. 

This latter, however, would have the negative effect of not streamlining how you see what standing orders are in effect over your individual dwarves - you would need to look through multiple menus (Standing Orders, Job Priorities, Burrows, Military Screen, and Pharmacy Menu) to see every order/list of orders you've given to a dwarf.  There's an advantage to making just one screen, even if it's a clunky screen to navigate because of it, have all the information on a dwarf that you need. 

It's why Dwarf Therapist is of such benefit - it reformats the data you need to play the game to be easier to read.

[zwei]

What about just leaving this to dwarves?

Beyond assigning items for tactical use (along with food/water in military screen), I percieve little need for overall control scheme: Military dwarves can very well decide whether to drink strength potion on their own, maybe a bit influenced by squad leader. Doctor will prescrible substances just like he schedulles surgical stuff and individual dwarves can just make their own decidions that are influenced by their personality if they want to get high or creativity boost.

Player input should be 'fun' one: set up production and produce stuff that is at dwarven disposal.

Assigning your engraver some muschroom extract so that you get better engravings sounds ... sinister. And wrong. Hell, there propalby should not be any "non-combat, non-medical" substances anyway.

[NW_Kohaku]

What about just leaving this to dwarves?

Beyond assigning items for tactical use (along with food/water in military screen), I percieve little need for overall control scheme: Military dwarves can very well decide whether to drink strength potion on their own, maybe a bit influenced by squad leader.

Well, consider what happens with, for example, bauxite in 40d, where players made elaborate airlock systems because that was the only way to ensure that ONLY the workshops you wanted to have access to bauxite would have access to bauxite.

Again, I think we should have some kind of sane ability to determine who does or doesn't get some kinds of medication, rather than just leaving them out there like candy for anyone to start downing willy-nilly.

ESPECIALLY if we have some crazy set of positive and negative effects, where you can't trust a dwarf won't chug a gallon of fromaldahyde because it has enough minor positive effects to make dwarves think it's a good idea to drink something potentially lethal, if we're using a system similar to what Heph's talking about.

[zwei]

What about just leaving this to dwarves?

Beyond assigning items for tactical use (along with food/water in military screen), I percieve little need for overall control scheme: Military dwarves can very well decide whether to drink strength potion on their own, maybe a bit influenced by squad leader.

Well, consider what happens with, for example, bauxite in 40d, where players made elaborate airlock systems because that was the only way to ensure that ONLY the workshops you wanted to have access to bauxite would have access to bauxite.

Again, I think we should have some kind of sane ability to determine who does or doesn't get some kinds of medication, rather than just leaving them out there like candy for anyone to start downing willy-nilly.

ESPECIALLY if we have some crazy set of positive and negative effects, where you can't trust a dwarf won't chug a gallon of fromaldahyde because it has enough minor positive effects to make dwarves think it's a good idea to drink something potentially lethal, if we're using a system similar to what Heph's talking about.

That assumes effects are very important (like bauxite being irreplaceable magma safe material in d40) and designed so that they need player oversight.

That does not necesarily have to be the case and they can as well be more of background tidbit with which you interact only when queuing them to be produced and setting up prodution chain and that is under control-freak radar.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, what's wrong with both? 

You could have a toggle that makes a "coffee" drug open to whoever wants some, and having powerful drugs that have potentially lethal side-effects under strict control over when they are used.

You only need to restrict access to the stuff that you, personally, feel are important enough to reglate.  If you just don't care, you can mass-forbid or leave totally unregulated whatever you want, while letting the control freaks micromanage to the n-th degree.

(To do otherwise is actually to make the assumption - the assumption that NO potion will be important or costly or valuable to a player that they would want to control under what conditions they get used.  That's a rather limiting assumption to force upon people who want to mess with alchemical effects.)

[Shadowfury333]

(To do otherwise is actually to make the assumption - the assumption that NO potion will be important or costly or valuable to a player that they would want to control under what conditions they get used.  That's a rather limiting assumption to force upon people who want to mess with alchemical effects.)

Agreed. That would be a rather un-DF-like state of affairs, to not be able to experiment with alchemy. I mean, if I find a way to make a potion that gives a dwarf super speed, with the side effect that they violently explode killing everything nearby after 2 days, I want that to be well-controlled.

[James.Denholm]

And, of course, being able to back up the save and turn off that control is something the player should do... Even if only to witness the hilarity of dwarves paint themselves across the dining room.

That said, being able to have strict control would be handy for those who want to weed out specific types of dwarves, especially if the dwarves being weeded out aren't aware of dangerous side-effects until obvious correlations start to emerge, like various real-life undertested medicines. Don't like your booky-type nobles? Give them study-drug things, sit back, and wait for their eyeballs to melt in a year's time. Worried about un-dwarfy dwarves? Create a product that is known to remove beards. Wait for dwarves who don't want beards to use the product. Watch them go mad and rip apart their faces with their bare hands. The trick is just in distributing the medicines or what-not before the dwarves start asking questions.

Of course, the question is if we'll be able to spike our own water supplies with potions and things. I can definitely see myself spending years in a fort perfecting a potion that renders dwarves infertile, and then tossing barrels and barrels into the poorer community's water reservoir.

Absolute control through alchemy, people. This is the end goal here.

[Dae]

I mean, if I find a way to make a potion that gives a dwarf super speed, with the side effect that they violently explode killing everything nearby after 2 days, I want that to be well-controlled.

Agreed. We have to make sure every dwarf gets some. I would order it poured down the water tank.

[NW_Kohaku]

I mean, if I find a way to make a potion that gives a dwarf super speed, with the side effect that they violently explode killing everything nearby after 2 days, I want that to be well-controlled.

Agreed. We have to make sure every dwarf gets some. I would order it poured down the water tank.

Or dumped out into the open countryside if we could aerosolize the stuff.  Having exploding hoary marmots and rhesus macaques would be a fun advertising quirk for the fortress.