Shattered Kingdoms

Go outside, dig a hole with your bare hands, bury a human-sized corpse into it, then report back here.

I think you are splitting hairs that are so far down the list of priorities or importance that I feel justified in disregarding it entirely until we have dealt with a thousand other issues that affect gameplay on a deeper level. Nor is it a valid reason for disregarding the inherent potential value that could come from an expansion of crafting-styled skills.

Sometimes you simply need to not sweat the small stuff, lest you get so focused on the imperfection of a single branch that you lose sight of the forest and the great beauty and opportunity it represents.

I don't see taking the existing code that already checks for a shovel to use the dig command and patching it to change the movement cost instead of the ability to evaluate as a very big change.

The evaluation already happens. Upon firing off the dig function, a scale variable could be set to 1. The conditional that already fails out with "You don't have a tool in your hands" would instead add a value to the scale variable equal to some product of race (perhaps just using the size bonus) and whatever numerical value is associated with terrain type in a room (responsible for determining movement lag/cost.) Having a shovel might change the starting value of the scale variable before that calculation. The resulting scale is then multiplied by the static cost to dig to determine the scaled cost.

That would patch the problem with shovels and allow for griffons, for example, to have a racial factor of zero for free digging. It would allow for diverse outcomes with only one function being responsible for evaluating them.

As for your suggestion, I've done it. Cairns are easier, sure, but you can do it if you care enough.

My point is not that the code would be difficult to add.

My point is that, even if I agreed that the current dig code was flawed and should be changed (which I don't), I don't consider the assumed value to be worth the (even limited) time that would be required to implement it. Particularly when there are so many other more worthy uses of that (even limited) coding time.

I would counter-argue that in the time it takes to write a reasonable argument as to why it would take too many resources, the appropriate resources could already have been spent to do it. We're talking about a couple case statements, not a refactoring of the pfile.

Of course, the issue is that the resources to do this can only come from one person. On that angle, I think you make a valid point.

The fact Griffons are assumed to have the required dexterity in regards to the form of their body to properly use a shovel with what ever the hell is "Talon Grips" kind of amuses me. I think I'll go give this more thought.

The more perplexing question is how they use their bodies when they dig. A human, or bipedal creature, bends their back and their legs.

Does the griffon stand on two legs while using the shovel?

Imagine a dog digging a hole. They have claws, they're pretty good at it.

Now, imagine that dog, with a shovel taped to its arms.

Next, imagine that dog walking several miles.

Griffons should receive penalties to walking with items in their hands,

and they should be able to dig without shovels.