Bay 12 Games Forum

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Point the first: There's more than one way soap could have higher quality. Same for weapons and armor--they could be more functional (sharper, tougher, whatever) or prettier (more ornate, clever designs, whatever). Currently, value from utility is indistinguishable from value from aesthetics. Point the second: Not really. These days, sure, but way back when you couldn't get that much standardisation of materials and techniques to get an identical product among five soapmakers over the course of their careers, even if the soapmakers didn't want to try improving the soap.

Where did I imply there was only one way to improve any given product? And sure they could have the standardization back then. Just give each soap maker a specific step-by-step formula. And obviously the soap bars wouldn't be identical on an atomic scale, but even back then they had measurements precise enough to replicate a recipe.

"On an atomic scale?" Please stop putting words into my posts. Also, even today, if you give two random people the same recipie for, say, cookies, the cookies will NOT turn out exactly the same as far as eyes, nose, and mouth can tell. And that example doesn't get into things like how lye and tallow might be made in different ways, or how soapers might not be content to make the mediocre soap the redipie makes, or how they could occasionally make mistakes, or how the directions would probably be harder to write down exactly (IRL, few people were literate in medieval times, so why would dwarves be different?), and so forth.

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Where did I suggest this? Maybe you could sell scarecrows...

You'll notice that I never quoted you. That was more or less a continuation of what I said above, where everyone just gave me different types of soap. Do you even thoroughly read something before responding negatively? I'm starting to doubt that you do.

Oh, so let me do the same for you. Since you can create soap at an exact quality level from a set of directions, by your argument, obviously the same can be said for almost every other industry. Since the result of that argument for soap was that there's no need for soap to have different qualities, clearly there's no need to have any quality levels at all for anything! After all, if two people forge a sword from the same set of directions, it'll come out effectively the same, right?
See how extrapolaton leads to strawman arguments?

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You're assuming that standard quality is "average," not "bottom-of-the-barrel." In medieval times, and most of human history, and even todayin less-fortunate lands, people take what they can get, usually taking the cheapest available goods. In modern-day America, we're mostly lucky enough to get to choose to have, perhaps, +cow meat+ or *pig meat*, but a newb butcher would end up making -meat- or meat we wouldn't really want to eat unless we had to (or were offered it be a host we wanted to be polite to, or if it had been prepared by a good chef, or whatever, there's always exceptions to every rule. Thermodynamics are the exception to that rule.)

Each quality has a name and symbol. I'm pretty sure that the name of the worst quality is something along the lines of "normal" or "average".

It has no name.

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Alright, let's put aside the "Every cut of meat should be worth EXACTLY the same, regardless of skill in making it everywhere from jagged, overly fatty, and stained with gland-juice to lovely, perfectly marbled, and clean" issue and focus on speed. Let's chat with ol' John Henry, who managed to beat a steam-powered machine. Not something a normal man could do, but JH was LEGEN(wait for it)DARY. If, in this world of magic and monsters, dwarves of legendary skills can't do legendary tasks...well, can you see the issue?

The speed at which John Henry worked was probably greatly exaggerated. But yeah, the issue is that they are even allowed to obtain legendary status. Cap them at proficient. /thread

But wait! Henry was a LEGEND. Legendary dwarves are LEGENDS. Therefore, if we're discussing legendary dwarves, we can and should compare them to legends!
Also, your argument could just as easily be applied to necromancers, werebeasts, dragons, and even dwarves themselves! After all, none of those existed!

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And, obviously, there's several ways meat could be made better than "fit for consumption." I mentioned several above, from even cuts to the amount of fat to being free of excess "icky" juice. And that's assuming no pseudo-magical powers from legendary dwarves come into play.

How juicy or how lean the meat is depends on what the animal was fed, how old it was, how much exercise it got, etc. The only thing a butcher could really do is cut out the "bad" parts and make it look appetizing.

And not cut into glands...and you seem to be undervaluing the value of appearance. If all cuts of meat are worth the same despite some looking nicer, the same argument could be made that artifact mugs should be worth 10 db. After all, they only look nicer!

