Hello!
More work on menus! There are so many menus. First, a small menu - the worker assignment for workshops.
Here you can assign a master to a workshop, and you have the option to dedicate the master to just their workshop jobs (and any other assignments.) This part is a little less flexible than the old DF system, where you could assign multiple dwarves and set skill ranges, but this new way works about as well with the new labor system and it'll additionally hook up to our ideas for guilds and apprentices as we expand it later, so, one master per shop now!
As details like this come in, we're placing the information on the creature list. You can see the workshop assignment and related icons here now, with room to expand, and some brighter text colors! The artists haven't had a chance to take a pass on them yet, so the hues and saturation levels might get shifted, but legibility on the gray background is the main goal.
The current labor system is now a large departure from the old DF. In the old one, narrow labor assignments, like 'miner' or 'gem setter', had to be set manually on every dwarf, and often new players would have no idea why a workshop task was not being completed, or why a building wasn't being constructed. Now you still need to have the correct resources, but the jobs will be done by anybody available, starting with the most talented.
By itself, this change takes a lot of control away, which you may find yourself wanting back as you become more skilled with the game. For instance, the workshop master is one way to have control, since the dedicated dwarf will become more skilled than random job takers, and ultimately produce better trade goods, weapons, and so on, with the same resources. The automatic labor assignment system does account for skill and tends to build up some skilled dwarves by itself, but the different is noticeable.
However, this isn't nearly enough! For instance, many tasks in Dwarf Fortress don't even occur at workshops. Mining, woodcutting, wall engraving, hauling, and several others take place elsewhere in the play area. The automatic labor system will muddle through here as well, but we've also added a new system: work details.
Here are the default work details, including the jobs I listed above. If dwarves are assigned to these work details, then by default, they'll be the only dwarves that do them. This allows you to set up dedicated wall smoothers and haulers for instance, so that other dwarves aren't constantly doing these things, whether they are dedicated workshop masters or not. If nobody is assigned to the haulers, then everybody will do it. You can also deactivate the work detail so that nobody at all does it, which can come up if you have other priorities or if there's some trouble in the fort to iron out before they return to work.
(Note: we still need to display relevant skills and order the dwarves properly! The order on the screen there is random. The automatic system also doesn't yet cover miners, woodcutters, and hunters, who use special equipment for their jobs, which complicates everything.)
Default work details alone don't capture the versatility of the old DF labor assignment system. It was very, very clunky, to the point that many people preferred working with a gigantic spreadsheet, but the ability to set custom labors is powerful as well, so it's important to recapture while trying to avoid making the system too laborious. To this end, we've added custom work details. Here you can see a new "Stone haulers" work detail I've created, with only the stone hauling labor enabled. In a dwarf fortress, stone gets everywhere, and you can set up some dedicated dwarves to grab the wheelbarrows and move stone slowly into piles where the carvers can more easily use it. I've set up some placeholder icons (just a bunch of roman numerals), so our first custom work detail got the 'I' symbol.
Rangers and animal dissectors assigned to stone hauling duty! You can dedicate anybody to their assignments, not just workshop masters, so we could also press the dedication buttons to the left of the 'I' symbols there to make sure these dwarves aren't distracted if there's a lot of hauling to be done. You can also turn off a custom work detail, and that job will be disabled for everybody, or re-enabled for everybody, depending on the option you select.
We're still in the midst of the labor interface! We still have to set up menus for doctors, farmers, fisherdwarves, and dwarves that work specific locations like tavern keepers, scholars, and performers. We'll also continue keeping our eye on feedback as we know the labor system is a concern for a lot of veteran players.
We've also been going through other menus and getting them sorted out. Here for instance is the standing orders menu. For the moment, it remains mostly unchanged from old DF, but could undergo some revisions as we continue. For now, we just need to get them all done! The chores tab there is new; young dwarves will do some hauling, cleaning, and other bits and bobs to be helpful around the fort.
Here's the stone usage menu. Again, this is a pretty unaltered transfer from the old DF, but there are lots of pretty stones now, courtesy of Patrick, and it's easier to see their various uses. This menu doesn't come up a lot, but it allows you to save or expend specific stone types according to your needs.
Finally, a first pass on the nobles and administrators menu as well! The central text column is a little cramped, ha ha. This is also reasonably similar to the old screen, but shinier, and allows you to set certain important jobs and to see how well you are doing in meeting those dwarves' room and furniture needs. A bookkeeper for instance needs an office to work in, and you can also set how precisely you'd like them to set the numbers. There's plenty of hover information to clarify the symbols, but it's also good to be able to take them in at a glance quickly.
We'll keep on working!
And congratulations to Kitfox on the Boyfriend Dungeon release! Lots of dwarfy weapons, and a cat, and an axe is coming!
- Tarn
P.S Have some more Jojo and Scamps!
