Bay 12 Games Forum

Yeah, well, doesn't explain why no other dwarf has the skill, or why it isn't even listed in Magmawiki, or mentioned anywhere for that matter. Well... I did find a mention of it in String Dump section of Magmawiki. But that's all. Maybe it's just an unimplemented skill that's there due to an oversight or even a bug?

Yeah, dwarven stupidity at work. I think the first stone they fetch can be pretty far away but the ones after that, those should be really close to the work site.

ALSO, I believe (not 100% sure) that the concept of "Nearest stone" to a dwarf ignores the actual path to the rock in question and the distance is measured purely in a straight line. Therefore, if there's a stone directly one z-level above or below, the dwarf will attempt to get that first, even it takes him 1000 steps to get there, as opposed to a pile that's merely 50 steps away in the same z-level.

- Why don't go smith yourself a bunch of razorblades and see if you can make them sharp enough to cut that thin beard of yours.
- Aye, his skull is thicker than granite. Might as well try to teach a stone golem to swim.
- Smoothchin.
- Urist! Oweryadoin', ye old koboldlover!
- Son, that's not a proper way to hold a chisel! Here, hold it like this. I swear, if I wasn't here to show you things you'd end up a carpenter like that McUrist lass. And no son of mine is a woodhumper! That's a job for the elves.
- Her mind is as empty as an ale barrel after harvest.
- Ugh! Urist, you reek worse than an old goblin! What in the nine hells have you been doing, sleeping on a pile of logs like an elf?
- She's cheaper than a green glass gem. One sip of that lousy whip wine and she's ready warm up any dwarf's bed. Even that beardless woodcutter McUrist!

McUrist Jr: "Daddy, what's an elf like?"
Daddy McUrist: "Elf? Hmmmm. Remember what that dead cave spider smelled like? Well, elves smell -worse-. And they're dumber than that goblin I chased to the river. The one that got eaten by a carp. Elves tell everyone how "They're one with nature" and how they can "Listen and understand the animals" and all that crap, but in reality they smell so awful that no animal will eat them! Also, elves make -everything- out of wood. Even their axes. Makes you wonder how they cut down a tree in the first place. Oh and, there's one more thing about elves, not sure if you'll believe me, son, but..."
McUrist Jr: "What! What is it! Tell me! Tell me!"
Daddy McUrist: "Elves have NO BEARDS! Their cheeks are as smooth as the obsidian wall in the dining hall. They couldn't grow a beard even if they wanted to!"
McUrist Jr: "Ahahahaha!"
Daddy McUrist: "Hahaha!"

If you DO regen
all changes are applied. original 7 get new specs, new creatures get new specs, etc.

Ok, in theory anyway. But like the guy said, he didn't see the alcohol dependency go away even after world regen. And no one can actually observe the changes made in attribute or skill decay/gain rates. That's the issue that eventually brought me here. It's on the bug tracker, too. Well, sort of. Not the exact same issue but closely related.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=803
(requires log-in)

My own testing solely consisted of experimenting with the original seven dwarves after making changes to the raws (plus the world regens). So that's why I wondered if the original 7 get potentially hard-coded values...

So.. this is just great. First I wanted to run a one dwarf fortress in DF2010. Then I discover that attributes and skills decay over time, after which I immediately attempt to alter this behavior, with no result. So, after a dozen failed attempts I try out the 40d version, which tasted pretty sweet after sucking on the sour DF2010. Urist McChosenOne organizes an unfortunate accident for the other six of his team and gets to work. Several years pass and he kills dozens of creatures while defending his fort. Then one day he notices that he's rather good with his crossbow, and decides he's actually so good that he doesn't have to work anymore. And that's when I learn about the hero status, and that they essentially can't be ordered to work, once a weapon skill has reached a certain level. And all I ever wanted to see was one battle-hardened know-it-all superdwarf. Switching weapons is not a permanent solution either. It -would- be if the skill and attribute gain/decay control worked properly, but alas... It all comes together in oh so wonderfully frustrating way :/

Editing raws has no effect for sure. At least with DF2010. Saw it myself. In DF2010 I couldn't make a visible difference no matter what changes I made in the raws regarding PHYS_ATT, MENT_ATT or SKILL_RATES tokens (always created a new world afterwards). Believe me, I've read the wiki and read about editing those files. The SPEED:1 cheat, on the other hand, works just fine! It's the skill and attribute gain/decay rates that are immune to raw-file editing. Also, I might still have the save that has all the original 7 dwarves (and a German shephard named Snow White), and in that game the dorfs' stats have gone down the drain over time, even after I supposedly had eliminated stat decay. Other than that, my testing mostly comprised of mining the same size area over and over again after fiddling with the raws and doing a world regen. Never saw any difference regarding attributes or the mining skill.

Military training (individual combat drills anyway) do train strength, agility, and endurance.

Oh hey that's nice. At least the att gains are not 100% broken.

Whoa. I didn't realise 40d was released such a long time ago. I figured the things said in this thread applied to, like, 5 versions back. And I reeeally don't want to touch DF2010 anymore. Dorfs don't gain attributes over time. At all. They just lose them. Not to mention, the cheats to correct this behavior don't work either. It's also essentially broken for skill gains, too. Otherwise (tweaking the rate of) skill decay would've solved this problem. I don't feel too comfortable attempting memory editing either. Looks like I'm f-cked for now (unless reverting to an earlier save and avoiding fights altogether).

Except none of those skill and attribute related cheats actually work.

I've tested this on multiple worlds (regen'd after changes were made).
Skills - They go up and come down just as quickly as before. Doesn't matter what numbers are used, including NONE.
Attributes - They never go up. Your dwarves will only get worse over time, no matter what jobs you assign them, no matter what numbers are used.

True: the stat gain bug kind of depresses me too. What I did in my own game is add the cheat from the wiki to eliminate stat gain, which looks like this:

     [MENT_ATT_RATES:SOCIAL_AWARENESS:200:NONE:NONE:NONE]

Did you mean "eliminate stat decay"? Anyway, none of those MENT_ATT (and PHYS_ATT) lines work when added to creature_standard.txt. Your dwarves will still lose stats (and skills) all the same, it doesn't matter what numbers you put there. Even after world regen. Write down (or memorize) a single dwarf's stats from the profile, let a year or two pass in the game and do a comparison. You'll see the difference. The dwarf's worse than ever.