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Do you want me to post a screenshot of the masterwork rope I bought (from the elves, IIRC, and definitely in their traders' first visit), or just to trust my word that your assumption is faulty.

In all my fortresses I have yet to see anything masterwork from a human caravan. Elves might bring masterworks, but I don't think so. So yes, screenshot or it didn't happen.

Here we go. The little midgets haven't moved it off my quantum stockpile and into my well yet, but I highlighted the relevant object. Note that my civ, as dwarves, has no access to rope reed, I rarely start a clothing industry (at least not for a while), I have not started planting rope reeds and don't think I have any rope reed seeds, and the masterwork item has the telltale () marks around it.
Screenshot:

It happened.

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Oh and you can already sacrifice a dwarf and spawn a friendly bronze colossus with a little modding.

The "No, you can mod it in yourself so it shouldn't be added to the vanilla game." response really bothers me. That's like saying Toady shouldn't make it easier to assign dwarves jobs because you can just download Dwarf Therapist.

Agreed. Doesn't help that you can't actually mod the stuff that would make this interesting...

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The difference is that the raws are actually, as mentioned, used in-game. For everything. Also, if Toady wanted adamantine to be unmeltable, there's a setting for that: MELTING_POINT:NONE.

All raws are used in game. Technically, even that line of dialogue in Skyrim is used by the guards if you complete that quest, it's just that quest can't be started so the only way to complete it is with console commands. But aside from that, some raws, like the ones for adamantine and for the guards' dialogue in Skyrim, probably aren't supposed to be the way they are and should be ignored. And Toady essentially did make it unmeltable anyways.

A. So...a line of dialoge that never gets said is used in-game, how? And, again, how is adamantine's properties not "supposed to be the way they are" if there is an easy (maybe a minute of work?) way to change them?

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Aside from acid being elfy and the idea that the raws are somehow untrustworthy, I agree with you. As to the second point (the first depends on one's definitions of "dwarfy" and "elfy" (FYI, I use "awesome" and "cheap, respectively)), the raws are as good and reliable a source of info for DF as a physics text is for RL. They don't say everything, but what they say is more or less true, except where bugs or underimplemented features come into play.

Exactly-they are reliable except for when bugs or underimplemented features come into play, or when there was a mistake. Unless Toady says a specific piece of coding is finished and there are no errors with it, then you can't really trust that piece of the raws.

So...wait. You think that the melting point of adamantine is buggy/underimplemented because Toady hasn't changed it to what he wants, and you know he wants it different because he has...what? Left it completely unchanged since the material rewrite?

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Why, because a magical, unearthly metal has some unearthly characteristics that can only be explained by magic? Um...BCs are kinda magical in their description.

I'm not going to talk about adamantine, like I said before. But BCs aren't necessarily magical. To actually answer your question, once again, look at the what I said above.

...The stuff about how Toady's lack of action in changing adamantine is proof that he wants adamantine to change?

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Or even better, one dwarven soul tormented by the spirits of those whose blood fuels the colossus! That could be what transforms the dwarven mind into that of a murderous monster. The only ways to keep a bronze colossus under control are to sate its bloodlust and keep your dwarves away, or to drive off the invading spirits with more blood sacrifices. But the more spirits paid to the beast, the swifter the dwarven mind within deteriorates once the spirits tire of their new companion in eternity, so ever more sacrifices must be made to keep the original mind sane...
Wow, this stuff almost writes itself! Or maybe I read too much fantasy.

Using blood as fuel? The spirits of whatever the blood comes from tormented the soul controlling the colossus. Hmph. Dwarfy enough, but too environmentally friendly. The elves will approve, which is bad.

Why is environmentally friendly so bad? It's hard to be awesome if you've poisoned the land so much that nothing but silver barbs, muck roots, and maybe dimple cups can grow...

I would be for a recipe-based construction of a colossus if it was contingent upon extremely high quality components and extraordinarily skilled workers that would take pretty much the DF equivalent of what it took to organize the building of the pyramids of Giza.

So far, so good...

