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[ThrowerOfStones]

Frankly, I wouldn't mind masons just making constructions and stonecrafters doing everything else. You know, on the basis that stonecrafters are bloody useless right now and masons overworked. You might argue that making a stone trinket is completely different thing, but I'd say building stone walls and stairs is even more so.

Making big stone objects is still stone crafting, just on a bigger scale. Masons on the other hand would really just deal with simple blocks and bricks and how to put those together into a sturdy constructions.

With hives, jugs, pots, and nest boxes (assuming jugs and pots get fixed) stonecrafters are hardly useless anymore.

Nor were they ever. There's no easier way to buy out caravans than just assigning one or more otherwise worthless dwarves to churn out stone crafts. Yeah, steel trap components take fewer items, but steel is precious, and glass trap components also work fine, but only if you have a legendary glass maker. You don't need anything to get a good stone craft industry going, and you can easily produce enough to buy everything you're likely to care about from the caravans.

[TheyTarget]

Frankly, I wouldn't mind masons just making constructions and stonecrafters doing everything else. You know, on the basis that stonecrafters are bloody useless right now and masons overworked. You might argue that making a stone trinket is completely different thing, but I'd say building stone walls and stairs is even more so.

Making big stone objects is still stone crafting, just on a bigger scale. Masons on the other hand would really just deal with simple blocks and bricks and how to put those together into a sturdy constructions.

With hives, jugs, pots, and nest boxes (assuming jugs and pots get fixed) stonecrafters are hardly useless anymore.

Nor were they ever. There's no easier way to buy out caravans than just assigning one or more otherwise worthless dwarves to churn out stone crafts. Yeah, steel trap components take fewer items, but steel is precious, and glass trap components also work fine, but only if you have a legendary glass maker. You don't need anything to get a good stone craft industry going, and you can easily produce enough to buy everything you're likely to care about from the caravans.

Yeah, I was doing a giant chart up to see where is the best logical way to place workshops in your fort, and the craftdwarfs workshop uses supplies from or shares the construction materials with most of the major workshops. So while overly useless it seems most efficient to make it the center of any fort with everything else working around it. Though yeah the use of mason and stone crafter seem a little skewed. But I'm not gonna argue it cause it's working fine.

[Girlinhat]

Not everything should be balanced.  Lye Maker will never be an important position.  Stone crafting will always be lame compared to other skills.  That's just the way it is!  Sometimes it's ok for one option to suck.

[beorn080]

Not everything should be balanced.  Lye Maker will never be an important position.  Stone crafting will always be lame compared to other skills.  That's just the way it is!  Sometimes it's ok for one option to suck.

Someone forgets the power of obsidian swords back in 2d.

[Lord Darkstar]

Useless? What other use is there for all that rock you've got lieing around and you aren't using in a mega-project? Humm? Stone mugs are the most reliable starting trade good.

Besides, I make all my masons stonecrafters as well. Just so they can have fun making stone mugs and the occasional bit of crafts or other filler trade goods.

Although, I think in the future, I'll probably go for carpenters instead. I just noticed in my current 0.31.19 game that my large wooden spiked balls are going for +$260+ and *$520* each, and only weigh 1 urist of weight. What a great trade good! And they've been consistant across the years... so a little bit of carpentry on a heavily wooded map, and they can pay for all the logs brought in (I always import them as well, no matter how many trees I might actually have--- you can NEVER have too much wood in DF, and it goes fast on maps without coal). Since I always take along a decently skilled carpenter in my starting 7 (just so I can make decent quality beds), I think I may have a new high value starting trade good before the kitchens get going.

[Cotes]

Useless in the sense that they are non-essential and having just just a couple stonecrafters keeps your production more than sufficient. Masons on the other hand are always running all over the place even with relatively small construction projects and even without the extra workshop duties.

And like I said, it really doesn't make any realistic sense why masons would be the ones making stone furniture. I'm not saying every job needs to be equally useful (which is how some of you apparently interpreted it), but when there's something that could be evened out a lot while making the job descriptions seem a bit more consistent, why not?

Making a rock or chair or a chest is still stonecrafting, not masonry, just with a bigger object than the trinkets the crafters make now.

[castun]

And like I said, it really doesn't make any realistic sense why masons would be the ones making stone furniture. I'm not saying every job needs to be equally useful (which is how some of you apparently interpreted it), but when there's something that could be evened out a lot while making the job descriptions seem a bit more consistent, why not?

Making a rock or chair or a chest is still stonecrafting, not masonry, just with a bigger object than the trinkets the crafters make now.

Was pretty much what I was getting at in my original post.  Masonry, realistically speaking, is the construction of stone or brick walls, stairs, flooring, or other larger structures such as stone bridges, etc.  Granted that tables & chairs made from stone could still technically fall into that same skill set, I would think for game simplicity's sake that Masons would stick to just walls, stairs, floors, and other construction projects.

[Cotes]

And like I said, it really doesn't make any realistic sense why masons would be the ones making stone furniture. I'm not saying every job needs to be equally useful (which is how some of you apparently interpreted it), but when there's something that could be evened out a lot while making the job descriptions seem a bit more consistent, why not?

Making a rock or chair or a chest is still stonecrafting, not masonry, just with a bigger object than the trinkets the crafters make now.

Was pretty much what I was getting at in my original post.  Masonry, realistically speaking, is the construction of stone or brick walls, stairs, flooring, or other larger structures such as stone bridges, etc.  Granted that tables & chairs made from stone could still technically fall into that same skill set, I would think for game simplicity's sake that Masons would stick to just walls, stairs, floors, and other construction projects.

How would one mason a chair or a table, you know, one that can be moved around? I imagine you would make a stone chair or a table by making individual parts attach to each other by crafted sockets, with some kind of makeshift screws keeping from them falling off.

[castun]

Simple chairs & tables could just be carved & chiseled into shape out of a boulder or slab, in one piece, essentially what sculptors do to sculpt statues and the like from marble.