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[Skin36]

why DT shows  "does not mind being outdoors"  instead "likes working outdoors "  ?

There are two levels of outdoors tolerance in DF. "Likes working outdoors and grumbles only mildly at inclement weather", and "does not mind being outdoors, at least for a time". I don't know if DT handles those separately or not.

i didn't know about the two different descriptions. i'll have to look into this more and find out what the threshold is.

I'm talking about
DT show->does not mind being outdoors
DF show->likes working outdoors
or no ?
[/quote]

[splinterz]

why DT shows  "does not mind being outdoors"  instead "likes working outdoors "  ?

There are two levels of outdoors tolerance in DF. "Likes working outdoors and grumbles only mildly at inclement weather", and "does not mind being outdoors, at least for a time". I don't know if DT handles those separately or not.


i didn't know about the two different descriptions. i'll have to look into this more and find out what the threshold is.

I'm talking about
DT show->does not mind being outdoors
DF show->likes working outdoors
or no ?

yeah, DF shows two different descriptions, depending on the value. currently in DT, i'm not checking what the value is, only if it exists, so DT only has a single description. what i may do is show the two descriptions in DT, so it matches DF, but still have them as the same preference, since a dwarf can't have both descriptions.

[thistleknot]

i for one would like an option to select highest weapon (one for ranged weapons, one for melee)skill when creatimg a role so i can make better default melee/ranged dwarfs.

[splinterz]

i for one would like an option to select highest weapon (one for ranged weapons, one for melee)skill when creatimg a role so i can make better default melee/ranged dwarfs.

you'll have to elaborate

[thistleknot]

well if i had a melee role with speardwarf swordwarf macedwarf hammerdwarf skills. i only want it to read the highest out of those skills

[LordBaal]

Ahhh to see exactly which weapons you will assign, instead of a generic "meele" dwarf role.

[splinterz]

that's kind of why i added the individual weapon skill roles...

[thistleknot]

the problem is i want the ggeneric melee and ranged back so i can have squads w melee weapons n ranged weapons.

[LordBaal]

Sorry, wasn't paying attention

[splinterz]

the problem is i want the ggeneric melee and ranged back so i can have squads w melee weapons n ranged weapons.

what? you can add your own role columns! now i'm not saying i won't add something like that back to the default roles, but what exactly are you on about?

[13thEssence]

what? you can add your own role columns! now i'm not saying i won't add something like that back to the default roles, but what exactly are you on about?

I'm not entirely sure, but I think he means that weighing different overlapping skills will skew the role rating.  A dwarf with level 4 spear, hammer and axe will rate higher than one with level 6 hammerdwarf skill.

He can accomplish what he wants, but would need to set up a different role for each weapon type.

[splinterz]

what? you can add your own role columns! now i'm not saying i won't add something like that back to the default roles, but what exactly are you on about?

I'm not entirely sure, but I think he means that weighing different overlapping skills will skew the role rating.  A dwarf with level 4 spear, hammer and axe will rate higher than one with level 6 hammerdwarf skill.

He can accomplish what he wants, but would need to set up a different role for each weapon type.

yeah, if there's more applications for setting up groups of skills within roles i may have to consider a rewrite of that area... i usually setup squads by weapon types so i haven't run into this kind of problem myself.

[13thEssence]

I wrote most of this late last night, and I get long winded.  Sorry for wall of text, but this is the area of the game I'm spending most time thinking about lately, so I hope it's all relevant.

I'm relatively new to the game, and found the roles in Dwarf Therapist early.  I thought "Cool, it's all there".  I always looked askance at the creativity x2, but everything else seemed to fit with what the wiki had to say.  But the more I read on the forums the more it seemed like what you call it: a skeleton to build on, useful but far from complete and not accurate.  I was excited when once you explained how to use custom roles in views, and wanted to redo the default ones too, but that was subdued by frustration.  I seems there's too little information to go on yet, if the goal is production speed and quality.

