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[shmelse]

I'm wondering what others do to make moods work to their advantage. 

For instance, I forbid materials other than the ones I want used.  However, I read someone saying that they had a room of workshops set up with good materials, usually locked, but when a mood occurred, they'd lock all other workshops and force the dwarves towards the special mood room.  I thought that was pretty great.  Anyone else have another method of controlling what your dwarves use for their moods?

I've started making copper bolts with my dwarves with no moodable skills, so that I'll get a weaponsmithing mood rather than a stupid craft.  Does anyone else do this, level some skill slightly to promote moods in that area?  Anyone know how high a level will respond to moods?  I've been training the dwarves up to novice, but is that necessary?  Do they just need, say, 50 xp in dabbling to trigger the mood in that area? 

I've also been wondering about letting dwarves with crappy moods die.  I had a child get a mood and only request wood and 1 metal bar at a crafting workshop; no surprise that the artifact sucked.  But now it's forever on my artifact list.  Do you ever let dwarves go insane if they're making a bone  or wood craft?  Or are you happy for every mood, no matter what it is?

Wondering what others do in this area to make the best of their moods and what I might not have thought of yet.  =)

[Urist Imiknorris]

Any xp in a skill will prevent useless craft moods.

I give my dwarves [NATURAL_SKILL:FORGE_ARMOR:2] in the raws - it makes all of them (at least) adequate armorsmiths. I also removed skill rust.

I am happy for bone crafts - legendary bone carvers tear through bone supplies, and I have way too many bones.

[OrbinDules]

I'm usually content to live and let die live with the strange moods. However, since the first two artifacts of my newest fort have been a larch toy hammer, and a dolomite mug, I think that those two artifacts and their creators are going to have a date with the 200 z level fall to the magma sea real soon. I always need to make a lesson for the others.

[Urist Imiknorris]

If the mug was from a fey or secretive mood, look on the bright side. Legendary stone crafter.

If it was a possession, yeah, he has an appointment with the depths.

[ext0l]

Stonecrafts suck.
Bone carving is pretty useful though because you can make bone bolts

[billybobfred]

I just let them do what they want. With the display case mod, any artifact is potentially useful, if only to please a demanding noble I don't want to kill.

[slothen]

instead of forbidding and locking doors, you can use burrows to easily pick exactly which materials you want used.  A dwarf will only pull material that is in his assigned burrow.  If you don't add the workshop to the burrow, he will grab an infinite number of primary materials.  If you later extend the burrow to the workshop, he'll go on as normal, but the result is a quantum artifact.

I only made a few quantum artifacts, and only then for certain moods I really like.  The result is that stonecrafting moods always make raw adamantine stuff, weapon and armor moods net me adamantine armor and weapons, and I can generally force any mood i want to use the most exotic leather, valuable pieces of cloth, and highest quality gems.  I can also force them to use native platinum or raw adamantine blocks.  After about 30 moods though, I stopped bothering to do it for most crafting moods.

[Dorf3000]

I don't go as far as training novices for skills or setting up special stockpiles or burrows, but I do check what the guy is hauling back to the workshop and forbid it if its something worthless like chert or a cheap gem or undyed cloth.  Sometimes I'll d-b-f a patch of cheap rocks if they happen to be under/near to the workshop and he's bringing them back all the time.
Bowyers never get to complete their moods as I never build the workshop for them.  Very occasionally if a peasant migrant comes and immediately starts a craft mood (especially a possession) I'll forbid their workshop and let them go insane, but usually I let them live.
One thing you have to be careful with metal-working moods is if the dwarf has a metal preference, then they'll often demand to make the item with only that particular metal.  So don't let peasants who like tin or zinc etc. train to be weaponsmiths.

[Shambling Zombie]

I generally just let my dwarfs make whatever they want, just to stop from having to risk someone throwing a tantrum from him dying or smashing the place up.

The cost of that is my last artifact, a horse-bone animal trap with -zero- features. The description stops right after "all craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality."

[Jessoftherocks]

I usually make a nine by nine room for any of my workshops, and within that 9x9 i make a 3x3 specifically for the workshop. the rest of the space is for stockpiles. usually only one room to the workshop,and immediately get a doors put on, whenever a dwarf moods i let him claim his workshop and locck him in the workshop with the door. than i set up a dump zone using(i) garbage dump active, outside his door. go to the stocks menu and dumb the specific iteams i want dump for his construction. make sure you don't have other dump zones active!!! once the goods are in place i lock the door to the 9x9 and unlock his door to the workshop. also claim the items i had dumped and then let him or her loose, they will than grab just those items and BEgin mYsTerioUs Construction!!!

[Namfuak]

The only time I make quantum artifacts are when it is a mason who takes a shop.  It's a really nice way to get rid of all that extra stone you have.  Other than that, I just let them do their thing.  My forts always have insane amounts of wealth anyway, so there isn't any reason to make sure that any one particular artifact is really valuable.

[Artanis00]

I generally just let my dwarfs make whatever they want, just to stop from having to risk someone throwing a tantrum from him dying or smashing the place up.

The cost of that is my last artifact, a horse-bone animal trap with -zero- features. The description stops right after "all craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality."

Actually a bug. 0002806: Bone Artifacts Missing Decorations and Materials

[brucemo]

I view the main result of a mood as the legendary skill rather than the artifact.  A nice weapon is cool, but being able to build great bolts and axes for the rest of the game, without having to burn a lot of mats to get there, is very cool.

This last game I looked at each migrant and if they had no moodable skills I had them go make a piece of armor.  Once I got a legendary armorsmith, I started having them do other things, as I needed.

It's nice to have at least one of everything except a tanner I guess.

[Girlinhat]

I got an artifact mechanism, of all things.  As it turns out, this was amazing, sine I built it into a lever in my dining room, which elevated my dining hall to Legendary status and gives all my guys "Urist ate in a legendary dining hall recently" and also means that there's always someone to pull my drawbridge lever!

I do similar with artifact weapons, build them into a weapon trap, it elevates room value to insta-legendary.

[FrisianDude]

I am happy for bone crafts - legendary bone carvers tear through bone supplies, and I have way too many bones.

Can be a bit of a pain in the case of masterful bone bolts, though.