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Author Topic: About clothing, leather and other ramblings  (Read 1014 times)

LordBaal

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About clothing, leather and other ramblings
« on: December 20, 2014, 10:04:14 am »

A couple of humble suggestions that surely have been made already.

One, right now it's a endless struggle to get a stable clothing production if you have no elven caravans coming. Clothing should not last so little, or even better, have it's duration tied to the quality and/or materials, although that sounds like adding yet more lag inducing code/tracking. To keep it simple something really helpful would be to have it's relative duration in the raws for us to change, no much extra code and more control for us.

Second, about leather, each creature capable of being a source, no matter it's size, produces a single raw hide, which in turn is made to a single unit of leather, which is rather obscene when you consider that a single unit of leather only last to a single cloth (or craft or whatever). So I can make a full dress out of the leather of a single chicken, but also can only fashion a single pair of shoes from an elephant.

I wonder if it's possible to change the amount of raw hides an animal gives, and the amount o leather something needs to be made. That could mean that the smallest things, like gloves and water skins could use a single leather unit, shoes would need two, and so on. Hence you could make a pair of shoes from two chickens, but a complete wardrobe for 20 dwarves from an elephant.

Third, the way zombies work, I would love to decipher and mod them if possible so in order to revive a central nerve system is needed, aka, "classical" zombies, which will come for you until you smash/cut/pierce/blow up their heads, or have the option already made in the game.

On the same vein, don't know if it's possible already trough modding, but have the option to define vampire/werewolf proprieties. Right know you have several types for both of them, but they are randomly procedurally generated. What if we could define not only how many types exists, but the characteristics of them? So in example somebody can have a world filled with wereducks that are weak against birch and bronze, because why not? Again, don't know if it's possible to define that kind of things already, sorted trough the files but didn't find anything.

Fourth, something so basic I can't believe its not there yet (Toady must have his reasons). But making job orders at workshops to being able to designate specific materials. This alone can be a great relieve. I know there are ways of making this already with stockpiles but is not just the same. Also this forces you to have multiple stockpiles and workshops for different materials and honestly it's more a chore than anything.

Fifth, the manager, oh dear the manager. Needs to be updated and brought to something more close to DFhack. We need standing orders, but not only that, we need stock level orders, so in our hurry to make rock nut paste oil we don't run out of rock nuts either. And just like dfhack, manage most things from there, food gathering and production, livestock buthchering when certain conditions are meet, lumber jacking (of all or only certain woods) and many, many other things could be set and controlled, that being done in game trough a manager/bookkeeper combo wont feel like dirty cheating anymore. Also this would make the game far more accessible to many more people, which would mean more donations too.

I'm sure I have many more ramblings and that all or most of these things are planned for the future, but still wanted to wrote them down. Thanks for reading.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2014, 01:47:05 pm by LordBaal »
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SixOfSpades

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Re: About clothing, leather and other ramblings
« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2014, 01:19:18 pm »

Most of what you ask for is already planned. Focusing on the clothing, though . . .

Having larger animals produce larger stacks of raw hide is one of the most common and long-standing requests, but I think I've yet to see a suggestion for differing strengths of said hides. It doesn't matter how many chicken skins you stitch together, they will never be thick & durable enough to make stiff, rugged, boiled leather armor. Conversely, undergarments made of cow rawhide would chafe like hell. I propose that each animal have a tag denoting the relative suitability of its leather--whether it's fit for Inner garments, Outer garments, or Armor. A somewhat more complex system would include mid-ranges between Inner & Outer, and between Outer & Armor, (leathers that fall in these ranges would be usable for both purposes) and also have larger animals drop stacks of different hide strengths: For example, a dragon might produce [8] heavy scale from its back (large plates suitable for making into Scale armor), but also [1] light scale from its throat (tiny scales flexible enough to make into a robe that moves like cloth). The Tanner's Shop would also have some control over the leather produced, in that heavier hides could be stretched, or even split, to make lighter leathers than would normally be produced.

Cloth would work much the same way, with coarser fibers such as jute and hemp being far better suited to Outer- and Cover-layer garments than things like silk. (Nobles, however, would likely demand fine silk everything.) Similarly, the Loom would have some degree of control over whether certain mid-range threads get woven into finer or coarser cloth.

Also, fur. Unhairing the fur from a skin is a refinement of the tanning process, and in most cases is a totally optional step. Forget your bear leather coat, it's cold outside, better grab your bear fur coat instead. Your raccoon-skin-cap finally has that ringed tail at the back you always wanted. And hey, good luck having your king look majestic in his ermine cape when it looks like just a bunch of poor, naked little skins sewn together. Each animal could also have a tag for whether or not its hide can be processed into fur, and for those that do, the Tanner's Shop has the choice of processing it into fur, or leather. Fur is warmer, better looking, and more expensive than leather, but a little less durable (as the tanning process is less complete) and more difficult to keep clean. For birds, a similar mechanic might be used to collect feathers. (There's a reason I was raising peacocks, dangit.)