Most of the information I've found on how traits and attributes affect job speed, quality, persistence, etc is very speculative, with one assertive comment or observation immediately countered by another.  One guy puts every consideration on this or that while another affirms it really doesn't matter.  It seems faith-based, and I can't get on-board with that.  I've seen a couple of posts that positively identify a trait as doing something specific, such as traditionalists engraving more historical figures and self-disciplined dwarves taking shorter breaks and holding longer in a fight.  Makes perfect sense and may have been the case in someone's game, but where's the measured evidence?  These could conceivably be implemented but not functional, like the musicality attribute.  Or Toady had a completely different vision for these than the speculating players.  Most probably do have some significant function, and ignoring them in favour of something with proof (such as creativity x2, though I'd like to see that experiment for myself) would greatly skew results.  That's why we currently see a few dwarves so good at everything and the rest show as fairly useless, when they might not be.  The few that still jump out for certain roles after the godly choices usually weigh in because of preferences that are wholly unjustified, so I put prefs at 0.0 weight and do that part manually even though they are my most significant consideration.

So far I've mainly seen evidence for preferences.  They make significant difference to quality early on, but almost none with legendary skill.  And in addition to happy thoughts upon noticing/consuming things they like, they also seem to be top choices for moods, mandate and trade ban materials and items.  So war hammer, adamantine, door, or gold/statue loving dwarves will be nudged to their future moods in hopes of useful artifacts and legendary skill.  Steel, flux/obsidian, and oak wood dwarves will, depending on map materials, have pre-determined careers as armour smith, mason/engraver and carpenter because of their early game advantage and long term utility.  Dwarves with common preferences, good socials and essential traits gets to be mayor.  But other than that, I can't find further info on preferences.

Happy thoughts seem to be a big consideration for some current default Dwarf Therapist roles.  But will a smith admire the anvil used to build the forge? Will a farmer persevere against the death of a husband because she likes plump helmets and barrels?  Does using/producing preferred items trigger happy thoughts, and isn't keeping dwarves happy more important than a few extra high quality products?  This is a question I'd really like answered.  Furthermore, while preference Plants(Alcohol) and Metal might be convenient for setting up roles, it doesn't make any sense to give wild strawberries equal weight to sweet pods for a farmer or cook, or rose gold being no different than bronze to a weapon smith.  Some materials and products are clearly more appropriate.  Others will be more readily available, more precious, or entirely depend on availability on the map, making them the right choice to determine weight.

Attributes supposedly have an affect on job speed and product quality, but nobody I've read has demonstrated that advantage to be dramatic or even true.  With so many players having no problem producing for the fortress even blindly assigning dwarves, this seems of little real consequence.  But attributes are very significant for military where it's life or death, especially with the attribute cap depending on their starting stats and both resistance and recuperation not being trainable.

Traits are the biggest mystery to me.  Aside from doctors and nurses getting happy thoughts from helping others, and mayors potentially missing out on an entire social skill if a trait is too high or low, there's no definitive relationship to roles.  I'd like to assume they are all implemented and integrated with appropriate skills/jobs.  But even if they are, it's not clear how.

As I mentioned before, this is all complicated by individual situations, embarks, and player preference. Everyone will have a different idea of optimization.  I might like to get the most masterwork gold statues possible, but you might want to make the best out of a limited platinum supply.  I might be thinking long term benefits and not care about skill levels, while you might want the best dwarf for the job right now.  Default roles will never please everyone.  But until we figure out all the variables it does narrow utility and expectations for roles.  Therefore, for me at least, it gives very specific focus, priority on what I can achieve with roles.

1) Targeted artifacts (if I'm not wrong about prefs vs moods).
2) Maximize high quality weapons and armour.
3) Designate specialized, multi-disciplined, important, time intensive or time restrained jobs like goldsmith, CMD, mechanic, butcher/tanner, farmer.
4) Males aspire to be elite gutbusters or become regulars.
5) Industry specialists (with focus on happiness from mat/item/tool prefs?).
6) Industry generalists by sector, and various non-critical jobs.
7) Reserves/Haulers.

This is much simpler than trying to find the perfect dwarf for everything, but it's not quick.  It's actually compatible to the most thorough dwarf optimization system I've found.  I can be a perfectionist and I'm trying to accept that for 90% of dwarves it doesn't really matter what they do.  Even with that pressure gone, though, I'm compelled to optimize it and need to set up these custom roles.  I spend too much time paused after my first and second migration waves bouncing back between pros and cons and doubts as I juggle job matches between limited "suitable" dwarves.

