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[Jake]

Actually, no. You assign tools to a work zone because you want them to be available there when you need them.

The jobs you can potentially do in a workshop zone, however, should not depend on a static predetermined type like workshops now, but on the tools and infrastructure you have available.

And there's always the design option to let the dwarves own and take care of the tools they use.

Maybe it's a question of personal preference, but I think tools should go where the infrastructure is; it would rather quickly become irritating if production in Workshop Zone A was held up because all the Large Hammers had been mistakenly assigned to Workshop Zone B which didn't have any anvils in or something, but the game wouldn't let your dwarves do the sensible thing and just go and borrow a couple.

[Silverionmox]

If its a large tool, why would it ever need to leave the workshop?

If it's big, it's probably built furniture. Nobody's asking for dwarves to carry around anvils or bellows. Hammers, they might. (It's what woodcutters and miners already do...). Needles, brushes, knifes, etc.: I'd rather have that in the inventory and the clothes abstracted, if I had to choose.

Any given craft could have a myriad of different tools that would make sense to be part of the workshop, in which case we're back to just having big expanded lists of building components.

It's optional improvement. Ignore at will.

If you want to introduce tools as variables in the effectiveness or functionality of a workshop (which I agree are pretty bland constructs of the game), then we're looking at a fundamental workshop change, which would not be trivial to introduce, much less abstract into the raws.  While adding a layer of complexity here isn't a bad thing, its not something that should be done lightly.

Actually, a workshops in room form redesign would make the workshops raw obsolete... we'd just have to indicate which furniture is necessary or useful for a certain labour/skill in the raws, and you'd assemble - and adapt - your workshops on the fly.

Sure, it may be too simple to make certain items or start industries.  But implementing tools would not really have a payoff in expanding the creative toolbox of the fortress overseer.  I admit this is the "workshops are boring, and fixing them would be boring" argument, but Toady's time is at a premium, and I don't see the time/reward ratio as being particularly practical, especially when many players would almost certainly view the system as a downright nuisance.  With that in mind, I would place this as a third priority behind other new features and bug fixing.

He's doing hauling! We've been waiting for half a decade for that. Joy!

True, as long as tools aren't going to influence the workings of the workshop, it's not a big deal. But it's a starting point for bigger things. Although just requiring tools would severely curtail the expansion rate of your starting fortress, your forge would become top priority, and mining a necessity; well, that, or some kind of cash crops.

[ravaught]

I think Silverionmox has hit the nail on the head with one of his statements, and I wanted to reemphasize it:

True, as long as tools aren't going to influence the workings of the workshop, it's not a big deal. But it's a starting point for bigger things.

The other thing I wanted to re-emphasize is:

Tools are already part of the game in a very similar manner that we are asking for. We just want to see that functionality expanded.

We tend to get hung up on tools as the province of craftsman, but tools are really any item used to accomplish, expedite, or enhance any other task. Your chair/table that you use as a study/throne/dining hall is a tool to expedite managerial tasks and enhance dining. Your masterwork battle axe is a tool to expedite the labor of killing stuff. Your catapult is a tool for amplifying force by using leverage and torque to move objects in a most !FUN! manner. Clothing is a tool for acclimating to the elements.

The interesting thing is that any tool can be repurposed. The axe is as useful for chopping wood as it is for killing. You can strangle someone with a shoe string. You can use a chair as a step stool or break it over a goblins head. Your bed can be a hiding place, a place of rest, a trampoline,  a place to read, or a place to magically summon new and utterly useless dwarfs to your fort to attract Goblin snatchers. Tools are not the 1 dimensional items that they have repeatedly been passed off as. What would happen if you could load a box of steel punches into a catapult and launch them at besieging armies? What if your discarded socks could be repurposed as seed storage bags? What if your word/discarded clothing could be repurposed as rags or mops to make your cleaning dwarves more efficient? What if your pile of smithing hammers became an instant armory for your civilians when the creatures from the deep dark snuck in behind your military defenses? What if that otherwise useless bin of mugs could be repurposed for small item storage in your fort(who doesn't have a cup of pens SOMEWHERE in their life)?

Before we can get to interesting ideas like that though, the concept and functionality of tools has to be extended. Some players will focus on modding them into workshops and crafts, others will work on building them into traps, and still others will fold them into their military to produce new and !FUN! ways of fighting. All of that requires an infrastructure, and that infrastructure is already somewhat in place. It is just scattered around in various parts of the code base. Why is there so much resistance to trying to get those bits and pieces solidified into a single, solid, working, functional structure that can be reused throughout virtually every element of the game? Why should their be one bit of code for bedrooms/dining halls and another bit for workshops when one blanket program that is flexible and extensible could cover all of them more efficiently? The same for the items in the game. Why should their be several different systems when one unified, flexible, and extensible system makes so much more sense?

