Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Stove]

Now, if you continued to experiment with making bows, without any instruction or source of knowledge on making bows, would you eventually succeed at making bows equal in quality to the best bows of the middle ages? Unlikely.

If you had as many man-hours as they cumulatively had, surely you could.
Problem is, you'll die of old age first.

Why build the system around it, then?

What if:
1) Learning by doing is 10x slower than currently.
2) Teaching directly applies to skill, but also adds a tough form of rust ("inexperience") which balances off the skill gain.
3) Inexperience wears off much slower than rust, but is 10x faster than learning independently.
(Note: multiplier is arbitrary - pick a number that sounds good)

If you seal yourself off from the outside world, you could still get all the skills to max, but you'd have to pass down your knowledge from generation to generation, each one getting bit higher skill than their teachers before retiring to the classroom themselves.

This doesn't solve anything that isn't already solved by the idea as I have described it. If we're going for an ultra-realistic system, then knowledge should be tracked separately from skill. This however would complicate things quite a lot. The game would have to keep track not just of a character's skill level, but also lots of little bits of knowledge.

We are not reinventing the bow, we are just copying what we already know to work. We are backwards engineering, rather then forwards engineering.

What you already know is still unlikely to be sufficient to reach the point of making bows equal in quality to the best bows of the middle ages. And if you're reverse engineering from an actual physical example, then it's a source of knowledge falling in line with the trainer/book part of the system (see the part of my previous post regarding reverse engineering)

I wonder how long it took for first humans to think of the bow and make a working prototype, thousand of years? I could do it now. I wonder how long it took for them to figure out that a recurve shape works better, hundreds? I also know that now. And I don't even live in an age of bows and arrows, I live in an age of white powder and lead.

You live in the Information Age, with access to formal education, television, film, books, and the Internet. Your own personal knowledge and experience cannot be used as a basis for what can be expected of a dwarf.

And tell me, how does a dwarf making a hundred stone tables know amy more about making a chair, then a dwarf who never made a chair before? The only differance is skill, not knoledge. The current system reflects that very well.

Since tables and chairs are so similar, they would likely be at the same level in the masonry skill, so this doesn't say anything about the system.


Another addition to this system that I'm surprised nobody has suggested is the possibility for dwarves with a very high creativity attribute to bypass knowledge requirements for some tasks.

[Max White]

Since tables and chairs are so similar, they would likely be at the same level in the masonry skill, so this doesn't say anything about the system.

Dear god man! Do you not know your tables from your chairs? The function they serve are not so similar at all! I mean a table and a counter I could understand, but a chair and a table are not the same.

What you mean is that a chair and a table require a similar skill set to make. The abilty to smooth the stone for a table is the same one used in smoothing down the back of a chair, or the edge of a flood gate they they may fit together without cracks, or the form of a statue so you can make an awesome carp figure. These things all use the same skill set, but are not that similar. Making doors will teach me to make a better quality carp statue, but at no point in time does making doors enable me to make a statue.

[Demicus]

We are not reinventing the bow, we are just copying what we already know to work. We are backwards engineering, rather then forwards engineering.

What you already know is still unlikely to be sufficient to reach the point of making bows equal in quality to the best bows of the middle ages. And if you're reverse engineering from an actual physical example, then it's a source of knowledge falling in line with the trainer/book part of the system (see the part of my previous post regarding reverse engineering)

Actually it could be possible if one can realize that their product is below par. Then you think what went wrong and alter something in the design. You basically know what it is and what it should do, even if you know little to nothing as to how to exactly make that specific object. They could even go talk to someone in the fortress that has used or seen the object.

I wonder how long it took for first humans to think of the bow and make a working prototype, thousand of years? I could do it now. I wonder how long it took for them to figure out that a recurve shape works better, hundreds? I also know that now. And I don't even live in an age of bows and arrows, I live in an age of white powder and lead.

