Bay 12 Games Forum

Actually the forge is the defining item of a forge, by which I mean the fire-pit in which the blacksmith heats the metal in, if the metal isn't heated nothing is going to happen.  Metal that been melted in a crucible can be cast into molds without using a hammer and anvil (which is in fact the earliest metal working method).  Your generally right that a system of 'bare minimum' allowing basic work and then 'extra tools' adding better quality and more sophisticated operations is the way to go but your particular scenario is a bit backwards.

Am I the only one who suspects your going to put the new Immigrant zone of your fort in a room that can be filled with lava at will?

Your points on assigning tasks and possibly missing the immigrants is valid but I think a zone is a poor way to address it, how about the first immigrant in the stream goes to your leader/mayor and presents him with a list of the names of all the new immigrants so they can become become official 'citizens' of your fort.  You get a pop up like that which occurs when a diplomat meets with your mayor, the pop up shows said list of migrants and you can assign labor and rooms at that time

Kagus:  Could you elaborate a bit more, are you saying that having three types (Vein, Large Cluster, Small Cluster) means that the map will have a roughly a third of each but if only Large Cluster was used then the same number of instances will be generated but now ALL will be large clusters providing a much larger amount of ore?

Do you know how the number of veins and clusters is determined on a map, if we flood the raws with stone types that can appear only in Large clusters would every available 48x48 block contain a cluster?

X-Com is THE quintessential Isometric projection not cavalier.

Has anyone ever noticed how a Crafter will often stop in the middle of their work to go get a drink or perhaps a bite to eat and immediately haulers will grab up every raw material they were using and put them back in storage forcing the crafter to collect them all over again.  This is an annoying waste of time and merely creates extra hauling for everyone involved.  If a task is at the top of the queue and it goes from Active (green A next too it) to not active the materials should go from 'Task' (TSK) to and a new state called IDLE which would prevent frivolous hauling.  The idle materials are still associated with that top queued job and if the player cancels the job the materials are freed up to be hauled away so you don't have to worry about things getting permanently 'stuck' in a workshop.

Good point DJ, I think that could be addressed by requiring an creature to have both a [STANCE] and [GRASP] body part to use a ladder.  That would cover prevent dis-armed (literally) dwarfs from using ladders.  Cats don't have a [GRASP] body part (resulting in all that "cat too injured to haul object" spam) so something new like [NIMBLE] might be needed to show that a create can climb a ladder without the normal restrictions (presumably Nimble means they can also do a few other unusual things like jump up on walls too).

Also rope ladders (made from say 2 ropes of the same type) should also exist.  And I think hauling on ladders should be prohibited (because you need your hands free).

EDIT:  Amazingly similar cross-post with footkerchief

The skills in the game are called gem cutting and gem setting though, neither of which really has anything directly to do with fashioning the jewelry itself

Umm.. thats why I proposed a new 'Jewelry Smith' profession which indeed would fall under the green-shirted Jeweler category and would perform work only with precious metals turning them into rings, crowns and similar items.  Did you miss that part?

I'd even agree with you that if these tasks were removed from Metal Crafting and nothing was added it would be debase the profession but as I said more metal craft able items will likely be introduced to balance that out.  And remember their are already WAY worse professions like those damn fish dissectors, I mean seriously FISH DISSECTOR as a profession?? What was Toady Smoking that day?

I'd also add the [Jewelry] tag to bones, shells, and some rare woods.

I'm not sure what effect you want to see from that?  If you want to see those materials used by the Jewelry smith and turned into rings, crowns, amulets etc then I disagree the Jewelry smith is a metal crafter and the skill would not translate into different materials like bone and wood, it would also steal the thunder of the bone and wood crafters.

Perhaps the meaning of the [JEWELRY] tag would be better represented by calling it [COLD_WORKABLE] or [SOFT], the primary thing it dose is allow you to craft without using fuel.  The Jewelery Smith is limited to working with only these metals.  It might still be possible to make an Iron amulet or steel ring but that would be done by the Metal Crafter not that their should be any real incentive to make such things.

Theirs some concern that these changes would leave the Metal Crafter with nothing to do, while it dose remove the coin job it leaves in place a lot of other trade goods that would be made of base metals such as goblets, instruments, toys, flasks and myriad other things which will be added in the future.  I could see 'table ware' (plates + utensils) used to enhance dining rooms, 'canteen' a metal water skin equivalent, 'lamp' (fill with oil for illumination) along with moving metal buckets to Metal Crafter.  Basically any item not commonly made by hammering at an anvil, much of which would have fallen under the historical definition of 'Tinsmith' or 'Coppersmith' named for metals that soft but not used for jewelry.  I also agree with moving chains to Blacksmithing.

I'm also thinking that studding might fall under Jewelry Smith as it already takes no fuel one of the principle characteristics of the new profession and is inherently a delicate process more in like with Jewelry production.