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Author Topic: Tools for every profession  (Read 11794 times)

gurra_geban

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Tools for every profession
« on: April 05, 2012, 07:29:51 am »

Most workshops right now in Dwarf Fortress are made magically by a dwarf formaing a piece of wood or stone into shape, creating the workplace for a specific task and all the tools for it.

The workspace creation is fine for me, but i would like to see an addition that would make the dwarven industry more "alive".

What if all workshops required an item called a "toolkit". A toolkit could be used for making any workshop, a toolkit would have a specific amount of times it could be used depending on what it's made out of and it would be created by a carpenter, mason or metalsmith. When a toolkit in a workshop breaks the workshop would need another toolkit to be functional.

Except from the aspect of realism in this feature i think it would be a nice touch to raise the bar on having a self sufficient fortress. Right now about 50%-90% of all the things a fortress produces are raw export goods, which doesn't do wonders for the satisfaction of having a fortress which holds it's own.

Of course the durability of toolkits would have to be high and the worth low in the raws, to make it simple for beginners, and intermediate to expert players could just raise the bar by modifying the raws for a more challenging game. The game is already a hell for new players to start anyways ^^

Any feedback, is this worth anything for anyone but me?
Thanks for your time :)
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Urist McAddict

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #1 on: April 05, 2012, 07:46:22 am »

Some modders already "started" this line, as in the Scriptorium, they use it as a tool with a chance of it being destroyed (use it as a material with a 95% chance of it coming back at the end of the process), so, until the next crafts/commerce arc, i think that it'll have to work like this, at least until the wear'n'tear for metal items are on effect.

So if you want to make it like this, add Saw (for wood crafts), Forging Tools and Hammer & Chisel as tools and materials for the jobs and put it as a possible byproduct with a high chance of appearing (90-99%) and you'll make something like what you propose.
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gurra_geban

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #2 on: April 05, 2012, 08:00:11 am »

Alright, thanks =)

Ive not been active in the forums for like, 3 years so im a bit behind on the debate
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #3 on: April 05, 2012, 08:30:14 am »

There have been several threads in this vein in the past.

This one comes most immediately to mind, but then, it's because it was an argument I participated in. 

Granted, your idea is much simpler than that one, but a big part of why this isn't done is that we already have something in the ballpark of a hundred kinds of items to keep track of, and what this is doing is just adding more items into the pile while adding nothing to help the player actually manage the information.

Something relatively simple, like just making "kits" (which could be made more generic, so that the same knife set that a kitchen requires is also what a butcher or a fish cleaner requires, etc.) a part of the construction of workshops could add a little verisimilitude to the game, and you'd only have to add a half-dozen more types of items to the game if you could keep the kits relatively generic.

The big problem with a percentage breaking concept is that what we really need in this game for its workshops is more automation and less micromanagement.  What this will do is simply make players have to babysit the workshops more, because the workshops that players think are going to be working will suddenly break, and they will have to replace them.

This isn't something that adds challenge to the game - this is something that just adds one more item on a checklist of things to check when you pause the game, and adds more things you have to tell workers to rebuild, wait for it to be built, punch in all your orders all over again, and then let the game get working again.

Micromanagement is the enemy in this game, because what we need is not more things to do, but more things the computer can take off our hands so that we can focus on broader and more meaningful topics, such as resource management or internal fortress social pressures.

Even if you automate the replacement of these kits, what have you really accomplished?  You've simply added one more item whose levels have to be kept up that doesn't actually add any real features to the game, and is basically invisible to the player unless everything is broken.
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fluiddruid

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #4 on: April 05, 2012, 12:16:26 pm »

NW_Kohaku, I agree with you.  I don't think this adds anything meaningful to the game and it bogs down efficiency with no benefit in terms of challenge or interest.  We also don't see wear on metal or rock items now, so it seems odd that a hammer and chisel would break when a copper pick never does. 

Keep in mind, too, that it's not uncommon for antique tools to last decades; they were expensive.  We're not talking mass-produced garbage from big box stores that breaks after a year or two.  I would expect most dwarven tools to work for many, many years of use.

