v0.31 Talk:Workshop

Concepts and Organization

There is a lot of information on this page, mostly in list form. I'd like to condense the lists into more generalized concepts, useful forms, or transfer some of the information to the specific workshop pages themselves. Any suggestions are welcome! I'm currently working on updating the individual workshop pages, but I have a feeling there is a better way to list the workshops within each tier (alphabetically, the order listed in-game, perhaps in some sub-category?). Even the products could use similar attention. -- DN 17:49 1 March 2011 (GMT)

Yes, there is a lot of info. And it really needs to be corrected, updated and reformatted. But I'm opposed to condensing it down to generalizations. That would greatly diminish its usefulness. Despite its shortcomings, I find the Tier System handy to see at a glance how far removed end products are from the materials used. Using this to make comparisons allows me to judge the time and labor cost to produce goods and make decisions based on efficiency.

As for organizing the Tier System better, I have a question: Should Template:Ls be taken into consideration to determine the Tier? Currently, a few workshops (Still, Quern, and Millstone) are listed to consider containers as part of the materials used and, as a result, the goods produced are classified much higher in the Tier than they would otherwise. But most workshops do not do this. I feel a rule should be decided upon to make the Tier System more consistent and clear.

Should containers ever be considered part of the raw materials, such as when a certain container is absolutely necessary? Or should containers always be left out of Tier considerations? IMO, I feel the latter makes much more sense. First, containers usually store stacks of multiple items, so they don't count much toward the labor cost producing 1 unit of a finished good. Secondly, containers are reusable (with the exception of Template:L products such as liquids or powders to caravans that must be sold in a container). Since containers are reusable, the dwarf labor and time to make them is inconsequential compared with the actual goods. As long as the goods are consumed or used in the fort, containers are a one-time investment.

If containers were always considered, then the Tiers of materials used and goods produced would have to be greatly expanded, making it vastly more complicated. For instance, bags produced from silk cloth should be Tier 2 because they only require a Tier 1 material. (Silk cloth comes from silk thread, which is produced automatically by a dwarf with the gather web labor. The latter does not require a workshop, so it's Tier 0.) But bags produced with Rope reed thread, Pig tail thread, or Yarn (from Wool) require more processing, so such bags are Tier 3. And anything stored in them would be Tier 4. Similarly, Alcohol can be stored in wood barrels (Tier 1), metal barrels (Tier 2), or a metal Template:L barrel (Tier 3). And it can be stored in Template:L (Tier 2). This makes alcohol fit either Tier 2, Tier 3, or Tier 4, depending on the type and materials of the container. Then, when you try to determine the Tiers of workshops further down which use liquids or powders as ingredients, the complications get compounded. --Thundercraft 09:15, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Containers required by processes should be considered, but not as part of the tiering. Would it be possible to consider just the raw material flow, with notes aside for resources that don't get used up, such as buckets, barrels and bags? Since containers aren't 'consumed', and made from such variety of materials, I don't feel it -should- be used to count tiers, rather, counting by how many steps from raw material the processes the workshop have is. What I'm unsure about is if just the processes itself should be regarded, or the highest-tier process the workshop have as is on the current list? AutomataKittay 10:13, 20 June 2011 (UTC)