Let's open up our eyes a bit and look around without the blinders on. This issue, and its suggestion is bigger than simply creating another reaction in the workshops or more stuff for players to micromanage.

[slothen]

well, because re-abstracting everything into a new system would be a hell of a lot of work for a solution that's in search of a problem.  In their current state workshops are flexible and easily modable.  Trying to move away from specialized workshops and toward a generic workshop-as-a-work-zone augmented with a tool system would complicate fortress management, as well as potentially introduce all sorts of new issues and bugs that could take years to fix.

What exactly is the problem with tools again?

1.  dorf has two rocks, and can turn one into a workshop and the other into a chair because he has invisible tools
2.  invisible tools means my mason can't stab people with his chisel.

is there more to it than this?

ps. I know this isn't an 'answer' but out of curiosity, is it possible to introduce a hammer item, such that every forge job/reaction consumes one hammer but also produces one hammer, so they don't disappear/die ?  or make it a 98% chance of producing a hammer, so you have a hammer breakage mechanic?

Let's open up our eyes a bit and look around without the blinders on. This issue, and its suggestion is bigger than simply creating another reaction in the workshops or more stuff for players to micromanage.

This would be a long development cycle, if not quite development-arc length.  Toady has stated many times he wants to put as much of the game as possible into the raws.  When that happens, this will likely have happened.  But none of these ideas scream !!Xx Priority xX!!  which is IMO the main reason people are "wearing blinders."  I believe all of these ideas have merit.

[NW_Kohaku]

Let's open up our eyes a bit and look around without the blinders on.

While there is little point in my adding any further serious argument to this, without it circling around and around the same points, there are a couple things I have to say to this...

First, I have seen very little willingness on your part to consider what other people are saying, so the fact that you are accusing people of "putting on blinders" by arguing against the points you have made, thus demonstrating their reading and considering of these points does your argument no favors.

Second, many of your statements have turned an argument on the merits of an idea into some sort of personal attack.  In that quote, you are not saying that people are mistaken in their beliefs in some things, you are not trying to offer some new perspective on the problem that might convince others to see why you are arguing for this, you are functionally saying that anyone who disagrees is doing so because of willful ignorance or spitefulness. 

There is no point in trying to have a conversation with someone accusing you of only disagreeing with them not because your concerns are valid, but because they are trumped up and only argued out of spite.

The fact that you keep acting surprised when I point these things out to you, Ravaught, tells me you don't understand how to have an argument that doesn't involve these sorts of insults.


And I should also mention the likes of this:

(Btw, did you just add "realism" to the title to attract cheers from the crowd for defeating the designated recurring villain? You didn't even mention it inside.)

Playing some ludicrous victim card even as you dismiss every argument, even those from people trying to argue for tools, simply kills all serious ability to discuss the issues.

[Belteshazzar]

is there more to it than this?

They would open up adventuer-side crafting?

I honestly don't care so much about the tools themselves, but the fact that they represent a system which allows me to turn workshops into designable zones with utility based on the items they contain.

Dwarf Fortress allows for both immense, and tiny constructions, varied styles of erh... interior decorating, but when it comes to the workshops, we are still stuck with almost RTS-esque system of 'little magical houses the things I want spawn out of.'

Hell we could even have *GASP* multiple dwarves using the same workshop zone, so long as they both were not using the same tools!

[ravaught]

This is a response to Nohaku. I am sorry but it has little to do with the topic at hand, so i put the whole think into the spoiler. Feel free to skip.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Let's open up our eyes a bit and look around without the blinders on.

While there is little point in my adding any further serious argument to this, without it circling around and around the same points, there are a couple things I have to say to this...

First, I have seen very little willingness on your part to consider what other people are saying, so the fact that you are accusing people of "putting on blinders" by arguing against the points you have made, thus demonstrating their reading and considering of these points does your argument no favors.

The arguments I have see thus far have been:

It introduces more micromanagement - Which, I have argued against by pointing out that the system does not have to be one where a stockpile full of chisels are made per combine. It could very easily be configured along the same lines as equipping weapons.

It adds nothing to the gameplay - In my Q&A section I quite openly stated that tools by themselves would not add anything to the game play, but, viewed as a system and as part of other changes, both planned and requested, would add a strong framework for things which DO add a lot of value to game play.

