Bay 12 Games Forum

The string change is easy enough. But, from my recent experience with reworking material names, it can be hard to make proper strings for every case. For example, wood material preferences add a "wood" suffix, this lead to string like "rubber wood wood" (in DF). My current code doesn't add it any more, but I am thinking of re-adding it in the tool-tip only, to avoid confusion between words like "oak" (the material) and "oaks" (the trees). The other places display the preference category so there is no confusion. The tool-tip would have a repetition in some cases but that would mimic the game strings.

Although removing the "of" from the tool-tip string would fix the grammar, I think should try to fix the form name instead. For example, when I see "The Evisceration of Dominion" in game, DT displays "Of evisceration". With the proper form name, the "of" from the tool-tip will be needed ("the words of " + "The Evisceration of Dominion"). I think there is code for that in df-structures, I need to learn how this work (edit: DT seems to actually use the same algorithm).

Edit2: There was a hard-coded offset that is different on 32 and 64 bits platforms. Quick and dirty fix here, but I should really de-hardcode that.

I tried to fill the half implemented creature materials category in the custom role dialog, but it added too many materials (~17000) and it was really slow. I then filtered them to keep only leathers, it is much better but still a little slow. I am going through all races and and race materials to find those with a LEATHER flag, so I am still loading every creature material in the game even if I am not adding them in the dialog. Is there a better way to find them?

I am still not sure how to match parchment preferences. Is using the material id (should be "PARCHMENT" if I understand correctly) the only way?

My issue is not reading dwarf preferences, it is finding the list of all possible preferences (for the custom role dialog). A material preference is a material (mattype + matindex) and a material state (mat_state). There is a global list of materials that is currently used by DT. But for each material, I don't know if I should care about mat_state and, if I do, what are the meaningful values. There don't seem to be any global list of preferences where dwarves would pick from (in df-structures, unit_preference is on used in unit/soul).

@PatrikLundell I think thread and cloth use the same material, in the same state. When a dwarf likes linen, he will like linen thread, linen cloth, linen clothes, ...

I could be totally wrong, as always, but I don't remember seeing preferences for plant thread or animal fabric.  Dwarfs definitely get preferences for plant cloth (fabric) and yarn (animal wool thread).  The wiki http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Preferences seems to suggest this as well.  I can't check any big forts right now as I've got my stuff strung out over three machines (in different location, at that).  So no help there.   

Interesting wiki page, but it looks outdated: it is missing plant paper (and parchment, and maybe others).

Sounds like you've got it covered for the paper/fabric distinction.    (Fallback workaround could be to check the text strings of preferences for 'paper' or 'cloth' matches, but that is so ugly...).

No, I don't think partially matching strings would be simpler.

For b) no, I have not been clear.  The roles calculation spits out a number between 0 and 100 for how well each dwarf is suited for each role.  Problems arise when adding custom roles.  Say I add a role Carpenter+, which is a revision of the attributes, preferences, skill(s) I want in finding a carpenterdwarf.  Now the data set for suitability includes both Carpenter and Carpenter+ and that has knock on effects as to the reported suitability for other roles - basically if the roles are minimally different then the weight of that role as a data point has just been doubled.  (The calculation has always been opaque to me but includes various processes of 'normalisation' 'shaping' etc.)  I would like to be able to specify which roles are to be used for the roles calculation.  So following the example above I could tell DT not to use Carpenter as part of the data set for roles calculation but only Carpenter+.  Or to put it another way (since I often struggle with clarity of expression):  can we get the feature to ask DT to consider the suitability of dwarfs with respect to a limited - user specified - set of roles?  Taking a concrete example (not that I would use it this way...) - lets say we have just embarked and know we want 7 jobs done and don't care whatsoever about future plans.  We want a Miner, a Mason, a Woodcutter, a Fisher, a Herbalist, a Carpenter, and an Animal Trainer.  So we want tell DT to limit the roles calculation to just those 7 roles (and not be worried by how suitable the various dwarfs are as Strand Extractors or Potters).

I am even more confused now. I am not a advanced role user, so I may be missing something. The places I look for role suitability are dwarf details or the role tab (grid view). For dwarf details, a global filter list could be added in the options. For the role tab, you can replace it with a custom grid view with only the columns you are interested in. Or do you want a new dialog or dock?

Anyway, I need to look more at how the roles work internally. And the custom role dialog looks like it needs some improvements.

It would be good to include a note on the github page about the availability of the manual from within DT (or even a link to the download on dffd) so that new users compiling it for themselves don't feel obligated to install latex just to get the manual.

I added the DFFD link in the Readme. As for the "Manual" button, it is clearly visible in the tool bar (and the help menu), and the best place to explain it would be... the manual (sections 5.5 and 5.7 are missing it).

They are skills not roles. The names are from the game, there is not much to debate (but I could have made a mistake while copying them).

I did not add any role related to this (and I don't think there is currently any). You can make detailed suggestions when you have the time. I did not play enough with this to know which roles would be useful.

Edit: Since you are speaking of naturalists, I see I am missing the tracker skill. I dismissed it as an adventure skill, but it is also used for scholars.
Edit2: Is "reader" of any use in Fortress mode?

I'll use the list from here. That add "Speaker" too.

Edit: After your post in the DFHack thread I decided to compare this entry with the corresponding one in my old DT (37.0.0) layout file, and it's 0x40 in that file as well, without that version crashing. I don't know how to interpret that, though...

Not every invalid value makes DT crash or hang, sometimes it detects absurd values and ignore them, sometimes invalid values look good and it just display the invalid values in the interface.

But now I see there is actually a big issue with the auto-updater. Anyone who used splintermind version before will have DT configured to fetch memory layouts on splintermind repo where there is an invalid one for 0.43.05 win32.

Important message to anyone who has used Dwarf Therapist before this release:

You need to check the settings for the automatic updates. In "Options" -> "General" tab -> "Updates", click on "Restore Default". Otherwise DT will fetch files from a repository that can no longer be updated.