If we feel the need to balance the constant output of workshops (especially given upcoming hauling changes that should drastically decrease the workload required to unclutter), why not just lengthen the time to complete jobs and/or tire out working dwarves more quickly?   If materials cost for particular items is an issue, make items require additional materials to make (e.g. leather need to make padding and straps for metal armor)?  If the cost to make a workshop itself is too low, why not require more to make the workshops?  I don't see a situation that needs an additional item type and the related micromanagement of adding workshop tools.


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Silverionmox

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #5 on: April 05, 2012, 02:14:59 pm »

I'd rather stick to single tools than "toolkits". It's much more vivid, and it brings a certain Spartan charm to the dwarves.

So a workshop would have a mandatory tool, and optionally a few ones that improve speed or quality when present, but their lack doesn't prevent the job from being done.
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #6 on: April 05, 2012, 03:09:22 pm »

I'd rather stick to single tools than "toolkits". It's much more vivid, and it brings a certain Spartan charm to the dwarves.

So a workshop would have a mandatory tool, and optionally a few ones that improve speed or quality when present, but their lack doesn't prevent the job from being done.

As was discussed thoroughly in the previous instance of this same argument, lack of a bonus is the same thing as a penalty.

Unless you strip the micromanagement out of this idea by making dwarves automatically build and replace their own tools, this is just making the game unplayable and unfun for most players just to satisfy an insatiable "realism" fetish that isn't even that realistic to begin with.

There's a serious problem with something like a 5% break rate on a saw - who, exactly, buys a saw that is only capable of sawing down an average of 20 logs before it snaps?  How is that realism? 

Tools need to be maintained, and maybe there could be some realism factor in that if you absolutely, positively have to have the most granular details on everything in the game, but forcing players to manually order repairs and replacements is just unfun busywork.

Again, if the point is to consume more resources, there are better ways to accomplish this, and it is through the way that resources are generated, used, and labor to gather it in general.  Those threads all work to add complexity in a way that mitigates the micromanagement and busywork while allowing the player to focus more greatly upon the actual choices that exist in the game, rather than the routine maintenance of the choices you have already made.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2012, 03:13:29 pm by NW_Kohaku »
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Silverionmox

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #7 on: April 05, 2012, 04:07:25 pm »

Wear and tear is another discussion. It's an item sink, and a way to feel you earned your nice workshop (if you have to keep producing tools to keep it spic and span). Naturally, it will only be fun if the dwarves are able to replace worn stuff all by themselves, like they do with clothes.
As far as the production goes, I don't see the problem to require player approval/orders. Fortresses don't grow large enough yet to make that a problem. Tools can be stockpiled. We can assume the rule that workshop slow down and decrease the quality of their output as the tools deteriorate, but will keep working nonetheless. But the rate of tool degradation, and therefore replacement rate, is a matter of balancing the numbers.

Alternatively, and that's nice too, let dwarves keep the tools of their trade themselves, as personal belongings. It has historical precedence, dwarves already show up with job-related stuff as immigrants, and you're guaranteed to have the right tools at hand in every workshop. The player's task is to set up the spaces and the larger furnishings like furnaces, spinning wheels, cutting tables etc.
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Jake

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #8 on: April 05, 2012, 04:49:32 pm »

I laid out a framework for how this might work in an older thread on the subject. My feeling is that tools would be better used as part of the reaction rather than part of the workshop, because that would enable them to be shared between jobs and reduce the number of different kinds of tool needed; instead of "mason's tools", "craftsman's tools" and so on we could just have maybe a dozen individual tools and mix and match them as needed. Ideally this would all be in the raws, so that real purists could mod in every single medieval tool ever used whilst the Lazy Newb Pack could replace the whole lot with a single "toolbox" item.
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #9 on: April 05, 2012, 06:14:58 pm »

Wear and tear is another discussion. It's an item sink, and a way to feel you earned your nice workshop (if you have to keep producing tools to keep it spic and span). Naturally, it will only be fun if the dwarves are able to replace worn stuff all by themselves, like they do with clothes.
As far as the production goes, I don't see the problem to require player approval/orders. Fortresses don't grow large enough yet to make that a problem. Tools can be stockpiled. We can assume the rule that workshop slow down and decrease the quality of their output as the tools deteriorate, but will keep working nonetheless. But the rate of tool degradation, and therefore replacement rate, is a matter of balancing the numbers.

