40d Talk:Engraver

Grammer police

"This may not be desirable since a number of other valuable skills that are harder to train. In such cases, consider pump operating an alternative."

what are you trying to tell us? --Koltom 21:44, 26 February 2008 (EST)

Full paragraph quote:

However, if engraving is a dwarf's highest skill, it is likely that if that dwarf enters and completes a strange mood, then the dwarf will reach legendary status in engraving. This may not be desirable since a number of other valuable skills that are harder to train. In such cases, consider pump operating an alternative.

Makes perfect sense to me. "This" refers to conclusion of the previous sentance. Your moody engravers become legendary engravers (which im not sure is accurate for most recent vers; bears testing). So less engravers = less wasted moods. VengefulDonut 00:15, 27 February 2008 (EST)

What's so bad about legenday engraver? Really helps kill those sadness streaks dwarves get when friends die -

Quoted from the forums:

Dwarf 1:woe is me, my best friend the military champion died and he's gone and rotted away in the air :(

Dwarf 2:Hey did you see that new legendary dining room with all the masterpiece engravings and exceptional aluminium chairs and tables?

Dwarf 1:Hey was I sad before oh well I'm happy now :D

--Frostedfire 07:06, 27 February 2008 (EST)

The thing about engravers is that for the most part they advance in skill quickly on their own, unless you have very little stone or ice in your fortress. So getting a legendary engraver through a strange mood is a bit of a waste, considering there are some skills that are harder and more time consuming to train (like glassmaking and metalsmithing skills).

Bouchart 13:58, 27 February 2008 (EST)

Read again, carefully. Among other things, the grammar is mangled. I can only guess the intended meaning: If you have spare dwarves, let them pump, not engrave, cos a legendary pump operator is more valuable. But the intention of the writer is not clear. Also: why pump operator? You don't necessarily have a setup where you can pump away without undesired consequences. And who uses manual pumping anyway with the beautiful and efficient machinery available? --Koltom 17:07, 27 February 2008 (EST)

The grammar is fine. There's a bit of a style issue with the long sentence. I really don't see what's confusing about it. It advocates using pump operating instead of engraving to raise dwarf stats because a moods can't buff the pump operating skill. VengefulDonut 17:22, 27 February 2008 (EST)

This may not be desirable since there is a number of other valuable skills that are harder to train.

This may not be desirable since a number of other valuable skills that are is harder to train.

Now, IANANS, but i did sleep this time ;).

Sorry to nitpick but grammar aside there were just to many details implied but not mentioned. How about the current reword?--Koltom 17:48, 27 February 2008 (EST)

Legendary clerk/bookkeeper

I can verify this would never happen from a strange mood. On the other verify, has anyone witnessed an Engraver become anything else than a Legendary engraver after a strange mood?

Recursive

I just had a dwarf carve an masterpiece image of herself carving a masterpiece image. Narcissism?

Worse - Recursion. --Bilkinson 14:32, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

Strange mood? How?

How can an engraver enter a strange mood? What workshop does he take over? Does he demand a smoothed, undamaged section of wall designated for engraving?
--Macdjord 14:21, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

He enters a strange mood by adding a blinking exclamation mark to himself. He takes over a mason's shop or a craftsdwarf shop, or some other shop if he had a good skill in it. He demands the same random barrage of stuff anybody else requires, sometimes with the base material related to the shop he's in. No, he does not demand a smooth section of wall, but you can bet there'll be an image of himself recursively engraving that selfsame image on it. --Rkyeun 23:44, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

Mine have consistently taken over a Mason's Workshop. And yes, they do a bit of masonry and get Legendary engraving. It doesn't make sense, but there it is. This may change with The Toady One's planned change to engraving to allow gemstones to be incorporated for detail work (thereby allowing one to gather materials for an artifact). -Fuzzy 16:04, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

Addendum - According to the Strange mood article, like Miners, they sometimes take over a Craftsdwarf workshop instead and create a stone craft instead of furniture. I would guess that it's because Miners and Engravers are of the "stone type" that they get these two options. -Fuzzy 16:08, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

That's silly. Why is 'engraver' a strange-moodable skill when it can't produce an artifact engraving?

--Macdjord 13:13, 29 October 2008 (EDT)

*shrug* More to the point, why is Mining a strange-moodable skill? Dwarves are weird and twisted little creatures. Engraving actually makes more sense to me because it could potentially become an artifact-capable skill with the current dev plans. Mining... who's going to pull together 2 feather tree logs, an uncut sapphire, a turtle shell, and titan bones to carve out a hunk of rock? However, while engraving has plans to add materials (The Toady One has teased us with text along the lines of "This is an engraving of a demon and a dwarf engaging in unnatural acts. The demon's eyes and the dwarf's blood shines with the red of inlaid ruby."), I could see it still not being included because part of artifacts is the idea that they can be moved to where they are most handy. I could just see an engraver deciding to carve his masterpiece on the wall of one of the Peasant Haulers. Cue in years of Nobles kvetching about the lower class having better rooms than them. Then again, that kind of sounds like fun...

-Fuzzy 16:52, 29 October 2008 (EDT)

I shudder at the thought of dealing with such a room once dwarven economy kicked in. Too small to contain the things a noble or legend demands, too expensive for anyone else.

--Macdjord 17:28, 29 October 2008 (EDT)

You could just put the rest of the noble's furniture in on of their other rooms. --Bilkinson 20:28, 29 October 2008 (EDT)

Knock down a wall and turn it into a duplex.--Maximus 23:02, 29 October 2008 (EDT)

Skill level before being useful

How skilled should an engraver be before they are actually allowed to *engrave* rather than *smooth*? There is a lot of wall that can be used to buff up an engraver, why let them start engraving when they could just smooth walls you don't mind digging out anyway?Garrie 11:03, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

That's entirely up to you, as it's the same as with any skill that turns out a final product with quality - what quality are you looking/hoping for? Take a look at the Quality#Skill_and_quality_levels table - it shows the odds of getting X quality result with Y level of skill. But it's not that hard to just bite the bullet, train a pair of dedicated Engravers up to Legendary +5, and just bust it out.--Albedo 17:09, 5 September 2009 (UTC)