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[zwei]

This goes a bit too much into direction of skill synergies...

Skills are already in categories like farming and crafts. So if Toady makes two raw files one for categories one for skill groups one could easily mix and match skills to their liking. for example if you want all of the fish related things as one skill you could merge them into one group called fishworking and that would be the skill. You could then make a category called feeding and put farming, butchery and fishworking under that. Needs much work tho but I think that would make everyone happy.

Modable GUI (profession groups) and everything in raws (modding vanilla skills/professions) would be good. But, you know, even if we can fully customize stuff, that doesn't mean that defaults needn't be reasonable.

I will point out that working on rawifying this would also make it easier for better defaults to be set

[Kraos]

I hope everything will be rawified in the release. We will be swimming in total conversion mods if that happens. Still waiting for a good zombie survival mod that only has custom workshops.

[Silverionmox]

The composite skills idea might make some people uncomfortable, but it would reduce total skills, while still maintaining choice, precision and specialization options.

If we had three (possible) skill components (material - tool/process - product), and reduced the skills in each category to eg. a mere 10; then we would still have 1000 different possible skill combinations. This would satisfy the desire for simplicity (a limited number of skills), but still allows flexibility and specialization.

For example, we might order a dwarf to use only steel, but leave the other two categories open. He would make all kinds of steel products and be quite good in steelworking. However, we could let him specialize further, and also limit him to only armour. He'll have less to do, but his skill gain will concentrate on steelmaking and armour exclusively. Finally, a player who wants an assembly line of armour could limit him to use only a burin, and thus create a hyper-specialized steel armour engraver that delivers astonishing quality.

This could be adjusted on the fly as the growth and needs of the fortress dictate. As long as you only change one or two categories, it's almost certain that a dwarf's new job will have some skills in common with his old job, so dwarves that change jobs are not as skilled as newly-born peasants in their new jobs. It also guarantees that immigrant skills will be somewhat useful: you might not need a woodcrafter, but he still won't be a dolt at either stonecrafting or carpentry.

Applied to the OP's suggestion, for example furnace operating would be part of the pottery job (clay + potter's wheel + furnace operating), charcoal burning job (wood + furnace operating), lye making job (ash + container + furnace operating), etc. Instead of half a dozen different metalworking skills, we'd have the weaponsmithing job (metal + anvil + hammer + forging + furnace operating + weapons), blacksmithing job (metal + anvil + hammer + forging + furnace operating + furniture), etc. This way you could train a weaponsmith a bit by letting him make wooden weapons, he'll train half the necessary skills that way, but he won't learn as fast as by making weapons directly.

One could choose to have a skill for each metal, for groups of metals, or for metals as a group. That's a design choice and will surely be moddable.

[Iapetus]

Some nice ideas there.

Regarding bows and ammo:
I support merging ammo making and (cross)bow making into the same skill.  (In fact, I was considering suggesting it myself).
I know technically fletching and (cross)bow making are different jobs with different skills, but it is no less reasonable than using the same skill for making bone bows and skull totems, or wooden shields and wooden barrels.  And it would make bowyers more useful while reducing the overload on the craft workshops.  This should include making metal bows, as (I would assume) making a precision machine out of metal is more similar to making one out of wood than it is hammering a metal bar into a blade or club.

Regarding the various flesh processing skills:
Mergeing butchery with animal dissecting, and fish cleaning with fish dissecting would be good.
Combining them all into one could also work, although is not so critical.

Regarding other crafts:
I like the suggestion of having a general "crafts" skill that affects multiple other skills in the manner of "fighting" and "archery".
Merging wood and bone crafting would be a good idea, as they are both relatively similar skills (at least compared with the other crafts), both produce a lot of the same items (cheap crafts, ammo, low-quality weapons and armour, and maybe in future skull and horn cups).

I'm not so sure about combining them with stone crafting, as there is less overlap between products (and realistically, the skills required are more different).

I find that both metalcrafting and metal smithing are underused skills, so maybe these could be merged into one (especially if metal crossbow making is moved to the bowyer skill).

Cloth and leather
Merging clothing and leatherworking could be done, although I don't it too much of a problem having them separate, and there is a fair degree of differentiation between the products.  (Or at least, leather workers make a lot of things clotheris dont, and I usually have my clothiers permenantly embroidering GCSS goblinite while my leatherworkers make useful stuff).