Like, I could envision a bronze colossus necessitating such high precision in machining of whatever parts that (within the tech constraints of DF), it would take legendary dwarfs many years to do.  I could also envision it requiring certain alchemical and ritual components that would require extraordinarily rare reagents as well as extremely esoteric knowledge known by only a select few people that would be difficult to get to the fortress or find at all.  Perhaps some sort of contract magic could be involved (like in NW_Kohaku's thread), involving negotiating with gods or demons or whatever.  That would be rad...

Putting aside the exact lengths of time, I don't like anything that requires legendary dwarves just because. Maybe a single moderately-skilled dwarf could make a crude bronze statue for the BC to be made from in 20-50 years, with legendaries making it in 5-10 years, higher skill providing a gradual shift, and multiple dwarves being able to work on the same statue. Something like that. Legendary dwarves might be required to make it practical, but shouldn't be required to make it possible. This is, BTW, on top of the "Special Event" idea of how to make it possible in the first place (probably a secret of some kind).

Of course, mere golems and automations would be simpler, but also dumb and/or not able to do detailed work (art, engraving, pretty much anything but entertaining noble children, hauling, maybe combat and/or other menial tasks).

I'll try to go over the basic list of weapon types and what I think kobolds should have for them.

Digging--Shovels. Duh
Woodcutting/Limb Severing--Hatchets.
Stabbing--Spikes/Stakes, Daggers (wrong category?). Daggers should be createable directly from enemy swords and spears and such, and should be the non-crude version of the weapon. As non-kobold-specific weapons should be unuseable by kobolds, this will make daggers very useful, even though you can't make them out of wood.
Combo-Sharp--Daggers. See above. Maybe add some kind of small, swordlike weapon?
Armor-piercing--Clubs. They should have a big head, fairly small contact area, and high velocity multiplier so that even wooden ones are good vs. armor.
Projectile--Atlatls (or spearthrowers, for a non-aztecey feel). Kobolds should also be able to steal bows and make arrows.

Weird*--War-Totems. They'd be a bit harder to make (requiring a special workshop to transform totems into war-totems and perhaps having a chance to produce a syndromey gas mentioned below) but once you do you can have a shaman "chant" or something to summon some charges for the totems, with a chance of producing a strange gas that renders the shaman injured and tired in its wake. The charges would be an ammo type called "charge," with a material called "magical" that has 0 material_value (to prevent trade spam). Totems would be weaker than atlatls, but would have cheaper ammo. Their attacks in melee would use the hammer or mace skill, as opposed to the atlatls's sword- or knifebold skill.
Cheap--Some sort of wooden weapon, like a small stake. Uses the knife skill.
Expensive**--Maybe daggers, since they require you to break down enemy weapons to make, but more interesting is some kind of reverse-engineered crossbow (termed the "crude crossbow" for now). The crude crossbow would be tough to make. The first step would be to break down enemy crossbows, creating "crossbow parts" (tools?) and possibly crossbow plans. Using the crossbow plans (which might be preserved, or might be consumed 1-5% of the time), a bowyer/mechanic in a custom workshop could make a crude crossbow from crossbow parts; using the plans with no chance of destruction, s/he could also make wooden crossbow parts or bolts. Maybe some kind of upgraded war-totem (requiring some kind of sacrifice of wood, food, or blood?), capable of being used to summon "powerful magic" charges, would be neat.
*Like whips.
**No precedent in vanilla, but plenty in mods.

On the topic of soaps, I asked for how to make a better quality soap, and you all just listed me different types of soap. I could argue that a gritty, non-moisturizing soap is a masterwork heavy-duty soap for cleaning oil and the like off your hands, or that a nice, smooth, soap with a fragrance is regular quality because it just can't get the oil off. Sure, you can make different types of soap, but if five different soap makers use the same process and ingredients to make a bar of soap then all five bars would be pretty much identical, unless one soap maker made a mistake or something.

