Bay 12 Games Forum

Is he legendary in stabbing things with a spear, or in something else?  Even a mere recruit will be blinking if he's legendary in something, even if that something is unrelated to combat (like Pump Operating).

In my experience, the only way to become a champion is if and only if the dwarf becomes legendary in something, regardless of what the other skills are...with one exception: any dwarf who becomes an Elite Wrestler at any point is stuck that way forever (I assume due to a bug).  Hit legendary?  Blinking, but still an Elite Wrestler.  Get a higher skill in Marksdwarf?  Still white and still called Elite Wrestler.

It's instances like these that have led me to start changing my blacksmiths' occupation title to "Furnituresmith"

Depends on the definition of "rare".  Among potential sites, it's very, VERY rare, with extremely few sites even approaching this one.  Among sites that are actually used, as E-mouse's post implies, it's significantly more common

Hell, Orthoclase and Microcline aren't even the worst.  At least there's some use that specifically requires them (making things out of different colors).  There's several rocks, however, that aren't even good for that, since they automatically lay within rock of the same value and color: calcite, chromite, serpentine, ilmenite, and puddingstone.  Talc and periclase also sit within stone of their color, but which are more valuable than them.

Oooh, something great that would be related to coal fires without needing actual fire: porcelainite.  If you ever see pictures of the badlands, you know the red stripes going through the buttes?  That's porcelainite, which is left behind when one of the (relatively thin) veins of coal catches fire and is essentially the same material as the "clinkers" left over in coal stoves.  It doesn't have a whole lot of use IRL, but if we're putting in coal fires, I think the first thing that should go in is the prettiest and most permanent legacy they leave.  Plus it lets there be evidence of coal fires without subjecting a fortress to a !!Legendary Miner!! or three

and, in regards to coal fires, they can go for centuries. and people dont not notice they are going, they tend to just leave them, as most are started in mining accidents, and its incredibly hard and expensive to put them out.

I think the expense is actually why they decided not to put out the coal fire in PA when they had the chance.  Of course, AFAIK it's gotten to the point where it's done even more damage anyways.  And it's not like they helped things by continually giving the fire new sources of O2



Oh, and as long as we're on coal...

Anthracite should be put in the game.  I learned while living in North Dakota that it's "better" than bituminous, and one of the reasons for this is that it's very, VERY clean while giving just as much energy as bituminous.  Anthracite is so clean, in fact, that it produces virtually no soot when burned, and more applicable to the game, I may be misremembering but AFAIK it can (among other things) even be used raw in blast furnaces without being turned into coke first.

So to simulate this, there could be a job that basically just breaks the rock into pieces, turning 1 anthracite into 3 coal fuel, but not needing to use up fuel to do so.  Another option might be to have any reaction that uses 1 anthracite rock give the usual products plus 2 coal fuel (i.e. 1 coke/charcoal + 1 magnetite = 1 iron bar, but 1 anthracite + 1 magnetite = 1 iron bar + 2 coal fuel).

I agree that woodcarvers are far from useless, and you're correct that a ☼wooden bolt☼ and a no-tag iron bolt do the same damage (with the ☼wooden bolt☼ actually being slightly superior due to the skill bonus that item quality also gives).  The problem with woodcarvers is that anything they can do, a bonecarver can do with a resource that doesn't have many better uses (as opposed to wood's use for such things as beds and barrels).

Ammo:  Bone bolts are identical to comparable wood bolts, and unless you have to use the bones for armor, there isn't much better to do with them.
Crafts:  Stone crafts are effectively identical to comparable wooden crafts, and no matter how much wood is available, virtually every single fort is going to have a hell of a lot more stone to work with.  And stonecrafters have the option of using more expensive stone, namely flux and maybe obsidian, to make more valuable crafts.

Not to mention that not all crops are good for a scythe.  About the only way I can see Wild Strawberries being harvested with a scythe is if the farmer builds a super-complicated mechanical scythe that runs on lava and the screams of impaled kittens.



Back in the general direction of the topic, it's not that abstraction is a good thing or that non-abstraction is a bad thing.  It's not that having more jobs need tools is a bad thing.  It's just that DF is also supposed to be a game.  As such, by definition there comes a point where the details start to get in the way of playing.  Hell, most of the really cool and fun stuff you can do in the game, like megaprojects and drowning chambers, stop being possible if the simulation goes too far.

In my mind, DF has never really been about abstraction that much, we dont have generic "food", there are countless types of rock that dont really do anything, and dwarves are dressed down to the individual sock (with its own individual level of wear).

In large part, we really do more or less have generic food.  Of the 21 crops:

7 grow year round and can be eaten raw, brewed, or cooked
3 grow year round and can only be milled into dye
2 grow year round and can be brewed or milled into cooking ingredients

On top of that,

2 can be brewed and turned into thread
A third crop can be brewed or milled into cooking ingredients, and another can be brewed and milled or processed into cooking ingredients

So really, we're basically down to just 9 truly different crops.


Having countless types of rock that don't do anything goes against your point.  We don't have to worry about which one makes the most stable walls or which one will erode more quickly: rock is rock is rock.

Cups, toys, and instruments are like crops: they do pretty much the same thing, no matter what they're called.

Dwarves are dressed down to the individual sock, but how much difference does it really make what kind of sock they're wearing?


These are all things that might as well still be abstracted because we don't have to worry about the nitty-gritty details.  If you want to plant something that can be milled or brewed, you just pick one of the three (or four, if you count sweet pods).  You don't have to worry about whether Longland Beer is more nutritious than Whip Wine, or whether Dwarven Flour will go bad sooner than Longland Flour, you just plant one.

Ideally what I'd like to have in DF is much more complexity with regards to equipment. most of what DF is, is dwarves doing jobs, but the mechanics of these jobs are quite generic right now, bring raw materials to workshop, ?, job magically complete.

It may not sound like it, but I'm all for more complexity.  That's half the point of the game.  Much of the potential complexity isn't even implemented in stuff that already exists (such as the crops I mentioned), and I would like to see such things as there being a real difference between Wild Strawberries and Rat Weed.

I'm just worried about the other half of the game's point: the fact that it's a game.  By definition, the fact that it's a game means that at some point, nitty-gritty details will get in the way of gameplay.