Dwarven Guidance Counselor 0.0.6Welcome to the Fortress, Urist McMigrantMiller. We... have a miller. He spends most of his time hauling. Come in, have a seat, and let's discuss where you see yourself in five years.
Dwarven Guidance Counselor is a mere 120k of JavaScript, HTML and text, but it has ambitions. You tell it the attributes and traits of the dwarf in question, and can do so by number, by phrase, or by XML upload. It will make recommendations on the course of a future career.
Look up the phrases from Thoughts and Preferences (u-v-enter) that represent attributes, and about a minute of data entry gets you an evaluation like this:
He has the potential to be a very good Intimidator. He has the look of a good Animal dissector, Bone doctor, Surgeon, Suturer, Brewer, Herbalist, Tanner, Fish cleaner, Fish dissector, Fisherdwarf, Record keeper, Comedian, Observer, Student, and Ranged combat dwarf. He will make a poor Organizer, and Socializer. He seems like a very poor Judge of intent. He is too direct to Lie.
This is the same dwarf, with attr and trait values gathered from Runesmith and Dwarf Therapist and entered by hand, taking about five minutes (loading from XML should look similar to this):
He has the potential to be a very good Animal dissector, Surgeon, Suturer, Tanner, Fish dissector, Intimidator, and Ranged combat dwarf. He has the look of a good Bowyer, Engraver, Bone doctor, Brewer, Butcher, Dyer, Grower, Herbalist, Milker, Miller, Thresher, Fish cleaner, Fisherdwarf, Gem cutter, Gem setter, Bone carver, Clothier, Stone crafter, Weaver, Wood crafter, Strand extractor, Record keeper, Comedian, Observer, and Student. He will make a poor Pump operator, Organizer, Armor user, and Socializer. He seems like a very poor Judge of intent. He seems happy at the thought of helping others. His unassertive nature won't allow him to attempt Persuasion. He is too straightforward to Lie or Flatter.
There's an optional red/blue coloring feature that makes it easier to tell at a glance what an evaluation means, and a bright-side option that ignores poor choices and presents average (green) rated skills instead.
With some browsers you can load XML produced by Runesmith to evaluate your dwarfs automatically. See the readme for step-by-step instructions. It works on and Firefox 4.0.1 and IE 9.0.8.
I haven't personally tested on Opera or Chrome but the following fixes should be useful:
For Opera: opera:config#UserPrefs|AllowFileXMLHttpRequest should be set to "Allow"
For Chrome: load chrome from the command line with --allow-file-access-from-files as switch
Known Issue: If you export your dwarves from XML when the dwarven caravan is present, caravan members are read as if they're normal members of your fort. I'm not sure where to begin dealing with this, for now, just don't export your fort then!
Last version update: 11 May 2011.
Ver 0.0.6 11 May 2011:
Embark Facts will evaluate your dwarves' attribute points in the aggregate, and give you an idea whether rerolling your starting seven is worth the trouble.
Fixed gender bug I introduced.
Made the bright-side option much more likely to report average skills.
Added Find Best Among menu, so you can limit Finding Best to only those dwarves you want to reassign.
Ver 0.0.5 03 May 2011:
If your dwarves have nicknames, and they're exported to XML, the nickname will be preferred over the real name.
New Find Best feature sorts your dwarves by natural ability in each skill (XML only).
Ver 0.0.4 29 Apr 2011:
I finally convinced IE to read the XML. Hooray!
Thanks to the help of Pearlie and niku98, XML will work whether taken at embark or in the game.
And the trait-searching script should now report accurately.
Ver 0.0.3 27 Apr 2011:
Assertiveness will take verbal input appropriately now.
Under certain settings and circumstances, poor skills will not show, and average skills will (in green).
Firefox users can load XML exported from Runesmith.
Ver 0.0.2, 25 Apr 2011:
Minor bugfixes:
Trapper will report correctly now.
Friendliness and Gregariousness are no longer confused when average gregariousness/friendliness is entered. Thanks Argonnek!
Four skills that aren't currently used have been commented out, to cut down on the word wall effect. Also, Ambusher (Hunter) is rolled into the ranged combat skill.
Ver 0.0.1, 23 Apr 2011:
This is also the first version, and must be buggy. It probably won't cause your computer to burst into flame. Y'know, probably.