It adds no meaningful choices - See above, and also, as silverionx pointed out, not every change needs to have immediate earth-shattering choice impact, and this would constitute a framework not an end solution to game play. Much like your Alchemy suggestion, I might add.

It's not fun - Fun is subjective. What is not fun for you may be an absolute riot for others. Consider how many people walk away from DF because it is not fun for them, while so many of us become hopelessly addicted because it IS fun for us.

All of these and lots lots more have been covered in both responses on this thread, and on links that I have posted in this thread. So do not say that I have not considered nor tried to objectively counter these arguments. Each of the arguments presented against the topic have been addressed individually and en masse, . Every objective argument has been countered with an objective argument, and the same for subjective ones. So, I am not sure where you are coming from on this. You have latched on to one sentence at the end of a long post and are basing your remarks solely on that one comment.

Second, many of your statements have turned an argument on the merits of an idea into some sort of personal attack.  In that quote, you are not saying that people are mistaken in their beliefs in some things, you are not trying to offer some new perspective on the problem that might convince others to see why you are arguing for this, you are functionally saying that anyone who disagrees is doing so because of willful ignorance or spitefulness. 

No, I haven't viewed any of this as a personal attack, as I have told you quite pointedly in private correspondence. Secondly, this comment right here IS basically a personal attack, but one which doesn't bother me in the slightest. Also, as far as not trying to add new perspective, I have tried numerous times to add new perspective to the idea. I even included myself in the statement about not looking at the problem with blinders on because I realized that for the first part of this thread we were ALL looking at workshop items only as tools. As for disagreeing with people, I thought that is part of debate was all about, trying to convince other people to change their point of view and see things from a different perspective. The whole post(where this quote came from) regarding different ways that abstracting the tools would add new and interesting elements to the game was part of that attempt.

There is no point in trying to have a conversation with someone accusing you of only disagreeing with them not because your concerns are valid, but because they are trumped up and only argued out of spite.

I have not said that yours, or anyone else's concerns were not valid. I have said that they were looking at the problem from too personal of an angle. I.E. The game is not being designed for one particular player type with one particular set of tastes, so trying to say that something is not fun because you personally do not enjoy it is not a valid argument. That is Game Design 101 and is one of the FIRST rules of player-centric game design. I have repeatedly said that abstracting these to the raws, it would allow players/modders to mold the game environment to suit their particular play-style, instead of trying to shoehorn players into a one size fits all. And, as you have pointed out, Toady has expressed that he wants to move everything to the raws anyway, so this is something that could be implement parallel to a change that has already been planned. This is no different then suggesting that the user interface be abstracted to <xml>, along with proper tags/mechanics support, so that people who were so inclined could modify it to suit their needs/tastes.

The fact that you keep acting surprised when I point these things out to you, Ravaught, tells me you don't understand how to have an argument that doesn't involve these sorts of insults.

Not sure what you are talking about? That you were insulted by something that was not aimed at you? Not surprised at all. Secondly, what insult? If I include myself in the blinders statement, which seems to be what you are referring to, then I insulted myself as well (note that I repeatedly used 'Our'/'We' and not the singular indicative). Referring to tunnel vision on a problem, or looking at it from one angle only is often referred to as having blinders on. It is not an insult. This is twice now that you have gotten hurt over something that was never intended to be hurtful. I did tell you that it was disingenuous to argue play style differences as a reason for criticizing a mechanic that would allow flexibility for all play-styles, and I stand by that statement because it is true. If you will notice, the layout that I have suggested here does not presuppose any particular style of game play. Whereas, by way of contrast, NOT changing it ensures that certain subgroups of players are not given the chance to play as they like. That is what is meant when I say that criticizing an idea that applies to the game as a whole based on personal play style preferences is disingenuous(false, not in good faith). As a side note, if you will look the statement was not directed at anyone in particular, it was a generalized comment about a type of argument. As you have suggested that I do not argue my position so critically, might I suggest in turn that you not be so quick to take offense and read too much into every uttered word? If you spend your life looking for insults, you are sure to find them.

Quite frankly, I don't know you. I don't know any of you personally. I have nothing against any of you personally. The only reasons I am here are to try and support DF both monetarily and with suggestions for improvement, and for my own benefit as it allows me an opportunity to critically examine the game design choices of a game that I consider to be both brilliant and brilliantly flawed. You formerly were egregiously insulted because I suggested that you were derailing a thread by moving it into a tangent area, for which I apologized. Now you are once again insulted by a comment that was not even directed at you. Why? Are you that ready to take offense?

