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Author Topic: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves  (Read 1507890 times)

mirrizin

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5265 on: September 09, 2013, 07:47:16 pm »

Dear Urist McSpearStupid,

Now, ok, your commander is having his head munched by a giant cave spider, and his steel helm is the only thing keeping him alive. There are two paths you could take to strike the spider. One of them is clogged with webs, the other is perfectly clear.

Why, for the love of Armok, do you try to wade your way through the webs? Why???

You're just lucky that the next soldier to come along took the clear path and killed the spider with a nice clean punch to the back of the head.

Oh, and Urist McCrankypants,

So, you've been complaining incessantly about long patrol duty. But when I take you off duty, you complain about being reduced to a lowly peasant. Enjoy your new nickname.
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BlackFlyme

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5266 on: September 09, 2013, 08:01:23 pm »

To any of you drunken bearded dunderheads,

Why the hell are you CARRYING the wheelbarrow back to the stockpile?  It rolls.  It rolls faster with a ROCK in it.  Put a damn rock in it and ROLL it!

-Overfiend.

Could be worse.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So much worse.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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wierd

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5267 on: September 09, 2013, 08:03:34 pm »

Dearest overseer,

While it may, at first glance anyway, seem that I am being unreasonably "cranky" in reguard to the long patrol duties, ad my recent expulsion from military service, I can assure you that my grievances are perfectly salient, and sensible.

Take for instance, the purpetual "patrol duty" you had previously assigned me to. While standing around for untold amounts of time can be quite liberating in the face of the blinding pace of normal fortress life, being forced to stand at a fixed spot for months on end without even so much as a chair or beer break, is beyond intolerable. For a time, I felt quite sure that you had completely forgotten about me, or perhaps, wished to see me die of hunger or thirst in the hallway.

Then, you have the issue of "complaining about being kicked out of service".  My complaint about the long patrols did not in any capacity signal that I despised military service; on the contrary, it indicated that I would very much like to return to the barracks for sparring and weapons training.

But instead, you have deemed it necessary to expel me from my military career, and to further insult me by branding me with this attrocious nickname. Might I inquire what you will do with me next, my lord? Perhaps a pink dress, or mayhap a kobold costume for the amusement of the children? Endless hours cleaning fish perhaps? Oh, or magma tube channeling?

Peevishly yours,

Urist "McCrankypants"
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lazygun

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5268 on: September 10, 2013, 03:56:05 am »

Dear Urist McAxedorf,

You are lucky I spotted you hanging round the finished goods stockpile, quietly starving to death, refusing to break for food until after you picked up a backpack. The backpack that was SITTING IN A BIN RIGHT NEXT TO YOU!

After I released you from the military, you did finally head to the food stockpiles. Under the circumstances it's understandable that you just picked up the finished meal and gobbled it down. But we have a fully furnished dining room. If you refuse to eat, you have no right to get upset about getting hungry! If you refuse to sit at a table you have no right to complain about a lack of chairs!

Preventing shenannigans like this is why I never make backpacks in my forts. It's just my luck that the scuttled wagon was carrying half a dozen.

Your friendly frustrated Overseer

(I suspect there's a bug in the job cancellation for 'pick up equipment' when the bin containing the item gets hauled to the depot. Looks like we'll have rewired dwarf brains in the next version. Maybe some stupidity will be fixed, replaced by completely new forms of stupidity)
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Lielac

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5269 on: September 10, 2013, 05:31:23 am »

Dear Bratling Mc2031106,

Why that craftdwarf's workshop???

It's the Armok-damned Strand Extractor's, for fuck's sake! You have to walk I don't even know how many times further than if you'd picked the one up top! But noooooooo, you're Speshul, so you need to WALK FOREVER AND TAKE FOREVER AND UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH

Annoyedly,
Overseer of Fernsteels

P.S.: No, you don't get that number removed until you're a useful member of society. Deal with it.

P.P.S.: I hate you.
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Lielac likes adamantine, magnetite, marble, the color olive green, battle axes, cats for their aloofness, dragons for their terrible majesty, women for their beauty, and the Oxford comma for its disambiguating properties. When possible, she prefers to consume pear cider and nectarines. She absolutely detests kobolds.

Larix

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5270 on: September 10, 2013, 05:41:51 am »

Dear Overseer,

I carefully observed my DPS (Dwarven Positioning System) device, and it showed this as the nearest workshop. Some may say the system doesn't take z-levels into account, but those are heretic oldtimers who don't trust Friend Computer and flaunt such outdated concepts as common sense.