Whether cloth, leather, or fur, all lighter materials are less durable, but more comfortable, than their heavier counterparts.

Far from thinking that clothes deteriorate too rapidly, I'd say that they don't decay fast enough. They're being worn every single day, after all. But more importantly, I would like to see clothing miasma: Clothes that haven't been washed in a while cause other dwarves to notice, causing feelings of disgust in them and shame in the wearer. (Dwarves kept completely isolated & on their own can have no such encounters, although depending on their personality traits, they might still feel ashamed of their smelly/tattered/lack of clothing, even if no one is around to see.) Dwarves will therefore want to Launder Clothes regularly--they will much prefer to have a second set of clothes to wear while doing so, to avoid the indignity of being seen washing their clothes wrapped in nothing more than a towel.
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LordBaal

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Re: About clothing, leather and other ramblings
« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2014, 03:50:05 pm »

Other way around would be to make most poultry, small fish and other creatures leather unfit for anything more than crafts and trinkets. On the other hand make things like shoes, gloves and caps be made on stacks of 10 or 20 per leather unit, while big things like capes, armor and such consume the whole thing. I think this might be modable right now. However is still flawed as again, an Elephant could produce the same amount of leather products than a Shep, which is just wrong.
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I'm curious as to how a tank would evolve. Would it climb out of the primordial ooze wiggling it's track-nubs, feeding on smaller jeeps before crawling onto the shore having evolved proper treds?
My ship exploded midflight, but all the shrapnel totally landed on Alpha Centauri before anyone else did.  Bow before me world leaders!

Niddhoger

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Re: About clothing, leather and other ramblings
« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2014, 10:01:04 am »

Aye, we can butcher giant forgotten beasts and get things like 7 units of heart meat and 10 units of brains (which would only make sense in a hydra).  Clearly the brain is too large to make a single meal, so its splint into chunks.  So while we get 400+ units of food (among meat, organs, intestines, fat) from a single forgotten beast, we get only one unit of leather.  So how in the bloody hell does the same amount of leather that would hold a chicken together, hold in enough food to feed a 200 strong fortress through the winter single-handedly? Or are we to imagine the gloves made from these can actually fit an entire military squad inside them each?
The worst offender with all this is that severed limbs are butchered separately, with each limb producing the same amount of leather as the whole animal.  So one wolf makes one unit of leather.  However, if we "pre-butcher" that wolf with an axelord, we can wind up with 3-4 units of wolf leather.  Each unit of said leather being able to make its own full-sized cloak/tunic.  "Wolf head leather cap," anyone?
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LordBaal

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Re: About clothing, leather and other ramblings
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2014, 10:48:16 am »

Don't know what's cooler, the raccoon cap with the tail or the wolf head cap.... oh! I know,a wolf head wearing a raccoon cap!!!
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I'm curious as to how a tank would evolve. Would it climb out of the primordial ooze wiggling it's track-nubs, feeding on smaller jeeps before crawling onto the shore having evolved proper treds?
My ship exploded midflight, but all the shrapnel totally landed on Alpha Centauri before anyone else did.  Bow before me world leaders!

StagnantSoul

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Re: About clothing, leather and other ramblings
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2014, 10:53:45 am »

Have them drop an amount of leather based on size, and have leather work like metal bars, with smaller objects needing less, bigger objects making more. Maybe creatures under a certain size would give a leather equivalent of wafers, a smaller peace of leather that needs more for something.
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Niddhoger

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Re: About clothing, leather and other ramblings
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2014, 11:29:13 am »

Have them drop an amount of leather based on size, and have leather work like metal bars, with smaller objects needing less, bigger objects making more. Maybe creatures under a certain size would give a leather equivalent of wafers, a smaller peace of leather that needs more for something.

i'd say less like wafers and more like melting down items at a smelter.  Small critters would only give fractions of a unit of leather.  However, if you butcher enough cavy boars you'll get enough scraps to stitch into a full sized piece of leather.  Or perhaps a dog is 1.5 units of leather.  Butchering one dog would yield a single working piece, but the fraction would be "saved" in the tannery.  Then when you butcher a second dog, you get a 2nd full piece of leather and the remaining fraction of both dogs is combined into a third unit. 
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LordBaal

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Re: About clothing, leather and other ramblings
« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2014, 12:03:03 pm »

Don't know why but in my mind it kind of makes more sense that the smallest creature skin is equal to a single leather unit, and accordingly, crafts and small things like gloves require a single unit.

From there shoes would need 2, trousers 4-6, and so on and again accordingly bigger creatures would give more leather, in example a dog 4, a cow 20, a giant ass titan 100~200 and so on.
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I'm curious as to how a tank would evolve. Would it climb out of the primordial ooze wiggling it's track-nubs, feeding on smaller jeeps before crawling onto the shore having evolved proper treds?
My ship exploded midflight, but all the shrapnel totally landed on Alpha Centauri before anyone else did.  Bow before me world leaders!