You live in the Information Age, with access to formal education, television, film, books, and the Internet. Your own personal knowledge and experience cannot be used as a basis for what can be expected of a dwarf.

And just because Dwarves don't have access formal education, television, or the Internet, does not mean they aren't aware of the basic principles of various objects and tasks. For one, the average dwarf seems very knowledgeable about history, since it shows up in many engravings. So any item that might appear in history the Dwarves would have a rough idea of. Also like I said, they could find out by word of mouth. Not neicarrily from a master craftsman, but maybe someone familiar with the use of the tool. If you want on idea about what a crossbow is like, go talk to a marksdwarf, they should know something about how the damn thing works. To learn a little about tanning you could talk to the guy how was neighbor to a tanner before migranting to the fortress, they might be able to tell you about the stuff the tanner commonly kept around the place. Not really knowledge about the tasks themselves, but a starting point so you aren't trying to reinvent the proverbial (or maybe one day litteral) wheel. Also on the note of the neighbor, medieval towns where generally very communal. Everyone in most villages knows everyone. And in larger towns they still had highly sociable neighborhoods. Sure they didn't share trade secrets, but everyone in a village/neighborhood would now that a blacksmith needs lots of coal, or tanners need lot's of tree bark, and other things to do their job.

And tell me, how does a dwarf making a hundred stone tables know amy more about making a chair, then a dwarf who never made a chair before? The only differance is skill, not knoledge. The current system reflects that very well.

Since tables and chairs are so similar, they would likely be at the same level in the masonry skill, so this doesn't say anything about the system.


Another addition to this system that I'm surprised nobody has suggested is the possibility for dwarves with a very high creativity attribute to bypass knowledge requirements for some tasks.

though with the knowledge ideas you've presented, using table knowledge would most likely make an uncomfortable chair, which would reduce the quality level. Tables and chairs are similar, but different enough to matter. Tables are designed for supporting significant weight upon a flat surface. A chair is meant to support a person, preferably comfortably.

[tsen]

One of the problems is representing meta-knowledge. If I say, "make a machinegun" to the average person, they won't know exactly what to do but they will at least have a vague/general concept of what is being asked for. But if I take an average person from say 200BC, even if they're a supra-genius, they won't have the cultural/technological referents to even begin to start somewhere. It's the same with a crossbow.

[NW_Kohaku]

If we're talking about bows, then keep in mind that the actual kind of wood used in creating the best bows was incredibly important.  Different woods have different amounts of rigidity, tensile strength, etc.  You also had to ensure that the inside of the bow used the more flexible portion of the wood, while the outside had the more rigid, whether by laminating a composite bow together, or by carving the bow's wood so that it takes different portions of the tree into one solid piece.

Again, I think "make a door" is too simple an example - you can imagine a solid door, and file down anything to a big, flat board.  Now try to imagine how to build the inner components of the knob of that door, including how the lock works. 

You can't really just imagine your way to chemistry, it only comes from experimentation and many, many years of it, at that.  Yes, you could eventually do it, theoretically, although it may take generations to relearn the very fine tricks that get passed down.  It's no trivial task, however.

Guilds existed in the middle ages because they could control the access to the knowledge and tools of their trade.  Stonemasons were valuable people because they were the ones who had training in how to make archways and how to make stone bridges or multi-story buildings that could support their weight.  Metalsmiths were valuable people because they knew the intricacies of how to balance the tricky chemistry of the metals they worked with.  Farmers, especially, had aquired a great deal of information on how the composition of their soil worked, and how to maintain it, even without having any clue as to why soil fertility worked.  A good chunk of this Improved Farming thread I have been talking about involves arguments over NPK, soil pH, CEC, and several other things I had little clue about before I started performing research on the topic. 

Farmers didn't know how their soil worked, only how to get it to work, and because of it, were probably some of the most fearful people of change and experimentation in the era, since they had no idea if any change in their farming methods might risk famine come next Winter. 


On a totally unrelated note...