Siege engineering => carpentry + mechanics sounds good, as it shares one vastly underused skill between two useful-but-often-unemployed skills.

Farming
Combining all the dairy skills, all the wool skills, and all the ash skills sounds good.  Realistically, charcoal making is a very different skill than burning wood to ash or fueling a furnace, but I'm not sure anything much is gained by keeping them separate.  Although keeping charoal making and furnace operating as separate labour preferences would be a good idea, to ensure your dwarves make and use charcoal at the same rate.

Machine operating
Combining pump operating, pressing, and milling into one sill (but separate labour preferences) would also be a good idea.  (Especially as they are all basically things that can or should be replaced with wind/water power).

[Roraborialisforealis]

I feel that all the crossbows should be bowyer creations and not blacksmith toys, but that the crossbow making bench should have an upgrade that consumes an anvil and gives it an anvil instead of the bowyer workshop just magically having metalsmithing property's.

[Forumite]

For metal crossbows, I think it could be done on the forge, with the bowyer skill or weaponsmithing. Upgraded workshops feels weird.

[Valdrax]

If we had three (possible) skill components (material - tool/process - product), and reduced the skills in each category to eg. a mere 10; then we would still have 1000 different possible skill combinations. This would satisfy the desire for simplicity (a limited number of skills), but still allows flexibility and specialization.

A thousand combinations?  A different skill for each material?  Good god, that is almost the opposite of what I'm proposing.  That would produce useless migrants in droves.

"Oh good.  Someone with high skills in working copper, kitchenware use, and toy-making.  On an iron-heavy map." 
"Oh hey, an animal tender who specializes in vermin and glass.  That's just what my turkey farm needs." 
"A wood armorsmith.  I wonder how he feels about enlisting in the naked shock troop squad to greet his elf friends?"

[Forumite]

Metal, Wood, Bone, Stone, Gems, Cloth, Leather, Meat, sounds like 8 material skills. Still a lot.

IŽd much rather see the system with the current skills, but half of them removed.

[Valdrax]

Some nice ideas there.

Thank you.

This should include making metal bows, as (I would assume) making a precision machine out of metal is more similar to making one out of wood than it is hammering a metal bar into a blade or club.

Honestly, pure wood or bone crossbows are kind of bizarre to begin with.  I know there was the gastraphetes in ancient Greece, but most historical crossbow designs have included both wood and metal in them, so I've always been puzzled by what DF crossbows are supposed to even be.

Regarding other crafts:
I like the suggestion of having a general "crafts" skill that affects multiple other skills in the manner of "fighting" and "archery".

The only problem I have with that proposal is that you have to create an alternate scale for how products affected by this skill and products that aren't reach from standard to masterwork level.  That or else just create a set of similar skills.

Yeah, I'm about oh, 20% in doubt, on merge stonecrafting with the others.  I've done a decent amount of woodcrafting as a kid and seen demos of working with bone and stone, and a lot of the chisel work strikes me as similar, but I can see room for leaving stonecraft separate.

I find that both metalcrafting and metal smithing are underused skills, so maybe these could be merged into one (especially if metal crossbow making is moved to the bowyer skill).

I'm not so sure about this.  Most of metalcrafting is basically casting.  Goblets, toys, coins, etc.  Some of the crafts, like musical instruments, require more advanced tools, and chains are pretty much hammer and tongs work (with a press if you can get it) -- I've never understood why it wasn't under blacksmithing. 

If we have separate skills for what's currently woodcrafting and carpentry, we probably should consider much of metal crafting and blacksmithing to be separate skills. 

Combining all the dairy skills, all the wool skills, and all the ash skills sounds good.  Realistically, charcoal making is a very different skill than burning wood to ash or fueling a furnace, but I'm not sure anything much is gained by keeping them separate.  Although keeping charoal making and furnace operating as separate labour preferences would be a good idea, to ensure your dwarves make and use charcoal at the same rate.

There's a lot in common in the skills, but you're right that they're not all the same.  I'm a bit iffy on the idea of using two preferences for one skill, myself.  Could you explain more about how separating the skills would keep the rate of production and use even?

[Di]

Could you explain more about how separating the skills would keep the rate of production and use even?

A pair of dwarfs makes charcoal one burns it to smelt metal, if they'd be in one skill dwarves could first burn all present fuel, cancel smelting job and only than start burning wood.

