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[eggrock]

The long term goal here is to skill up dorfs as high as possible in the Consoler and Pacifier skill, but the experimentation encompasses a lot of variables and may not be worth anything in the end. I'm Adequate-to-Competent in DF and still don't know a lot of things, like whether a dorf will tantrum immediately if his or her happiness drops below a certain level, or if a morose, withdrawn dorf can be brought back from the brink of suicide.

Specifically, I'd like Legendary Consoler and Pacifier dwarves burrowed in the jail area to cheer up the unfortunates who run afoul of unreasonable nobles. I want punished dorfs to leave happier than they came in as a sort of passive aggressive retribution to the noble who sentenced my productive dorf to unnecessary idle time. The cells will have all the other bells and whistles, nice chains, engravings etc.

For now I need to control unhappiness and I'm starting by smashing pets under a bridge. Eventually I'll move on to finer control using rooms full of vermin, no beds, exposed to rain etc., and possibly experiment with other things like 'witnessed a tragedy'. The consolers and pacifiers will start working with dorfs at a base level of (un)happiness, then track their progress in skill to see how fast they skill up to Legendary; at that point I'll start worrying about how fast they can cheer everyone up. There are too many variables to make this true !!Science!! but I'll get as close as I can and keep food, drink and the environment as neutral as possible to avoid data corruption. I can also burrow them with some caged miscellany to see if they'll readopt, and then record what happens when the new pet is lost.

Of a population of 106, seventeen dorfs have a total of twenty pets, which is a small sample but a good start. Three dorfs have two pets each. I recorded happiness levels, pulled the lever and recorded them again. I also noted the personality traits as DT listed them. (Rant: Many names differ from the wiki.)

Spoiler: Dwarf Therapist Traits (click to show/hide)

Activeness (higher is better)
Adventure
Artistic
Cautiousness
Company
Compassion
Compromising
Confidence (lower is better)
Depression (lower is better)
Emotion
Excellence
Friendly
Honesty
Helpfulness
Imagination (lower is logical)
Leadership
Lawfulness
Modesty
Nervousness (lower is better)
Neurosis (higher is better)
Optimism (higher is better)
Organization
Perseverance
Rage (lower is better)
Rebelliousness
Stress (lower is better)
Thinking
Thrillseeking
Trusting
Urge

The results are--all over the place. Initial happiness ranged from 124 (immigrants arriving at a fortuitous time) to 205 (on the higher end for this fort.) Happiness loss ranged from 30 (2 dorfs) to 80 (2), with most of the rest between 50-70. Males lost an average of 49 points, females averaged 56 points.

Dorfs with two pets lost 35x2, 50x2 and 60x2.

One anomaly lost 52 points; I assume the extra two points came from some environmental occurrence and I'm discouting the two points for now, but only time and testing will tell.

That's all the progress made so far; I'll be looking at the personality traits to try and figure out which categories affect loss of happiness. Hopefully I'm not reinventing the wheel here. I'd post the results but the table code isn't formatting correctly, plus I hit backspace at the worst time and lost the first post, so fuck it for now.

[Cruxador]

I'm pretty sure the only time those skills are used is when upset dwarves come to the mayor with their problems. It could apply to normal conversation, but I haven't seen a "was consoled" happy thought ever.

[Sutremaine]

I'm Adequate-to-Competent in DF and still don't know a lot of things, like whether a dorf will tantrum immediately if his or her happiness drops below a certain level, or if a morose, withdrawn dorf can be brought back from the brink of suicide.

Don't know about the first, but if it's anything like the fell mood calculations then there is a hard threshold. You'd have to work out their happiness level for yourself unless there's a utility that displays negative mood values. I'm pretty sure that the game does track those since I've had dwarves stay at 0 happiness even though they just got a good thought, and if anyone's ever had a freshly-released dwarf with significantly less than 1000 happiness that would seal it.

Unfortunately there's currently no way of telling just how close an unhappy dwarf is to going insane. They'll hold meetings or break stuff when they're unhappy, but otherwise they behave as normal.

I want punished dorfs to leave happier than they came in as a sort of passive aggressive retribution to the noble who sentenced my productive dorf to unnecessary idle time.

Giving them their own nice bedroom in the prison works well. They get a good thought from having their own cool stuff, and avoid a bad one about sleeping without a room. Personal dining rooms are a little trickier since chairs don't need to be in a dining room for a dwarf to bring their food there, but I guess you could block off the dining room until it's ready to be used.

Confidence (lower is better)

Seems like higher confidence would be better...

High rage does have its advantages -- a Type A dwarf will throw tantrums more readily and get their mood improved by the subsequent destruction.

[SirFellfire]

Of a population of 106, seventeen dorfs have a total of twenty pets, which is a small sample but a good start. Three dorfs have two pets each. I recorded happiness levels, pulled the lever and recorded them again.

now THIS is what you call dwarven !!SCIENCE!! It doesn't get much better than this 

[DisgruntledPeasant]

hmm interesting,  i've always wanted to do more with social skills. for example having a 'fort psychiatrist' with maxed out helpful social skills so he just runs around cheering up sad dwarves,   or a local dwarven comedian who will entertain everyone in the halls.

[King DZA]

hmm interesting,  i've always wanted to do more with social skills. for example having a 'fort psychiatrist' with maxed out helpful social skills so he just runs around cheering up sad dwarves,   or a local dwarven comedian who will entertain everyone in the halls.

I imagine it would go something like this.

[Blue_Dwarf]

Perhaps an easier way to control unhappiness is to smash masterworks of craftsmen. You don't get many pets, while masterful items are easier to make.

I think you get more unhappiness if you smash them one by one, as opposed to mass-smashing everything at once.

[eggrock]

Perhaps an easier way to control unhappiness is to smash masterworks of craftsmen. You don't get many pets, while masterful items are easier to make.

I think you get more unhappiness if you smash them one by one, as opposed to mass-smashing everything at once.

Might be worth a test if ownership can be easily identified. I've never thought to check that before. It's probably quicker to get pets bred and adopted (and cause other tragedies to witness) than it is to build the skill levels high enough to create masterwork items. Then again, I usually seem to have an excess of highly skilled gem cutters/setters.

For now, Skyrim has destroyed my free time so it's going to be awhile before testing commences.