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[SirPenguin]

I don't know about you, but I really hate delegating jobs to new immigrants. It's not so bad at the beginning, but once you have to reassign over 20 jobs a year...well...it's a pain.

What makes it more of a pain is the sheer amount of professions available. I feel a fair amount of them are useless. It's annoying to get a Fish Dissector, only to need a Fish CLEANER, and now you're forced to train him in an entirely different profession, despite the two being very similar.

I propose we consolidate some of the more useless or similar jobs. They'll be combined if their usage is done at the same building and with the same materials.

Fish Dissector and Fish Cleaner -> Fish Preparer (or some such)

Animal Training and Animal Care -> Animal Caretaker

Wood Burner and Furnace Operator -> Furnace Operator (Let's face it, it doesn't take much skill to sit and watch wood being burned. Let the Furnace Operator, who can only operate 2 buildings in the "Furance" category anyways, handle it)

Gem Cutting and Gem Setting -> Gemcrafting

Architecture -> Keep it as toggle on/off, like Hauling, but don't allow people to become Building Designers if there's no use for it. Auto toggle on for certain professions, lik Carpentry and Masonry.

There are probably others out there I am forgetting, but I don't want to suggest consolidation for professions I don't have much experience with. I feel it's a small change that'll reduce some busy work and make for less useless migrants, in addition to just making logical sense.

[Align]

This idea or the Skill Synergy idea (skill with using a material as well as skill with the actual job) is desperately needed to make stuff like cheese makers seem like realistic choices in a dwarven society.

[Silverionmox]

I'd like to have specialist coopers, chandlers and wheelwrights, but the skill system needs to be smoothed first. There were useful suggestion in a previous thread, like defining skills with a material, process and result. That would greatly enhance customizability too.

[Crafty Barnardo]

Wood crafting and Carpentry

Stone crafting and Masonry

[Awayfarer]

Cheese maker + Milker = Dairy Farmer*

*(This combination still translates to "Fortress Guard".)

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by SirPenguin:
[QB]I don't know about you, but I really hate delegating jobs to new immigrants. It's not so bad at the beginning, but once you have to reassign over 20 jobs a year...well...it's a pain.

Dwarf Foreman is your friend.  One-click profession assignment for entire categories of dwarves!

 

quote:What makes it more of a pain is the sheer amount of professions available. I feel a fair amount of them are useless. It's annoying to get a Fish Dissector, only to need a Fish CLEANER, and now you're forced to train him in an entirely different profession, despite the two being very similar.

I propose we consolidate some of the more useless or similar jobs.

Agreed wholeheartedly!

Unless fish and animal extracts are going to be made much more interesting fairly soon, here should at most be one general Dissector profession, or dissection should be done by the trapper, hunter, or fisherdwarf.  

Fish cleaning should be done by fisherdwarves.  Instead of raw fish to stockpile, to fishery, to become eatable fish, to stockpile, it would be both easier to cope with and as realistic to have the fisherdwarf perform any necessary preparation as soon as the fish is caught.  Fisheries may be needed for such activities as smoking, pickling, and perhaps extracting, but not for salting, gutting, or descaling.  Most fish can go directly from the fisherdwarf to the kitchen as any cook can process them.

Cheese making and milking should certainly be combined (assuming milking a purring maggot isn't incredibly difficult or something).  Milling and threshing might or might not be combinable, but the related skills should be treated as "mundane" ones that never cause a dwarf to become treated as a Legend.  Lye making and potash making can usefully be combined (skills also to be mundane).  Soap making may have to stay separate, but it really shouldn't exist until soap can be used.

I support keeping Gem cutting and Gem setting separate, mostly because gems are cool enough that they deserve a little more detail than one profession allows, but also because (as I can attest from having worked in the industry) cutting and setting are two very different things and few people do both.

[ May 03, 2008: Message edited by: Fedor ]

[Javis]

quote:Originally posted by Fedor:
<STRONG>
I support keeping Gem cutting and Gem setting separate, mostly because gems are cool enough that they deserve a little more detail than one profession allows, but also because (as I can attest from having worked in the industry) cutting and setting are two very different things and few people do both.

[ May 03, 2008: Message edited by: Fedor ]</STRONG>

You may be on to something.  Do you think perhaps if you had similar experience in another industry, you might come to the same conclusion about that industry?

[Mechanoid]

An addition to this idea:

If most/all work dealing with wood gets consolidated into a single "Carpentry" job then i suggest that you should be able to set what workshops that dwarf can work at after enabling the job.

So for instance, looking at the job menu you would see "Carpentry" and then when you enable the job, the job menu changes to include a drop-down list of all workshops that deal with that job; craft workshops, seige engine workshops, etc. And all of them would be on by default. Then, you can go up/down the (sub)list and enable/disable like you do now, except for workshops.
And if you disable the carpentry job, then the allowed workshop list minimizes back to carpentry.

code:

[other jobs]
Carpentry - Job Disabled
[other jobs]
[other jobs]
Carpentry - Job Enabled
 - Bowyers workshop - Enabled
 - Craftdwarf workshop - Enabled
 - Carpenters workshop - Enabled
 - etc etc
[other jobs]
[other jobs]
Carpentry - Job Enabled
 - Bowyers workshop - Enabled
 - Craftdwarf workshop - Disabled
 - Carpenters workshop - Disabled
 - etc etc
[other jobs]

That way you don't need to setup profiles for every workshop, and you can make sure that you always have a dwarf dedicated to doing the job you want, and the job list stays as short as possible.