Point the first: There's more than one way soap could have higher quality. Same for weapons and armor--they could be more functional (sharper, tougher, whatever) or prettier (more ornate, clever designs, whatever). Currently, value from utility is indistinguishable from value from aesthetics. Point the second: Not really. These days, sure, but way back when you couldn't get that much standardisation of materials and techniques to get an identical product among five soapmakers over the course of their careers, even if the soapmakers didn't want to try improving the soap.

On the topic of having different types of soap, I agree there should be a few types, like regular soap dwarves use to bathe, medical grade soap used in hospitals, and heavy-duty soap used by janitors. But to have twenty different types of soap that each have one of ten textures and one of a hundred different fragrances would add nothing to the game, and just make the system confusing and too complex.

Where did I suggest this? Maybe you could sell scarecrows...

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First off, it's 12. Second off, if I had money to blow, I just might. Especially since masterworks made by legendary dwarves would be perfect in every way.

Fair enough. But the thing is, in Dwarf Fortress, there are no "bad" or "poor" qualities that give it a negative value multipliers. Something is either normal, which basically means it's your everyday item that you see at a store, or better than normal, which means it stands out as being above average. I can see how some with the cash to spare would buy a nicely cut piece of meat rather than a barely edible one, but in Dwarf Fortress there aren't steaks cut in such a way as to be barely edible; just ones of average quality or better. Normal quality would imply that the piece of meat is  fine, how could you somehow cut it better so that it would be worth more?

You're assuming that standard quality is "average," not "bottom-of-the-barrel." In medieval times, and most of human history, and even todayin less-fortunate lands, people take what they can get, usually taking the cheapest available goods. In modern-day America, we're mostly lucky enough to get to choose to have, perhaps, +cow meat+ or *pig meat*, but a newb butcher would end up making -meat- or meat we wouldn't really want to eat unless we had to (or were offered it be a host we wanted to be polite to, or if it had been prepared by a good chef, or whatever, there's always exceptions to every rule. Thermodynamics are the exception to that rule.)

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You referenced the fact that meat lacks quality levels, which is something that could very well change to, say, make legendary butchers useful.

Read the above for why I think meat shouldn't and doesn't have quality levels. The only real thing a more skilled butcher does in DF is work faster, but there should be a cap at how fast any person can butcher an animal, which is why I think butchers shouldn't be able to get a skill level above proficient.

Alright, let's put aside the "Every cut of meat should be worth EXACTLY the same, regardless of skill in making it everywhere from jagged, overly fatty, and stained with gland-juice to lovely, perfectly marbled, and clean" issue and focus on speed. Let's chat with ol' John Henry, who managed to beat a steam-powered machine. Not something a normal man could do, but JH was LEGEN(wait for it)DARY. If, in this world of magic and monsters, dwarves of legendary skills can't do legendary tasks...well, can you see the issue?

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Why not? After all, there's superiorly and masterfully cut large gems and cloth.

While I don't really understand how you could give meat quality levels other than "good" or "poorly cut", gems and cloth, especially gems, should have quality levels. Good cloth is woven in a repeating pattern so it looks nice, and is as tight so that it doesn't come undone, and in some cases, can be waterproof. Therefor, there are bound to be some pieces of cloth made better than others. As in for gemstones, a masterwork cut would be one that hides or gets rid of any impurities or other flaws in the gem, makes the gem reflect light in the proper way, and is as geometrically accurate as possible. Obviously, there are plenty of ways to mess up when trying to make a perfect cut, so it makes sense to have quality levels.

And, obviously, there's several ways meat could be made better than "fit for consumption." I mentioned several above, from even cuts to the amount of fat to being free of excess "icky" juice. And that's assuming no pseudo-magical powers from legendary dwarves come into play.

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I disagree. The fragrances and textures would be like decorations, unobtrusive for gameplay unless you go look for it. People might prefer particular fragrances, but right now the game doesn't become unplayable either because some dwarves really, really like prepared dragon fly brains for breakfast. As soon as a decent trade system is in place that will mostly take care of itself anyway.

