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[dhoovr]

As in keys to open doors.
So I guess there's two way this could be done:
The more simulation route with keys built for specific doors then equipped like a set of armor from a new screen.
Or there's the quick implementation with no new menu but with doors with a professions list to only allow access to certain dwarves.
What do you think?
Sorry if this has been suggested ad nauseum; I rarely browse this subforum. I did a quick search for keys and found the last reference to keys as an object to access doors was from 2008.

My initial rambling train of thought:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It would require a professions menu much like the military menu. (which could be useful considering how popular DFHack is for managing professions). It could be much like the equipment menu with the dwarves already divided into squads based on their professions or not at all if keys aren't linked to specific doors and thus don't need to be specifically equipped. Then you equip squads with different keys (or don't). Doors then work like weapon racks and archery targets for the sake of assigning which professions can use which door. It could reduce overpathing and save FPS.

If we wanted to give access of a room to say only the owner of that room then the squad or professions method would be annoying and inconvenient where the specific key for a specific door method would be much better as if the door is considered part of the room then having the owner claim the key should be easy enough. But if we want a door to be only accessible by a profession the specific key for specific door method would be inconvenient (though not too much of a hassle in my opinion) because you'd have to keep up with all the migrants and make sure you they all have keys, in which case it's easier to just have that profession auto-claim keys instead of having an equip menu. You couldn't just whimsically switch dwarves from profession to profession unless you keep a surplus of keys for each door.

For making keys, I'd assume they'd only be made of metal. Realistically rock and wood are too brittle (though mechanisms seems to function just fine). And upon selecting them in the forge you would get the same menu as if you were linking a lever to a door. It'd be really convenient if we could order through the manager (though I have no idea how that'd work) but I guess putting them on repeat wouldn't be too bad if you needed a lot of them. I could see this becoming kind of annoying if you were creating one key for each door on a 50 room apartment complex. The only solution to that is if you could build door in a set so that the blacksmith creates a key accompanying each door he creates (though then you're limited to only using metal doors).

We can just pretend that the dwarves are switching the locks if you want to give access of a room to all the farmers after they've all be equipped with keys. Or we don't even need to have a key entity and we can just pretend that they gain access with a beard scanner or facial hair recognition.

Bonus is that vampires aren't so much of a problem anymore. Or can be weaponized against all those useless cheese makers and children. Pathing problems could be reduced. I remember specifically I always had a problem with stocking my prison with food. I could get the food in there alright, but regular passers by would end up eating lunch in a cell just because it happened to be the closest source of food. Of course someone has to deliver the food, but if you have two dwarves with the keys to only the central food stockpile and all the cells then the problem is virtually eliminated. So keys would generally allow you to customize the hauling profession further into only allowing certain dwarves to haul from certain locations to other locations. It would help with FPS because dwarves wont path to areas they don't need to go. Areas that are more rarely used wont need to be restricted and thus the few dwarves that do need to path into those once restricted areas wont have to path everywhere else before going into that area.

[dwarfhoplite]

Seems interesting, but I just can't think of any use for it. I don't think keys should actually be made. Perhaps assigning dwarfs for the door through Q-menu would be enough.
 

[dizzyelk]

I don't see how keys as an object would improve gameplay, but expanding the locking options in the door menu could be helpful.

[Silverionmox]

The main problem with this is pathfinding: there is a connectivity map of all areas, and if you were to have different areas to be accessed, there would need to be a different connectivity map for each dwarf. So: not until supercomputers become commonplace, or alternatively, with multithreaded pathfinding, you could add one access profile for each excess core your processor has.

[Jables]

It's not quite as bad as different connectivity maps for each dwarf if you're clever with your algorithms. You could make lockable doors disconnect areas and then maintain something like a list of which otherwise disconnected areas are connected by which doors. However, even if pathfinding is computationally feasible it would still require major changes to the pathfinding code, so don't expect Toady to implement this any time soon.

[Adrian]

I don't see how keys as an object would improve gameplay

Maybe in adventure mode, with the upcoming sneaking release

[GreatWyrmGold]

What, swipe a key to open a lock? I'll stick with lockpicks for when I need to break into places.

Remember one of the reasons why the economy sucked so much? The stacks of one or two coins would eventually grow so numerous as to cause FPS to plummet. Imagine that, but with keys. The front door would need a key for every dwarf that would ever go outside, if you want to be able to keep it locked, and at least one for the people stationed to guard it plus one for the military if you generally left it unlocked. Repeat for every door. Yeah, it'd be easier just to abstract keys away and choose certain dwarves that aren't able to pass trough this door or, alternatively, ones who are.