[ May 03, 2008: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by Javis:
<STRONG>

You may be on to something.  Do you think perhaps if you had similar experience in another industry, you might come to the same conclusion about that industry?</STRONG>

Absolutely.  Anyone with experience in lye making, potash making, etc. speak up please!  

[RickiusMaximus]

I would speak up but I'm in a fey mood right now...

[Solara]

quote:Originally posted by Fedor:
<STRONG>
Fish cleaning should be done by fisherdwarves.  Instead of raw fish to stockpile, to fishery, to become eatable fish, to stockpile, it would be both easier to cope with and as realistic to have the fisherdwarf perform any necessary preparation as soon as the fish is caught.</STRONG>

Yes please! I got so fed up with micromanaging the workshop and needing a separate dwarf for processing that I never even bother with fishing anymore. A fisherdwarf/fish cleaner being one in the same would make the whole process so more efficient and less annoying. (why oh why doesn't the fishery generate an automatic task on its own like the loom and butcher and tannery?)

   

quote:<STRONG>Milling and threshing might or might not be combinable</STRONG>

I've always thought these should be tossed in with 'plant processing'.

<STRONG>    

quote:
I support keeping Gem cutting and Gem setting separate, mostly because gems are cool enough that they deserve a little more detail than one profession allows, but also because (as I can attest from having worked in the industry) cutting and setting are two very different things and few people do both.
</STRONG>

Realism aside, jewelers were useless in the 2d version and splitting the professions apart has only ensured there are twice as many twice as useless dwarves wandering around my fortress, I really think they need to be combined again.

I know insane amounts of detail is one of the things that makes DF DF,  but the skill list is really unmanageable at the moment, it's not a good thing that a third party program like Dwarf Foreman is pretty much required to play the game.

I assume Toady has plans to eventually flesh out most of the currently useless professions, but in the meantime I'd be happy if there was at least a way to organize them better. The ability to have skills appear in alphabetical order would be nice, and a drop-down list with general headings like 'farming', 'crafting', 'metalsmithing' 'combat' etc. would be nicer...the basic idea is already in the game with the way you can select 'obsidian doors' or whatever from the build menu and open that up to look at each individual one.

[ May 06, 2008: Message edited by: Solara ]

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by Solara:
<STRONG>Realism aside, jewelers were useless in the 2d version and splitting the professions apart has only ensured there are twice as many twice as useless dwarves wandering around my fortress, I really think they need to be combined again. </STRONG>

I disagree with the first phrase, and therefore also disagree with the rest.  For me, jeweling is a vital part of the game, well worth spending time on.  It's not essential in the way that food-preparation or even metalbashing is essential, but it adds sparkle and beauty to my fortresses, distinguishing them from the common run.

Now, that doesn't mean it's important to keep the professions separate.  If combined, the new workshop profiles would help ensure that the most skilled Gem Cutter does the gem cutting, and the most skilled Gem Setter does the decorating.

So I could go either way.

[Thassa]

I really like the current system though.  Granted it does require a bit of management, but oversimplifying things isn't a direction I would like to see the game go in.  While related jobs do have some crossover experience, chopping down a tree, making a plain wooden bed and carving intricate wooden decorations are all very different things.  Only some of the tools crossover and while the understanding of how wood behaves and can be worked is useful in all of them, how you apply that understanding changes.

Besides I tend to just set all the incoming peasants in the first couple of years (beyond the couple needed to fill in gaps in my basic needs) to building walls and polishing stone.  Sure, they also wind up hauling stuff at times, but if you have 20 wall builders/stone polishers it's no big deal.  

[ May 08, 2008: Message edited by: Thassa ]

[Andir]

I know it's been talked about a lot, but the skill synergy thing is a definite win in ever case I could think of.  The idea that a woodworker could also be halfway competent at cutting the wood down because he knows "wood" just as a gemologist would be able to pitch in if needed when mounting or polishing gems or a stone throne maker could make a halfway decent wooden chair.

It would split the skill tree into a couple sections, material skill and forming skill.

I have not however figured out why you need a craftsdwarf shop when you can combine the functionality into a carpentry, mason, and "necro"-processing centers (these would also be for dissection, burial processing, etc.  I don't know a better word for it.)

[Khosan]

One thing that I feel should be gotten rid of: collecting sand.

It seems weird that I have to tell some dwarves to constantly be collecting sand, when it's just as easy to assume that the glassmakers could pick up the same empty bags, dig up some sand, put it in the bag and then make glass out of it.  None of those collect sand, put sand in stockpile, get snack, get hammered, get sand again, put second bag of sand in stockpile, grab first bag of sand, and then make glass shenanigans.