Alternatively, and that's nice too, let dwarves keep the tools of their trade themselves, as personal belongings. It has historical precedence, dwarves already show up with job-related stuff as immigrants, and you're guaranteed to have the right tools at hand in every workshop. The player's task is to set up the spaces and the larger furnishings like furnaces, spinning wheels, cutting tables etc.

The thing about breaking tools and the need to replace them, while at the same time having 5 or so tools per job, however, is that, again, you are basically telling players to keep track of 100 more new things that are critical to fortress survival.

Compare this to having to basically worry about only wood, iron, steel, food, booze, and maybe some extra things like flux as raw materials, and worrying about doors, barrels, bins, beds, and maybe a few other things that you can frequently run out of without particularly noticing.

It's a massive leap upwards in the number of items that need to be kept track of, and without the ability to simply let dwarves take care of it, it becomes an accounting nightmare that is purely on the player in exchange for absolutely no gameplay benefit.

Again, these three suggestions are things which actually add to the number of real, meaningful choices that a player has to make.  Forcing players to track 100 tools just to keep doing the things they already can do is simply adding mindless busywork.  There's a huge difference.

Even if there were standing orders and the like to keep dwarves supplying themselves with tools, this could basically be simulated with just having dwarves repeatedly go "on break" to just "maintain their tools", and it would have the exact same gameplay impact.  Adding all these tools that must be micromanaged and maintained without adding any real meaning to what the player actually sees and interacts with runs into the same problem as the eyelash length counter that is in creature raws - there is no way to actually see or meaningfully interact with the length of a creature's eyelashes, but they take up cycle time as the game tracks their eyelash growth rates, anyway.
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sockless

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #10 on: April 07, 2012, 12:03:23 am »

Being always the proponent of tools in workshops, and hence the antagonist of Kohaku, I feel I have to chip in once again to the argument.

Tools shouldn't break, I have never broken a decent tool, but then again I do take care of my tools.

Tools do need maintenance though. If I have a chisel, I need to sharpen it from time to time, but I probably won't break it (I do have a broken chisel that I got from someone else, but I just ground in a new edge so that it still works).

However, if a klutz comes in and tries using my tools, there's a good chance that there will be breakages, snapping hacksaw blades comes to mind here. Also, if the tools are bad quality, they can break (drill bits are a good example). Yet more tools will break if you don't maintain them, but that's mostly machines rather than hand tools.

As such, you can't just have something with a certain chance of breaking, it depends on multiple factors, and I think that this should be factored in. If we were to have tools, they would have a base quality level, and then one that goes down over time, and can be raised back up with maintenance. Dwarves would naturally go for the highest quality tools, and when repairing tools they would find the lowest quality tools.

On to the subject of actually having tools. I don't having a generic tool kit is a good idea, it just adds another thing that you require without adding depth. If anything, it's just an annoyance, since you just end up having to make a pile of tool kits every once in a while.

Instead, I think that there should be separate tools, but none of them should be compulsory. An example is building a table, if you want a basic table that holds things, you can cobble one together with a hand saw, bits of 2x4 and some nails. If you want a quality table that looks nice and would sell for more than a fiver, you need chisels, sand paper and planers, to name a few tools. This can be replicated in DF, when you first make a fortress and you want to make tables for your dining room, you can make them with simply an axe.

I think that this would require a revised manager system to work properly, since you would have to be able to do things like ordering sets of items (so you can order a "carpenters kit", which would include chisels, saws, planes etc.).

I think what this discussion boils down into is a conflict of philosophies, I believe that the game should be as deep and intricate as possible, simulating real life essentially (which is why I am against vampires etc), while people like Kohaku believe that the game should be more "gamey". I think that there should be dozens of different tools for different cultures etc, which I can then see moving through the fortress and having an effect, I want there to be an effect when there is a crappy tool maker, I like seeing the causes and interactions of events, like if a cook makes a bad batch and seeing the food poisoning sweep the fortress.
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MrWiggles

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #11 on: April 07, 2012, 12:06:53 am »

In before the link dump.
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Silverionmox

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #12 on: April 07, 2012, 09:12:21 am »

The thing about breaking tools and the need to replace them, while at the same time having 5 or so tools per job, however, is that, again, you are basically telling players to keep track of 100 more new things that are critical to fortress survival. [...] for absolutely no gameplay benefit.
Hardly. Just a few basic tools would be needed to do the basics (among which axes and picks, which are essential embark material already). More tools are optional to increase quality or diversity of industries. That still doesn't preclude bootstrapping a fortress with nothing but spit and sweat, provided the right raw materials are available (starting from stone axes and stone hammers, (hammered) loose ore and firewood. Cast your first pick and chisel in sand and you're off.)

