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[Terrurist]

So I've got a ton of dwarves with rather crummy stone detailing skills, and one dwarf with legendary stone detailing.  I've got them all busy smoothing tons of stone to train, but I want to get some engraving done.  I'd prefer to have only my legendary dwarf do the engraving.  Is there a way to do this without disabling the labor for all the other dwarves until the engraving is done?  I can't believe that's the only way.

Sorry if I'm being incredibly noobish, but I tried searching the wiki and the forums, and I couldn't find an answer (perhaps it is such a simple question that it's assumed I already know how).  I thought maybe my Manager could help me out, but I haven't been able to figure it out.

(While I'm asking about engraving, is it really true that a wall engraving is only viewable from the side it's engraved from?  I've heard conflicting reports.)

Thanks!

[NecroRebel]

So I've got a ton of dwarves with rather crummy stone detailing skills, and one dwarf with legendary stone detailing.  I've got them all busy smoothing tons of stone to train, but I want to get some engraving done.  I'd prefer to have only my legendary dwarf do the engraving.  Is there a way to do this without disabling the labor for all the other dwarves until the engraving is done?  I can't believe that's the only way.

Sorry if I'm being incredibly noobish, but I tried searching the wiki and the forums, and I couldn't find an answer (perhaps it is such a simple question that it's assumed I already know how).  I thought maybe my Manager could help me out, but I haven't been able to figure it out.

There's no simple way to do it, but burrows will help. Set 2 burrows, one that covers all the areas you want smoothed but not the areas you want engraved, and another that covers the areas you want engraved but not the ones you want smoothed. Assign all of your bad engravers to the first burrow, and your good engraver to the second. Dwarves will not normally accept jobs outside of burrows they are assigned to, so that will stop your bad engravers from doing engravings.

(While I'm asking about engraving, is it really true that a wall engraving is only viewable from the side it's engraved from?  I've heard conflicting reports.)

That used to certainly be the case. I don't know if it still is. It's more a matter of "does the engraving contribute value to rooms on both sides of the wall, or just one," which can be a bit tricky to tell now that the economy doesn't work.

[Terrurist]

There's no simple way to do it, but burrows will help. Set 2 burrows, one that covers all the areas you want smoothed but not the areas you want engraved, and another that covers the areas you want engraved but not the ones you want smoothed. Assign all of your bad engravers to the first burrow, and your good engraver to the second. Dwarves will not normally accept jobs outside of burrows they are assigned to, so that will stop your bad engravers from doing engravings.

Great idea, I'll try that.

That used to certainly be the case. I don't know if it still is. It's more a matter of "does the engraving contribute value to rooms on both sides of the wall, or just one," which can be a bit tricky to tell now that the economy doesn't work.

Yeah, I guess room value is what I was wondering about.

Er... the economy doesn't work? *massive ignorance*

[Bouchart]

This is the reason that I use only one dedicated engraver.

[NecroRebel]

Er... the economy doesn't work? *massive ignorance*

The economy (which makes dwarves have to pay for things, rather than just taking them) activates when the Tax Collector arrives. The Tax Collector never arrives. Hence, it is impossible to activate the economy.

This is actually a good thing, because even when it "worked," the economy was basically just borked. Most of your dwarves would get kicked out of their bedrooms because they couldn't afford them, and if you made coins dwarves would slowly split the coin stacks into single coins, which they would haul, one by one, to pay for things, which naturally took ages and just generally cluttered your fort. Basically the only thing that the economy let you do that was actually any good was allow you to see the specific, numerical value of your rooms, which generally isn't important if the economy is off.

[Terrurist]

This is the reason that I use only one dedicated engraver.

Yeah, Detailing is one of my two catch-all jobs for useless immigrants (aka "Sacks of Hammers"), along with farmers.  I figure you can't have too many of either (at my scale, anyway).  Perhaps I should reconsider my treatment of immigrants.

[Inari]

Another reason you might want to reconsider your hordes of engravers is that engraving is a mood-able skill, but not a particularly useful one.  Farming (or threshing, or mega-project-building) will give your migrants something to do whilst preserving their carefully instilled 30xp of weaponsmithing (or whatever).

[Bouchart]

Usually my excess immigrants go into hauling (I never have enough haulers) or anything that doesn't produce a good with quality levels- food/booze production, military, making stone blocks, etc.  Juggling legendary engravers vs. ordinary ones isn't worth it.

It would be nice to see the current engraving labor split into smoothing and detailing.

[plisskin]

Another way to do it would be to do all your smoothing first with the low-skill dwarves and then disable all the crappy dwarfs' labors, leaving just your masterful one to do the whole engraving thing himself while the rest, hopefully, go and make themselves otherwise useful. Burrows is more efficient but time-consuming to set them all up.

[mrbaggins]

That's what I do. New bedroom level? I use Therapist and suddenly have 20+ midgets prettying the place up. Once that's done, they go back to hauling/drinking and I just leave the good ones on to engrave.

[Terrurist]

Usually my excess immigrants go into hauling (I never have enough haulers) or anything that doesn't produce a good with quality levels- food/booze production, military, making stone blocks, etc.  Juggling legendary engravers vs. ordinary ones isn't worth it.

It would be nice to see the current engraving labor split into smoothing and detailing.

Currently I have practically all of my dwarves set to haul (except wood, since I don't want all my dwarves screwing around outside).  I'm seriously reconsidering at this point, and feeling kind of dumb about it.  Thanks to everyone for your advice!

[tolkafox]

I train up 2 legendary engravers (more if skilled ones come in), when they're trained I give my mason brigade the engraving skill and smooth the rest of the fortress. After that I just follow plisskin's advice.

All new immigrants get turned into masons, using {q}building {P}rofiles I set two shops to be used only by my skilled masons and use those shops for furniture, all other shops churn out blocks or other junk.

That or they're given a sword and become goblin fodder.

[Hans Lemurson]

Dwarf Therapist makes this a trivial task.  Just sort all your dwarves by engraving skill, and then disable the job for all but the legendary guy, engrave-away, and then you can re-adjust your labor setting whenever you need to.