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v0.34:Labor

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Revision as of 03:48, 1 February 2014 by McCautious (talk | contribs)
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This article is about an older version of DF.

A dwarf's labor preferences define the tasks/jobs that he or she is allowed to do, whether it is food hauling, mining, hunting, or any of dozens of other tasks. For instance, only a dwarf with the wood cutting labor enabled will cut down trees whenever trees are designated to be cut.

Note that a labor is not a "job", nor a "skill". A job is the actual task of doing something, and a skill is the experience that determines how fast a job gets done, and/or the quality of any finished product (specifics vary with skill/job), while a labor preference simply designates whether a dwarf is allowed do that sort of job or not. You can view a list of all current, queued, and suspended jobs on the jobs menu. A list of what job each dwarf is currently performing is visible on the units menu.

Once designated as a labor preference, a single skill can possibly be applied to many different jobs. For instance, a dwarf with the bone carving labor designated might carve a totem out of a skull, craft bone practice bolts for a crossbow, create bone armor, or carve bone crafts to trade. Each of these is a different possible job allowed by designating the associated labor, which in each of these cases is governed by the "bone carving" skill.

Note that many labor preferences, especially hauling, have no associated skill, do not generate experience, and do not improve with practice.

The mining, wood cutting, and hunting labors require the dwarf to either pick up and wield a pick, battle axe, or crossbow. For this reason, a dwarf cannot be assigned to any combination of mining, wood cutting, or hunting at the same time. Additionally, the assignment of these tools overrides any uniform assigned to a dwarf's squad, so military dwarves should never be assigned any of the aforementioned labors.

Jobs that are not labors: eating, drinking, sleeping, going on break, partying, cleaning themselves, pulling levers, and resting. A few things are listed as "No Job" but can be considered labors in a different sense: running scared, not having a path to anyplace useful, and being insane.

Viewing labors

To change a dwarf's labor preferences, access the labor screen by viewing the dwarf, then select preferences and labor. Use + and - to move the cursor up and down to highlight different categories or skills to enable or disable.

Using u can help you locate dwarves. Select a dwarf, hit c for "zoom to creature" and you'll automatically be placed in view mode on that dwarf. Use p-l to get to the labor configuration menu.

Labors are divided into skill trees - for instance, accessing metalsmithing allows you to enable various jobs that are related to working with metal, such as weaponsmithing and armorsmithing.

A category is dark gray if there are no labors under it enabled, light gray if there are some jobs enabled, and white if all jobs are enabled. (These distinctions can sometimes be very hard to tell apart in the default color scheme.)

The Woodcutting, Mining and Hunting labors are mutually exclusive, since they each require the dwarf to equip a different tool.

Dwarf Therapist: You may have noticed that the UI for managing dwarves is a bit difficult to use. If you are using a supported operating system, the utility Dwarf Therapist can make this a million times easier.


Category Labors
Mining
Woodworker
Stoneworking
Hunting/Related
Healthcare
Farming/Related
Fishing/Related
Metalsmithing
Jewelry
Crafts
Engineering
Hauling
Other Jobs

Labors and itemquality

The experience a dwarf has with a certain labour will determine how well he goes about performing this labour. A higher experience will get the job done faster in all labours (with the exception of nursing and hauling labours[Verify] ). However, only certain (typically crafting oriented) labours will produce products that have a quality tag. The table below lists in which labours the dwarfs experience will impact the quality of produced items and in which labours a higher experience will only be benficial for the speed of production.

Category Labors Quality-effects? Details
Mining yes only has effect on carved structures (e.g. stairs)
Woodworker

yes
yes
no

item-, furniture quality
weapon quality
speed only

Stoneworking

yes
yes

furniture quality, impact on structures (like walls) allegedly minimal
affects engraving quality, speed only for smoothing

Hunting/Related

no[Verify]
(yes)
no
no[Verify]

yes

affecting speed to reach higher training levels
currently not implemented
success-rate and potential bolt loss might want to be considered
affecting success rate[Verify]

extract quality

Healthcare (Doctoral)

yes

success chance, accuracy (and speed) of treatment

Healthcare (Nursing)

no

-

Farming/Related


no
no
(no)
yes


no
no
no
no
no


yes
(no)
no
no
no
no
no


yes
no
unknown[Verify]

speed only
speed only
affects yield per sied/farm-patch
dye quality


speed only
speed only
speed only
speed only
speed only


drink quality
affects yield per shrub/plant gathered
speed only
speed only
speed only
speed only
speed only


meal quality
speed only
unknown[Verify]

Fishing/Related

no
no
yes

speed only
speed only
extract quality

Metalsmithing

no
yes
yes
yes
yes

speed only
weapon quality
armor quality
item-, furniture quality
craft-, item-, construction quality

Jewelry

yes
yes

cut gem quality
embellishment quality

Crafts

yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes


no
yes
unknown[Verify]
yes

craft quality
craft quality
craft quality
craft quality
craft-, item-, furniture quality
cloth quality
clothing quality


speed only
craft-, item-, furniture quality
unknown[Verify]
craft quality

Engineering

no[Verify]
yes
yes
no

only the quality of parts used for the construction is vital here[Verify]
affects accuracy (and reload speed)
mechanism quality (only impacts functioning of weapon traps directly[Verify]
endurance and amount of water pumped?[Verify]

Hauling

no

"high quality" or faster hauling cannot be achieved via labour-level since there is no skill increase

Other Jobs

yes
(yes)
no

quality of constructions (allegedly has little impact on happiness)
not implemented
-