With the upcoming personality rewrites I bet the silly "Urist likes cake and hates *insert creature you've never even heard of here* for their fuzzy hair!" likes system will be drastically changed. But I guess you could have fragrances for the heavy-duty soap to mask the smell of whatever the janitor had to clean up, and fragrances in regular soap that could give dwarves various thoughts based on whether or not they like the smell.
But I still say no to having more than the 3 types of soap that I listed. Those are really all that I can see a fortress needing, and having anymore would just make it confusing to newcomers and make it annoying for me when I have to scroll through a huge list looking for the few types of soap that I would actually use/need.

Again, no one suggested that soap will or should ever be an overcomplicated system. (Your creation could use a brain.) However, this could be a neat idea, separate as it is from your own views and our current discussion. "Urist McDwarf has been happy lately. He has smelled some nice soap smells. He has bathed with nice-smelling soap."

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I interpreted the quality system that normal items are functional, just that. Better cut pieces of meat would have better textures, the right amount of fat, coherent, etc: all important qualities for cooking meals. The most important direct effect could be that better cut body parts are easier to preserve, or that cut poison glands have more poison... That being said, meat is one of those things that would benefit more from being generated with xxmodifiersxx when the skill of the butcher is too low.. It's on the cusp. It's not just a bulk good like ore, but neither a complex crafted good like a chainmail armor.

But it's "normal", which I don't think is meant to give a bad connotation. On top of that, I think traders can only bring items up to fine (maybe superior) level, which implies that anything above normal is very good, and that once you start nearing masterwork quality the items are awe-striking.

Do you want me to post a screenshot of the masterwork rope I bought (from the elves, IIRC, and definitely in their traders' first visit), or just to trust my word that your assumption is faulty?

Quote from: G-Flex on June 21, 2012, 01:22:26 pm

Quote from: Silverionmox on June 21, 2012, 11:19:00 am

I'm not even sure differently functioning types of soap are needed: they can function more effectively is some cases depending on their composition and the additions, but they're all just soap too. But the infrastructure for the fragrances/decorations is there, it would be silly not to use them. Also, I want soap crafts instead of just bars..

I'm not even sure differently functioning types of weaponry are needed: They can function more effectively in some cases depending on their composition and the shape, but they're all just weapons too.

The difference is that different weapons require different skills to use properly. The material ànd the shape matter.
Soap is more a kind of bulk product: the chemical composition matters, not the shape. You can still wash your hands with detergent, clean your sink with shampoo, and do your hair with hand soap, they'll function. In the relevant time frame fragrant soap was a kind of luxury. The cleaners just used any soap available, with some slight personal preference. And of course weapons have much larger symbolic value, so they get more attention.
(I once made a table trying to reproduce most known weapons by randomly generating eight variables: among them were sharpness, pointedness, sides, hinges, size, ... I made a table for naming conventions. I ended up with giant scissors as one of the labels )

His point was that assuming that all items of a given function are interchangeable was faulty.

Maybe under the menu for Fortress Mode, under the options in the main screen, and Armok-knows-where in Adventure Mode?

Only issue (aside from coding) is that it'd probably impact FPS.

Hm, trying to come up with 16 more-or-less unconfuseable adjetives that accurately and simply convey the skill of a dwarf, without including adjectives unrelated to skill...let me try!

Unskilled (0)
Poor (1)
Bad (2)
Acceptable (3)
Competant (4)
Decent (5)
Proficient (6)
Above Average (7)
Good (
Excellent (9)
Impressive (10)
Well-Known* (11)
Awe-Inspiring (12)
Master (13)
High Master** (14)
Grand Master (15)
Legendary*** (16-19?)
Perfect (20+, or whenever masterworks occur 95-99% of the time)
*At this title, the craftsman would be a choice for images and engravings in the fortress, and more rarely elsewhere in the same civ.
**At this title, images would occur more commonly in the civ, and would appear in images from other civs rarely.
***At this title, images would be omnipresent in the fortress (appearing subsequently as often as basic shapes), and would be fairly common in the engravings and art of other civs. The craftsman or worker would get a special, legendary boost or ability depending on the skill. I'll come up with a list later.

How's the list?

Awesome! I'll be sure to watch it in the morning. Or eventually...