[Silverionmox]

In their current state workshops are flexible and easily modable.

They're moddable, but not easily, and they are completely inflexible in shape, tasks allowed and nr of dwarves accomodated. As said elsewhere, they're magical RTS spawnboxes.

Trying to move away from specialized workshops and toward a generic workshop-as-a-work-zone augmented with a tool system would complicate fortress management, as well as potentially introduce all sorts of new issues and bugs that could take years to fix.

Any significant change can introduce significant bugs, that's the same for every suggestion. IMO it would ease fortress management, as it cuts down on the ever-increasing number of specific workshops and the arbitrary distribution of jobs among them.

is there more to it than this?

Tools for labors are important for the same reasons that weapons are important for combat. Weapons are tools for combat. Anything that makes weapons worthwhile to exist in the game goes for tools also.

ps. I know this isn't an 'answer' but out of curiosity, is it possible to introduce a hammer item, such that every forge job/reaction consumes one hammer but also produces one hammer, so they don't disappear/die ?  or make it a 98% chance of producing a hammer, so you have a hammer breakage mechanic?

That would seem quite pointless to me.

@NW_Kohaku: I'm taking personal messages to PM, where they belong.

[slothen]

Trying to move away from specialized workshops and toward a generic workshop-as-a-work-zone augmented with a tool system would complicate fortress management, as well as potentially introduce all sorts of new issues and bugs that could take years to fix.

Any significant change can introduce significant bugs, that's the same for every suggestion. IMO it would ease fortress management, as it cuts down on the ever-increasing number of specific workshops and the arbitrary distribution of jobs among them.

But workshops are easy to build in large numbers, fairly specific to a set of tasks, and can have workshop profiles set on them individually.  Together, this makes them fairly easy to manage in whatever specific way you choose.  If I replaced 20 varied workshops with 5 generic ones, how is a workshop profile going to allow me to control who makes what?  And currently there isn't much need to have multiple dorfs working in the same shop.  Its fairly moot under the current system where you have a workshop area, with individual workshop stations accommodating multiple dwarfs, not to mention moving away from 1 job - 1 dwarf would be a significant fundamental change to the game engine and a bad one to make at this stage of development.

is there more to it than this?

Tools for labors are important for the same reasons that weapons are important for combat. Weapons are tools for combat. Anything that makes weapons worthwhile to exist in the game goes for tools also.

that's a stretch.  Blood and death are more fun than microcline tables.  In the current game, quality modifiers and correct weapon selection in combat results in life over death.  In labors you get a higher quality modifier and a higher dwarfbucks value which at best makes dwarves slightly happier when they admire something.  The room to grow or expand the system would need to be made by making existing things more difficult to do, not easier.    Also, expanding the abilities of adventure mode crafting is a very strong argument for tools, but the goal of adventure mode should not be to equate it with open-world hermit fort.

ps. I know this isn't an 'answer' but out of curiosity, is it possible to introduce a hammer item, such that every forge job/reaction consumes one hammer but also produces one hammer, so they don't disappear/die ?  or make it a 98% chance of producing a hammer, so you have a hammer breakage mechanic?

That would seem quite pointless to me.

well, you get hammer management, you could implement the hammer as a weapon (although I don't know if dwarves will hit things with stuff they're hauling), and you could make reactions that require/use hammers take less time or produce goods with higher base-value multipliers.  And you could have specific jobs require certain tools without destroying the tool.  Isn't that half of what tool-advocates ( henceforth referred to as 'tools') want?   Or is this truly an all-or-nothing suggestion for a complete rewrite of all labors and crafting?

[Silverionmox]

If the ease of building is paramount, why don't we have 3*3 readymade bedrooms, dining halls, barracks, etc. either? Because that would be boring.
Nothing forces you to make shared workshops if you don't want to. You would still be able to assign workshops to dwarves, as you do with rooms now. The code already exists, and if work crews exist or guilds come back I hope they can be assigned rooms too. Instead of choosing which workshop you're going to build, you make a room: based on the furniture present, some labors will be possible there, others not. From that list you choose which ones to allow. I suppose skill limitations will also be possible. So the labor will be limited at two points: the dwarves and the workshops, leaving limited possible combinations, just like now.
The current labor assignments are pretty arbitrary. Why can't we woodcraft in the carpenter's workshop, etc.? My fat to tallow conversion always ends up clogging the dining room kitchen, while I want it to happen in the kitchen near the butchery, etc.
The advantage of having multiple dwarves in one workshop is that they can share supplies, furniture, etc.: anything you would assign to a workshop, like indicating stockpiles to use as input and output, setting orders etc., you now only need to do once. When equipment scarcity starts to matter, you'll be glad you can make them share it, especially in lightly occupied workshops.

