Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ledgekindred]

It's been my understanding for the longest time that ramps are more efficient means of travel since it only requires one step to descend a ramp.  One to step down the ramp and then you are on the next level.  Whereas stairs required two steps - one to get on and one to step off the stairs.  Is this still true?  Is it that big a deal?  With the new multi-z-level designations it would be so much easier to build a huge stair stack down 60 z-levels and be done with it rather than my ramp macros that make a spiraling ramp system going down down down that I have to keep replaying.

[Loud Whispers]

Technically stairs are more efficient for space, designation and vertical travel. If it's a diagonal line between top and bottom, go for ramps. Stairs don't take 2x more time to travel than ramps btw.

[Girlinhat]

The "efficiency" is so slight as to be ignorable, especially with deep stairwells towards magma.  Imagine you're a dwarf walking outside to grab a sock and then back inside to store it.  It's 100 tiles outside, 100 tiles back in, 2 floors up, and 50 tiles to navigate the housing complex.  That's 250 steps if you use ramps, or 252 steps if you use stairs.  Do you really care?  .8% difference.

I prefer stairs for simplicity of stacking one atop another, but I've been using ramps lately.  Different aesthetics.  Just build your fortress to taste, I can 100% assure you that however you build it will negate any ramp/stair differences in pathing.

[Twiggie]

i only use ramps, lately. they just look nicer.

[ledgekindred]

I typically like the look of ramps more than stairs, but if stairs really aren't that much worse, then it will be much easier to reach magma, etc with stair stacks.

I was under the impression that if you had, say three levels of ramps, you would require three steps, but six steps with stairs.  If it's only one to get on the stairway and one to get off, then forget that.   

Thanks!

[zubb2]

Wait you can put stairs on top of each other?

Like
up
down
up
down

I always put em like this  up
                                     down
                                             up
                                             down.

[Girlinhat]

Depends on how they stack:

Code: [Select]

@_>
  <__That's 2 steps, down one, two steps, 5 total.

Code: [Select]

@_
  \__That's one step, diagonal down, and two steps, 4 total.

Code: [Select]

@_>
  X
  <__That's two steps, two down, two steps, 6 total.

If you can gradually change levels all over your map, then it works, so long as you build a linear fort.  As soon as people need to go backwards, go directly up or down (ie, magma), or anything except a gentle sloping design, stairs become preferable.

In the end, use what's most convenient.  I enjoy ramps for the look.  It's great in stonesense/overseer when you've got a grand staircase that looks like a grand staircase.  Stairs are more compact and easier to construct, especially during construction.  It's really NOT worth caring about pathfinding at all.

[Frame]

I had always heard that it was more efficient to use ramps because it cut path finding calculations. Something along the lines of the game recalculating the best route every step so when you have a stack of up/down stairs the dwarf has to check 26 directions to his destination rather than 8 when you are using a ramp. From personal experience I seem to maintain higher frame rates with high pop fortresses when I use ramps instead of stairs.

[nightwhips]

Wait you can put stairs on top of each other?

Like
up
down
up
down

I always put em like this  up
                                     down
                                             up
                                             down.

Hit d, then hit i.

up/down stair designates both at once, together on the same tile, and if you stack two directly, they connect.

[Jingles]

I always imagine up/downstairs as some sort of bizarre stone monkey bars or scaffolding (and then  I imagine dwarfs dragging bins of lead up and down these things).  So for the finished construction I like to use ramps.  Up/down stairs are used for service ways or in construction or if very specific space constrains need to be met.

[Loud Whispers]

I always imagine up/downstairs as some sort of bizarre stone monkey bars or scaffolding

Great scott! You've been playing DF so much you can't remember what ladders are! D:

[Kilroy the Grand]

I always imagine up/downstairs as some sort of bizarre stone monkey bars or scaffolding (and then  I imagine dwarfs dragging bins of lead up and down these things).  So for the finished construction I like to use ramps.  Up/down stairs are used for service ways or in construction or if very specific space constrains need to be met.

I picture them as spiral staircases.