(Once i'm done with a major strand extraction job, i generally demolish the workshop, to avoid it being claimed for moods. I agree moods that take months to finish because the claimed shop is in the back end of nowhere are quite annoying.)
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Durmatagno

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5271 on: September 10, 2013, 08:32:48 am »

Dear Urist McNamesTheFort
(I never choose a name for my group or fort)

You chose a name that I find does not show our dwarfyness well enough, I mean, Agelesscuddles? At least you sent The Crystaline Spear group to it, but Agelesscuddles? And not a cat in sight.
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Lielac

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5272 on: September 10, 2013, 08:39:22 am »

Dear Urist McNamesTheFort
(I never choose a name for my group or fort)

You chose a name that I find does not show our dwarfyness well enough, I mean, Agelesscuddles? At least you sent The Crystaline Spear group to it, but Agelesscuddles? And not a cat in sight.

To: The namer of Agelesscuddles
From: The overseer of Lashsun

Drink more booze, ye bloody sap!
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Lielac likes adamantine, magnetite, marble, the color olive green, battle axes, cats for their aloofness, dragons for their terrible majesty, women for their beauty, and the Oxford comma for its disambiguating properties. When possible, she prefers to consume pear cider and nectarines. She absolutely detests kobolds.

WanderingKid

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5273 on: September 10, 2013, 06:45:22 pm »

Edge Throwerbridge, Miner of FurnaceClans...

The distance between you and the dig path is approximately 160 steps round trip.
You first dug one block, then went for a drink.
Then dug one block, then gone to eat.
You then dug one block, then went to sleep.
Finally, you came back, dug one block, AND WENT FOR ANOTHER DRINK...
After all that.  You took a bath.  You have bathed more and used up more soap than ANYONE else in this fort.

Will you FINALLY dig out the 20 long path I asked you to?  PLEASE?

-Overfiend.

You THEN, after repe... dug TWO blocks, then went to drink.

Baffler

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5274 on: September 10, 2013, 08:08:58 pm »

Overfiend,

Ye' don't understand, ser! 160 steps is a long way, near 'af a kilometer in yer terms! An' do ye' know jus' how hard stone is? I cannae make that long a trip 'n cut through't without frequent breaks! To do o'erwise would be crazy, a risk to me health! I try ser, but it ain't easy y'know.

Yers,
Edge Throwerbridge
Miner of FurnaceClans
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Quote from: Helgoland
Even if you found a suitable opening, I doubt it would prove all too satisfying. And it might leave some nasty wounds, depending on the moral high ground's geology.
Location subject to periodic change.
Baffler likes silver, walnut trees, the color green, tanzanite, and dogs for their loyalty. When possible he prefers to consume beef, iced tea, and cornbread. He absolutely detests ticks.

mirrizin

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5275 on: September 10, 2013, 09:02:46 pm »

To the mason brigade of WorkSack:

Now, I would just love it, y'all, if I could just order you to build a wall atop an older wall, and assume you had the sense to start at the end, and fill in accordingly, one at a time.

But no. Instead, if I wish this done efficiently, I must designate one stone, then wait for one of you to lug the rock up, install the wall (hopefully not while standing on it!) and then repeat the process umpteen times.

Is this really necessary? Such tedium!

Yours,
Overseer
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wierd

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5276 on: September 10, 2013, 11:31:21 pm »

Dearest Overseer,

We, the members of the esteemed and ecsoteric order of stone masons, would like to remind you of how we do things.

Firstly, we do not, and have never done things in the order in which you submit them. That is just plain silly. Think about it. If you give me an order, and put it in a tray on my desk, then place another work order on top of it in that tray, which one will be on top? Naturally, the second one will be. The first one will be at the bottom of the stack.

We work from the top of that stack down. Not from the bottom up, because that would be silly. So, the first things you assign to us, will be the last things we do. This is the way it has always been, and is how it will always be.

Secondly, we would like to remind you that being able to actually GET to the job site is important.

As stated above, we take our work orders, in order, from the top of the list, and work down. When many of us are working, we simply take the next job slip in the pile, without disturbing it. Some of us are faster than others, which means the order gets slightly scrambled when many of us are working. This means that if Urist takes the top slip, Ducim takes the second, and Stukos takes the third, but stukos is the fastest, he will have his designated section of wall completed before Ducim or Urist can get there. Where do you suppose Ducim and Urist stand? Should they grow wings and hover next to the wall perhaps?