These are some of my ideas for roles, beefs and concerns, knowledge and wishes.  If anyone can point to solid info about attributes, traits or prefs here it would be very useful.  If I've got anything wrong, don't let it slide and cause confusion; correct me.  Also, with the ability to change these stats with DFhack plugins, I'd love to see some experiments for the unknowns.  I only discovered those scripts on the weekend, so I won't be doing my own science just yet.

[splinterz]

13thEssence, i had the same thoughts and problems setting up the default roles, which is part of the reason they're very basic.

so first up, attributes. i believe excluding strength and agility, most of the physical attributes are only for combat roles. strength and agility both directly affect movement speed, this has been reverse engineered by the dfhack guys, and is easily to test. the wiki has additional information on these attributes, but no links to tests to be sure. however that said, some of them seem fairly logical. for example, higher strength is related to a creature token which increases muscle mass, which reduces damage. the most interesting physical attributes to me are recuperation and disease resistance as they can't be increased. in my opinion that makes a pretty good case for giving them a high weight in combat roles. i also believe some of the information on the wiki, such as the notes about willpower reducing pain, are more apparent in adventure mode. there has also been some testing on combat learning skills and their effects on combat training.

the mental/soul attributes are trickier, and the wiki links to a post by toady explaining what skills are affected by them. essentially the assumption is made that skills that can train up certain soul attributes probably use them as well. this seems to be valid, when you look at some tests like this one for creativity and crafting quality. it also makes some notes on material preferences and their effect on quality. however, kinesthetic sense is used in almost every single skill, so this is one i may remove, because it's something that causes some dwarfs to appear as a good fit for literally everything.

i also want to lower the weight on attributes for most of the labor roles. i really don't think it's that important for a milker to have incredible strength and endurance, or a weaver to have great spatial sense. on the other hand, you definitely want miners that are agile and strong to tear through stone efficiently.

for traits, there are a few that have known additional effects, like anger causing dwarfs to go into a berserk rage, which can be useful for combat roles. however i've come to the same conclusion as you, that they mostly relate to social skills, excepting those that modify happy thoughts. i've also seen numerous people mention that traits are important for medical roles as well. again though, it's more of a consensus than quantifiable tests.

preferences are mostly related to happy thoughts, but also quality of work, as shown in the previous link about creativity. i've set up DT to assign a low weight to preferences by default, as i wanted them to just give a slight bonus to roles, not be a major factor. the reason some general categories are used, like metal or seeds is because of the sheer variety of items and materials they can have preferences for. this can also increase dramatically with some mods, so i wanted to find a middle ground, so that a role with a 'metals' preference is valid for vanilla DF, but also for mods like masterwork, which add different metals.

a dwarf working with materials or jobs that they like, will in fact get happy thoughts. you'll see a 'satisfied at work recently' thought for the dwarf, which only gives a medicore +5 to happiness, but this can add up quickly. it's interesting to note that DF will also only show a recent thought once. this means that there could be 10 'satisfied at work' thoughts in a row, but you'll only see one in the view window.

the issue with current best vs potential best is related to both attributes and skills, as they can both be increased to specific maximum values. the roles actually take this into account with the most recent versions. you'll find weights in the options to specify how much importance you want to put on skill learning rates, and the potential values of attributes. by default these are set so that learning rates, and potential attribute maximums give a modest bonus to the ratings.

so while i agree that not everything is known precisely with detailed, documented tests, i think there's certainly enough to go on to make some significant modifications to the existing roles to make them more accurate and useful.

[thistleknot]

please don't remove kinesthetic sense.

If you remove it, a dwarf with a low score in it will not show up properly rated.

Also having a dwarf with a lot of good labors isn't really an issue anymore, (not for me anyway).  I long ago noticed this trend myself and labeled them "super dwarf's" and was a main motivation in seeking out how to do the labor optimizer.  By setting labor priorities and # of jobs per dwarf, the super dwarf will find a good fit of what roles he should be focusing on within his arsenal of good role %'s