If critical fails on crafting rolls wasn't included because Toady didn't want players to waste irreplaceable materials, then why does he let doctors make sutures out of cotton candy?  Or making moods consume 5 different pieces of cotton candy for an artifact toy anvil?  Cotton candy is pretty much the only material that isn't replacable in this game, and that's why you have to make sure nobody but a Legendary +5 can even touch the stuff.  Even things like black diamonds tend to come in the dwarven caravan every year.

I'd much rather have my rank noob stonemason waste some microcline failing to make doors than to have adamantine consumed by being turned into thread.  Maybe we could make some kind of trade?

[Lord Shonus]

Again, I think "make a door" is too simple an example - you can imagine a solid door, and file down anything to a big, flat board.  Now try to imagine how to build the inner components of the knob of that door, including how the lock works. 

Put hole in door. Put rod through hole. Attach flat pieces to both sides. Put a catch on both ides of the frame. There's your latch. A lock? put a hole in the latch and the catch. Put a rod through the hole. The door is now locked.


Like I said earlier. This thread is VASTLY overstating the complexity of making things. And, no, making a table is no different from making a chair, skill wise. the flat spot is just at a different height.

[NW_Kohaku]

I think you are vastly underestimating what it takes to make a door.  (For starters, that described door doesn't even have a knob, or any way to attach that knob to the rod...)

[Lord Shonus]

I think the guy who has made doors is more qualified to tell you that they are really, really simple to make. Making a high quality door is harder, but there is nothing in the least complicated about making a door, or a cage, or a table.

[Artzbacher]

But dwarves are not humans. Consider the fantasy element of the game. Dwarves are generally a very inventive, crafty people.

Humans have their adaptiveness, elves have nothing, goblins are pretty cool regardless and dwarves are superior craftsmen. That's why even the clumsiest migrant might become a legendary mechanic in a couple of seasons without any previous education. It's in the blood.

[Demicus]

Kohaku, while I agree that chemistry related tasks would take too long to learn from scratch, the dwarves wouldn't necessarily be starting from scratch. As I said, medieval towns typically were very close. That and people typically lived in their workshops. If you had a tanner for a neighbor, you would most likely have some sort of idea what chemicals the tanner used in his trade. Not a perfect idea of tanning but at least it is a place to start. If guilds are involved, then knowledge of the trade would be harder to obtain, but then again you have an entity that you can hire to teach some of your dwarves the trade secrets.

[NW_Kohaku]

Technically, thanks to the whole "they work with vats full of fermenting poo" thing, people very, very rarely were willing to live next to tanneries.  In fact, people still don't.

[Demicus]

True, there is that fact. Though people would still know that tanning involves something horrible smelling, along with a couple other bits such as something to remove the hair and the process in general makes skin that doesn't decompose.
Though that last bit doesn't help too much as an inexperienced person might try salt first, as salt was used in the preservation of meats.
Still I think it's possible to come up with the process to perform the task from the knowledge that could be collected from living in a town that has a tannery. Also that excuse doesn't necessarily apply to other tasks. In a town with a blacksmith, they most likely know what kind of stuff the smithy needs to do his job or the kinds of chemicals are used in soap making.

[Stove]

What you mean is that a chair and a table require a similar skill set to make.

Yes, that is obviously what I meant.

Actually it could be possible if one can realize that their product is below par. Then you think what went wrong and alter something in the design. You basically know what it is and what it should do, even if you know little to nothing as to how to exactly make that specific object. They could even go talk to someone in the fortress that has used or seen the object.

You're really grasping at straws here. None of what you suggest is going to work reliably as a substitute for acquiring knowledge of methods developed over generations.
Just because you know that better bows have a recurve shape doesn't mean you're going to be able to figure out how to make a bow that benefits from a recurve shape. There's more going on there than just the shape.

And just because Dwarves don't have access formal education, television, or the Internet, does not mean they aren't aware of the basic principles of various objects and tasks. For one, the average dwarf seems very knowledgeable about history, since it shows up in many engravings. So any item that might appear in history the Dwarves would have a rough idea of.