Even if there were standing orders and the like to keep dwarves supplying themselves with tools, this could basically be simulated with just having dwarves repeatedly go "on break" to just "maintain their tools", and it would have the exact same gameplay impact.
I don't think so. First, you can make choices on embark or in production: which tools do I emphatize?
Secondly, it opens up possibilities like artifact tools, dwarves getting attached to their tools, jealousy etc.
Thirdly, it makes the industrial expansion more gradual: instead of setting up a workshop in year one that serves all your needs until doomsday, you now have the option to improve your workshops.

Adding all these tools that must be micromanaged and maintained without adding any real meaning to what the player actually sees and interacts with runs into the same problem as the eyelash length counter that is in creature raws - there is no way to actually see or meaningfully interact with the length of a creature's eyelashes, but they take up cycle time as the game tracks their eyelash growth rates, anyway.
I don't see the micromanagement. You just need a tool to build a workshop instead of just a material block (which obviously is a placeholder.) I'm in favour of requiring just single (or none, or exceptionally two) tools as essential for a functional workshop, the rest would be optional improvements (and should be available in the list to build other workshops with if you happen to have a shortage, although color-marked).
In addition, most tools should have a very low wear and tear pace. Historically, good tools were often passed down a generation. As a consequence, players that favour short games won't even know tools wearing out exists. Those in longer games will... if they care. As a safeguard measure, one can also assume that completely worn down tools keep functioning indefinitely, as to prevent surprise breakdowns of your industry.

Frankly, for these goals, you'd better campaign to reduce the number of clothes: those wear out much sooner, are much more numerous, and cause much more hauling tasks.
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Baselope

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #13 on: April 07, 2012, 09:58:28 am »

Here's my idea for workshops: add a default building queue that can be optional, but would be like a "workshop autopilot" and produce the things most commonly needed.  For example, carpenters workshop should automatically make a bed for each dwarf if there is some threshold stock of wood and no other orders...  I think this is similar but extended version of what is in the current suggestion poll.

This would still allow micro - sometimes I want to micro my shops, but then I won't be worried about missing stupid basic things even Uris mcManager could have thought of doing when Bob the Dwarf says "Gee I'm unhappy I have no furniture at all", and maybe there will be fewer parties, etc.  Yeah, I'll still have to install them, but we all know that isn't a big bother as we all like forts and designing them.  That's happy micro.
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ravaught

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Re: Tools for every profession
« Reply #14 on: April 07, 2012, 10:59:15 am »

@NW_Kohaku

I really do see your point about the micro management, but I also really wish you would quit derailing threads to push what basically amounts to an interface agenda. We all know that the interface needs an overhaul, particularly in the way information is tracked by and presented to the player. We also all know that there needs to be a better method for tracking and automating job orders. We get it. Really. We do. Please stop derailing every decent idea because of this issue. I have seen this same exact arguement on so many threads now that it has stopped being amusing. While I agree with you 100% on the issue, I do not think it makes other suggestions that have real merrit invalid, it simply means that they should have a lower priority over the interface overhaul. So, please, with all due respect(because you really do have good ideas with lots of informative responses) please stop trying to kill ideas for interface reasons.


@gurra_gaban

I think this idea has a lot of merrit. Personally, I would like to see the idea teired out a little bit to make it viable for early, mid, and late game use. For example, you should still be able to build and run basic work shops as they are now but with a maximum quality that they could produce. Creating a workshop out of blocks with a 'toolbox' could give a bonus, raising the quality bar by one or two notches. At this teir, perhaps creating some stone tools would increase the output timewise without affecting the quality. Finally, creating metal tools that could be claimed by individual dwarves much like clothing could finally open up the final teirs, perhaps even introducing a minimum quality that is balanced by their skill level. I would even go so far as to suggest that metal workshop tools are not usable by the 0-3rd level craftsman.(I think of them in terms of apprentices or novices just blundering their way through stuff.)
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