40d:Legendary

Dwarves which repeatedly perform a specialized task will quickly gain skill levels, and within a year or two of constant labor, greatly depending on the skill, can attain Legendary ability. Tasks which do not involve time-consuming gathering of materials, especially mining and engraving, are easy to develop quite rapidly. If you have Proficient miners dig constantly through stone, they can reach Legendary skill before your first winter. Digging through dirt is far faster.

Dwarves which attain Legendary skill at any task will blink on the game screen and have a blinking name on the Unit screen.

Legendary is not the highest skill level a dwarf can attain. There are five invisible skill levels above it, all called "Legendary," but providing increasing skill. We've named them Legendary+1...Legendary+5. At Legendary+5, a dwarf will always produce at least exceptional goods, whereas at Legendary through Legendary+4 superior quality is possible.

Benefits of Legendary status

Attribute increases

With skill increases also come attribute increases. Legendary dwarves are typically Strong, Agile, and/or Tough – sometimes superdwarvenly so.

The specific benefits of each attribute are:

• Agility: Agile dwarves perform all tasks faster. Perfectly Agile dwarves work at nearly twice the rate as non-agile dwarves, not counting skill differences.
• Strength: High strength will reduce or eliminate the encumbrance penalty on a dwarf's speed. This is of most use for haulers of heavy objects (such as stone haulers), soldiers equipped with heavy armor, and siege engine operators, who have to bear the weight of the stone or arrow during the entire loading process. This may be no longer true in the 3D version; this editor has not noticed encumbrance.
• Toughness: Tough dwarves are more durable in combat and heal much faster.

Increased productivity

Dwarves with Legendary skill work at a, well, legendary rate. A legendary miner will mine roughly 14-15 squares to a no-label miner's one, for instance, and a legendary engraver can smooth 25 squares in the time it takes a no-label engraver to do one. The real-time rate is dependent on CPU speed: a Perfectly Agile legendary miner can mine about FPS×2 squares per minute, or FPS×4 ore squares. This is through normal stone – dirt, and possibly other substances, are much easier to mine through. {verify}}

Free rent

Like nobles, Legendary dwarves are exempt from the dwarven economy: they can take any object as a personal possession without paying for it, and claim any bedroom as their own without paying rent. This helps to keep them happy, although some Legendary dwarves may acquire an annoying number of objects.

Speeding skill attainment

If you provide item-producing dwarves (Masons, Carpenters, Craftsdwarves, Brewers, etc.) with a constant supply of nearby goods, they can quickly increase their skill levels as well. However, such dwarves can quickly produce mountains of goods, so you must allocate huge stockpiles and many dedicated haulers in order to keep their workshops from becoming severely cluttered. Farmers with a nearby seed barrel and food stockpile can also gain skill quite rapidly.

Strange moods

Dwarves which enter a strange mood and successfully construct an artifact object will usually gain one Legendary skill, with commensurate attribute increases. The single exception is a "possessed" mood, which will result in the creation of an artifact, but no skill increase. The skill a dwarf gains from a strange mood will be that dwarf's highest "trade" skill (generally, any skill which involves the production of finished goods, plus Mining, Engraving, and Furnace Operation). If you have your peasants train to "dabbling" in desired skills (such as Armorsmith), you will greatly increase your chance of gaining dwarves with those skills at Legendary level.

Cross-training Legendary dwarves

Because their attributes are so high, Legendary dwarves can quickly develop other skills to high levels as well. This is most useful when you have many redundant Legendary dwarves in certain professions but lack them elsewhere.

It may also be useful to deliberately train dwarves in a quick skill to get them to Legendary status, then switch them to other jobs. Mining and Engraving both train quickly without requiring much supervision (just keep large areas designated for mining or smoothing). Engravers tend to train faster than miners (and do not require picks), although mining is generally more useful).

Training dwarves in this manner does have at least one drawback. Dwarves which successfully complete strange moods (except possessed dwarves) always gain Legendary skill in their highest "trade" skill. Engraving and Mining are both considered "trade" skills by the game, so if you train many dwarves as engravers or miners, you reduce your chance of gaining a more obscure skill at Legendary level.

The Siege Operator skill is also of use for training dwarves. Siege operation does not train very quickly, since it takes a few years to gain Legendary skill. On the plus side, it requires little supervision: Build a catapult and set it to fire at will. Siege operation is not considered a "trade" skill, so it will not interfere with gaining useful skills through strange moods, and having a catapult operate continuously is a good way to clear an area of loose stone. Furthermore, siege engines are of little use in combat without skilled operators. Dabbling operators take minutes to load a single bolt or stone, whereas skilled operators can load and fire several times a minute.