Histories that are passed down by common people don't typically include detailed descriptions of methods and technologies used in specialized trades.

Also like I said, they could find out by word of mouth. Not neicarrily from a master craftsman, but maybe someone familiar with the use of the tool. If you want on idea about what a crossbow is like, go talk to a marksdwarf, they should know something about how the damn thing works.

Then by all means, suggest it as an additional source of knowledge.
Also, there's no reason a novice can't train a dabbler. A trainer doesn't have to be a master.

To learn a little about tanning you could talk to the guy how was neighbor to a tanner before migranting to the fortress, they might be able to tell you about the stuff the tanner commonly kept around the place. Not really knowledge about the tasks themselves, but a starting point so you aren't trying to reinvent the proverbial (or maybe one day litteral) wheel. Also on the note of the neighbor, medieval towns where generally very communal. Everyone in most villages knows everyone. And in larger towns they still had highly sociable neighborhoods. Sure they didn't share trade secrets, but everyone in a village/neighborhood would now that a blacksmith needs lots of coal, or tanners need lot's of tree bark, and other things to do their job.

If a tanner's neighbour can tell you enough about it to get you started, then it's safe to say he would have at least a little bit of tanning skill himself. If all you know is a vague description of the materials, you're still not very far along. You don't know what to do with the materials.
And since tanning is a skill that encompasses only two jobs (build tannery and tan hide), the "unlock" system could be applied such that gaining access to higher skill levels (and thus higher quality tanning) requires training or reading. (This would simulate knowledge of more complex and obscure methods of tanning.)

though with the knowledge ideas you've presented, using table knowledge would most likely make an uncomfortable chair, which would reduce the quality level. Tables and chairs are similar, but different enough to matter. Tables are designed for supporting significant weight upon a flat surface. A chair is meant to support a person, preferably comfortably.

It looks like you've grievously misunderstood my suggestions, then.

Again, I think "make a door" is too simple an example - you can imagine a solid door, and file down anything to a big, flat board.  Now try to imagine how to build the inner components of the knob of that door, including how the lock works. 

Put hole in door. Put rod through hole. Attach flat pieces to both sides. Put a catch on both ides of the frame. There's your latch. A lock? put a hole in the latch and the catch. Put a rod through the hole. The door is now locked.


Like I said earlier. This thread is VASTLY overstating the complexity of making things. And, no, making a table is no different from making a chair, skill wise. the flat spot is just at a different height.

Doors, tables and chairs are not good examples of this system. Nobody has offered any arguments as to why an unskilled dwarf shouldn't have to acquire knowledge to make mechanisms and looms.

But dwarves are not humans. Consider the fantasy element of the game. Dwarves are generally a very inventive, crafty people.

Humans have their adaptiveness, elves have nothing, goblins are pretty cool regardless and dwarves are superior craftsmen. That's why even the clumsiest migrant might become a legendary mechanic in a couple of seasons without any previous education. It's in the blood.

Ultimately, this skill system would apply to humans and elves as well. If dwarves are to get any bonus from their inventiveness, it should be represented in their attributes, not the design of the skill system.

[Max White]

What you mean is that a chair and a table require a similar skill set to make.

Yes, that is obviously what I meant.

Then if you accept that a table and a chair serve different functions, why do you feel that making chairs would allow you to understand the function of other things? Making chairs would teach you the skills to make other things, so you would be better at making them (Just like we currently have) but it would never teach you to understand the function (And this is what you are suggesting).

[Lord Shonus]

A chair requires you to make smooth flat pieces and attach them to tall thin pieces. A table requires you to make smooth flat pieces and attach them to tall thin pieces. The skill set is identical, the only difference is that the legs need to be longer for tables and chairs have an extra piece. Unless you want me to believe that no-skill dwarves will not know that tables exist, there's no reason for the skills to be differentiated an any way.