I ask this question, because like so many overseers, you misunderstand the requirements of performing the work. You are attempting to presume that each dwarf wait for the preceeding dwarf to complete the task they were assigned, before starting the assignment. If we did things that way, there would be no benefit to having many of us working on a wall at the same time. Most of us would be standing around waiting for Urist the slow to finally stop playing with the plumb bob, and actually lay his tier of masonry, so that the next of us could go.

Really, if that is how you want your constructions made, then give the rest of the guild the month off, and assign only a single mason, then submit your job orders appropriately.

Otherwise, if you want there to be an actual reason to have multiple members of our illustrious order building grand monuments for you, you need to ensure that we can work with some degree of asynchrony, which means you must allow for a place for us to stand. A scaffolding, if you will.
We require this scaffolding, to keep from entombing other members of the guild, and to avoid having out of order constructions be a problem, when many of us are at work.

If you insist that there must not be a scaffold, because of your own laziness and incompetence in proper construction technique, then again, give the rest of the guild the month of, and assign only a single mason.

I don't think I need to explain for you the absolute chaos that would ensue if members of the masonry guild started being selective about which of your work orders they wished to complete, and in what order, based solely on their own discresion.  There is a reason why we do things the way we do them. That is, unless you ENJOY being flooded with cancellation notices for floor constructions, when no support is nearby to build from, and other such foolishness.

As the overseer, it is YOUR responsibility to create and submit the work orders, and in order of precidence from least priority, to highest, such that the foundation is built first, then the walls. Etc.

All too often, overseers like yourself make the same foolish mistake that what is most important should be submitted first.  As I have already explained, this is foolishness. Nobody works from the bottom of a stack of paperwork, and again, asking us to re-sort your assignments for you is just asking for trouble. (You know how fond our kindred are of parties and drink, afterall. Just imagine the corruption that would happen if you left it up to others to decide such things! "Unfortunate cancellations" so that they could have extended and extra breaks would surely be the LEAST of the problems such an arrangement would produce!)

We at the guild fully understand that not everyone is cut out to be a fortress overseer, as the logistics of central planning requires for you to manage and anticipate workflow.

We again respectfully remind you of how and why we do things the way we do, that your job as overseer will be fruitful, and with the least complications, and we again respectfully remind you that central planning is YOUR responsibility, and not ours. If we did that as well, there would be little need of an overseer, now wouldn't there? We do things the way we do, because we acknowledge the benefit and necessity of having an overseer. That is why we don't disregard the order in which you have submitted your work orders, regardless of how nonsensical they may seem to us.  While it may seem perfectly sensible for you to request that we be more autonomous, as well learned and loyal members of the fortress, we simply cannot permit that to happen, as the consequences are far too dire. Afterall, what if you had actually submitted the work instruction in the proper order? Would you not be unconsolably irate, should we deviate from them, and build as we saw fit instead?

As the parable goes my lord, "be careful what you wish for, as you just may get it."

In closing, we, the members of the proud and ecsoteric order or stone masons, humbly decline your request to act with independent autonomy, citing the clearly deleterious nature of such an order, and would like to remind you that all of the problems you are suffering as overseer can be far better resolved simply though working with the system, than from working against it.

The illustrious and ecsoteric order of stone masons.

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Berossus

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5277 on: September 11, 2013, 03:40:52 am »

Dear Masons,

the caverns need a good smoothing.
All of them.
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My son, many speak of the honor in war.
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reality.auditor

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5278 on: September 11, 2013, 05:44:51 am »

Dearest Overseer,
(snip)
The illustrious and ecsoteric order of stone masons.
That in-character explanation of game mechanics was... beautiful.
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Are weapons like the least lethal thing in DF?

aiseant

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Re: Note to Urist--In which you express your frustration to your dwarves
« Reply #5279 on: September 11, 2013, 06:38:49 am »

Awesome indeed. You made my day, and teach me something, thanks :D
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http://tenshedkadol.wordpress.com/

As a Urist McFrenchy, please forgive my english

Heck, only the elves would tame a leech. [...] Just for this, I'm starting up lead goblet production. Anyone who tries to sell me a tame leech deserves to die from lead poisoning.
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