Metal, Wood, Bone, Stone, Gems, Cloth, Leather, Meat, sounds like 8 material skills. Still a lot.

Those 8 pretty much cover 2 categories from Silverionmox's suggestion both material and tool/process (there isn't much you can do with metal except forging it, or cooking meat). Actually, take out last one, multiply them by 9 (ranged, melee, armor, garments, crafts, furniture, machinery, building), add misc jobs like merged butchery and mining and you get somewhere around 70 while there's 65 skills now. And thats without considering that not all combinations are possible (like leather machinery or cloth crafts).
Actually I'm in love with this idea now and believe that with some refinement it'll solve the problem of training migrants anew. Yet I do agree that Silverionmox took it to a degree of absurd with all those metal type definitions.

[Iapetus]

I'm not so sure about this.  Most of metalcrafting is basically casting.  Goblets, toys, coins, etc.  Some of the crafts, like musical instruments, require more advanced tools, and chains are pretty much hammer and tongs work (with a press if you can get it) -- I've never understood why it wasn't under blacksmithing. 

I assumed metal crafting also involved things like cutting, welding, precision hammering, pinning, etc as well.  Basically, most of the things that normal smithing involves, but at a much finer scale.  (And copper and bronze weapons traditionally were made by casting).

So on the one hand, the fact that it is at a smaller scale could justify needing a different skill, but on the other hand, they are similar enough that combining them wouldn't be unreasonable.  (More reasonable than tailoring and ropemaking being under the same skill, anyway).

[Forumite]

If we are adding skills, then IŽd like to see things like fighter and striker, skills that work on many different skills. Perhaps Function, Detail and Process. Function is used for making objects that have a simple function, but a function, like barrels, armor and walls. Detail is for art and complicated items, like mechanisms, crafts, crossbows. Process isnŽt making things, but rather refining, like cooking, wood burning, plant processing adn weaving. With these 3 there will be some overlap between making walls of stone and wood, cooking and plant processing, crafts and traps.

Thoughts?

[Valdrax]

A pair of dwarfs makes charcoal one burns it to smelt metal, if they'd be in one skill dwarves could first burn all present fuel, cancel smelting job and only than start burning wood.

Why would you need separate skills for that?  Just have an even number of wood furnaces and smelters active.

Metal, Wood, Bone, Stone, Gems, Cloth, Leather, Meat, sounds like 8 material skills. Still a lot.

Those 8 pretty much cover 2 categories from Silverionmox's suggestion both material and tool/process (there isn't much you can do with metal except forging it, or cooking meat). Actually, take out last one, multiply them by 9 (ranged, melee, armor, garments, crafts, furniture, machinery, building), add misc jobs like merged butchery and mining and you get somewhere around 70 while there's 65 skills now. And thats without considering that not all combinations are possible (like leather machinery or cloth crafts).
Actually I'm in love with this idea now and believe that with some refinement it'll solve the problem of training migrants anew. Yet I do agree that Silverionmox took it to a degree of absurd with all those metal type definitions.

Dividing skills into separate material & tasks skills is an existing suggestion on the Eternal Suggestion Voting page under "skill synergy."

What I'm suggesting in this thread is the current system, with coarser-grained skills so that we don't have a bunch of one-task wonder skills and useless migrants.  Unless something is done to curtail useless combinations in migrants, the "skill synergy" concept only makes the core problem my proposal addresses worse, especially if you still have miscellaneous tasks that don't make sense under a material/task system -- e.g. most of the farmer tasks, which are some of the worst offenders for generating dead weight migrants.

[Reelyanoob]

Just be aware that if you atom-smash your, lye makers, for example, you get MORE lye-makers in the next migrant wave. Because the game notes that you have a "shortage" of that skill.

Keeping them and re-training them, or making them haulers, makes the game think you've got enough, so you get other skills instead.

One thing that would help with this is being able to request immigrant skills through the liason. That's in a another suggestion though.

I do actually think the matrix-style skill system would help things, e.g. a woodcrafter crosses over into carpentry, metalcrafter crosses over into the other metal skills, etc. Wood burner and furnace operator would cross over too.

[Agorp Stronden]

Or what good is it when one of your precious strange moods goes to a woodcrafter on a wood-starved map?

I have only read up until this point and I'll probably finish the rest of your presentation, though I would like you to elaborate upon your quotation.