Some are in it for the combat only, some for the building. Let them all have their fun. We all know that food production is now set at the "manna from heaven" level, resource availability at "cornucopian" and traders become ecstatic at the sight of blood-stained XXgoblin undiesXX.. That will change, and then it does matter. And you can calibrate the benchmarks however you want: the current speed and quality could just as well be the best possible, only attainable with masterwork tools. If tools matter, you now have more option to improve your production (instead of skilling up, you can also obtain better tools), but to reach the best possible, you now have to fulfill two conditions: good tools ánd good skills: that makes it more challenging.

As for your specific example, the 98% fail rate would cause gruesome unreliability. You'd never be at ease. That would cause you to mass-produce them, which removes any care about the quality. That would make it a chore instead of an achievement. You also can't make them double as weapon, because they would be reagents or goods, not carried equipment. You also can't have artifact tools then, with all their possible effects. Lastly it's a lot of pointless hauling.

It's important that tools start to matter, because that's the way to make the production of microcline tables (and the rest of the economy) more interesting. If combat was just dwarves bumping into goblins without weaponry or armor, just randomly determined and modified by skill, how interesting would it be?

[ravaught]

Heheh Silverionmox ninja'd me I think you pretty much covered it all, except one point.

@Slothen

You can already create a 'hammer' that is used as a reagent in a reaction and return a hammer, but as has been pointed out by Nohaku and others, that is pointless. It becomes just another number to track. I find it rather ironic that the number one argument against implementing this is the very thing that we are trying to fix LOL. Anyway, we need to move the tools beyond that point, to the point where they actually can matter and can have cross over skills.

[slothen]

Yes, an improved tool/crafting/production system with more nuance would be good/fun/more rewarding.  IMO the way you can embark with raw materials to really stretch your embark points is a symptom of the 1-2 reagents -> job enabled -> product system we have now.

Such a system has to be a product of Toady's vision.  It is not a minor undertaking.

Currently it doesn't appear to be on his radar (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html)

[simonthedwarf]

Well, one thing can be said. It wouldn't hurt to have masterwork quality item production requiring a good tool. I mean yeah sure dwarfs bend stone with their minds, but the top notch product should not only be skill alone, it should be having good tools as well.

I'm sure a lot of you can imagine historical craftsmanship that was highly tool dependant.

Think of the butcher shop and the meat cleaver. Don't you think it would be easier to get a higher stack of meat using a cleaver than just transmuting it with a beard? Or ripping at a cat corpse with your nails? Or sewing clothering with some good ¤needle¤?

Imo this would add a nice layer to tools, making them optional but still nice. A masterwork tool + legendary skill should be like 90% masterwork rate, and then we could lower the impact of skill alone.

Slowing down the path to ultimate masterwork legendary everything, making higher tier stuff a bit more complicated to attain. Hope i'm not qualifying for magma by saying it. I know u guys like your =rock pot=.

[ravaught]

Currently it doesn't appear to be on his radar (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html)

•Ability to till tile (faster with tool)
•Ability to chop down tree using appropriate tool
•Ability to butcher corpses with an appropriate tool
•Ability to cook and appropriate tools for this
•Having multiple dwarves involved with item hauling for a job
•Ability to use grappling hooks/ladders/climb

The ideas are all scattered around throughout the dev log. They are on his radar, but at the moment he seems to be viewing them as indepent issues. Reworking/thinking them into one coherent engine would likely make his life much much easier.

[Silverionmox]

Actually, no. You assign tools to a work zone because you want them to be available there when you need them.

The jobs you can potentially do in a workshop zone, however, should not depend on a static predetermined type like workshops now, but on the tools and infrastructure you have available.

And there's always the design option to let the dwarves own and take care of the tools they use.

Maybe it's a question of personal preference, but I think tools should go where the infrastructure is; it would rather quickly become irritating if production in Workshop Zone A was held up because all the Large Hammers had been mistakenly assigned to Workshop Zone B which didn't have any anvils in or something, but the game wouldn't let your dwarves do the sensible thing and just go and borrow a couple.

If the dwarves have the tools, there will never be dwarves without tools in workshops either. In addition, there will still be plenty of jobs that are carried out on-site, and for that dwarves need to carry tools anyway. And with a flexible workshop setup you could just make a workshop that accomodates both kinds of jobs so they can share whatever tool or furniture is scarce, if it's part of the fixed infrastructure.