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[Jerm]

Got a ton of questions in one post - so if you'll kindly indulge me:

While I'm not trying to make it into a science, I'm interested in improving design efficiency in my fort(s).  Distances are the first big item.  How far do you spread your fort out, to reduce noise, and filter traffic.  And how wide do you make Primary, Secondary and Tertiary corridors?  I am interested in reducing the distance that dwarves have to walk - from sleeping quarters to eating to working to trade depot, etc etc.  If they spend less time walking, and more time working/eating/sleeping - I'm thinking that's a *good* thing.

How does layout relate to FPS - and is FPS primarily driven by pathfinding and number of moving entities?  I'm trying to keep my FPS up, and I want 100+ dwarves to kick in economy and such.

I keep having problems with workshops and clutter and workers not working in cluttered workshops.  Especially carpentry shops and mason shops.  I've tried removing the cluttered workshop, then I have gobs of equipment lying there where the workshop was - and even though I have a bunch of haulers, the stuff just lays there for season after season.  I've considered building 10 of each workshop, wondering if that will ease the clutter problem.

I'm now about 3 years into my game, and have a pretty successful trade, mostly based on rock crafts, toys, instruments and mugs.  I'm trying to get my Iron/Steel industry going, but I plan to use it for weapons and armor mostly, instead of exports.  What other things do you do with trade?  I'm just getting a little bored, trading rock crafts for leather and cloth.

How much farming, and how many farmers do you need to keep a fort going?  I've come up with a strategy of doing 14 farms of 10 squares each, and a crop rotation to produce large volumes of edible and brewable plants.  Farming is kindof a dump profession for my forts, so I often end up with 15+ dwarves who have farming turned on.  Anyone got any well-honed strategy to share?

[Derakon]

As far as efficient designs are concerned, I tend to dedicate each floor to a specific purpose, and then stack floors vertically. Each floor is fairly small, except for the living quarters; thus travel distances largely depend on which floor the dwarf starts on and where he ends. So for example, the third level of my current fort is dedicated to workshops. I have space for 16 magma-enabled workshops (forges/smelters) in a 4x4 grid; in the middle of the grid is a staircase up to the bar, ore, weapon, and armor storage. On the other side of the staircase is a similar layout for my other workshops, but above is the wood, furniture, and finished goods stockpiles. The fourth level has my well and strip-mining, the fifth the bottom of the well, surrounded by the dining room, and way down on the fifteenth is the sleeping quarters, down where noise should be pretty well attenuated.

The food stockpile is typically below the farm, though on this map I've put it next to the farm instead (with a jaunt to an outdoor courtyard to help prevent cave adaptation and stop dangerous entrance-dancing). Around the food stockpile is the still, kitchen, farmer's workshop, butcher, tanner, leatherworker, loom, dyer, and clothier. If I need to I can dig down to make intermediary stockpiles for each of these.

Edit: spelling mistake.

[ May 15, 2008: Message edited by: Derakon ]

[InquisitiveIdiot]

I would advocate a stacked design as well.  My forts almost always follow this design:

code:

surface
farm plots + seed storage
"raw" food + farm workshops
breweries + kitchens
barrel + booze + prepared food storage
bighuge dining room
workshops (can be in any order):
   refuse + crafts + tanners
   wood storage + carpentry
   stone pile + mechanic + mason
   bar + ore + forges (if no magma)
   any I've forgotten
meeting areas + butcher shop (to get my dorfs used to death)

Barracks (I hate dealing with bedrooms.  My guys don't seem to mind doing the nasty out in the open) are off to the side.  Noble quarters are usually stacked, tomb under office under bedroom under dining hall, etc.  Saves a ton of space.

The big killer of FPS is pathfinding and flow.  Pathfinding can be reduced by having everything centrally located with great big corridors, and locking all your free animals into a single cage.  Flow can be reduced by starting on a map with as little water as possible, and only using it to drink from.  It can be argued this is nowhere near as cool, though.

[Edit] Oh, one more quick tip for efficiency: if you're doing anything with bags, like farming quarry bushes or glassmaking, make sure your dining hall, breweries and farm workshops are closer to your seed storage than your empty bag storage.  Otherwise loose seeds will be put in empty bags first, and your seed storage will fill up with bags that have a single seed in them.

[ May 15, 2008: Message edited by: InquisitiveIdiot ]

[Anonemoose]

Generally, this is what I like to do with my forts...

code:

Surface - Overland farm plots with Overland farm seeds
Trade Depot, Food/Drink piles, kitchens, breweries
Masonry, Mechanic shop, forges, smelters, carpenter stations, wood piles, metal bar piles, etc.
Bedrooms for commoners and nobles alike
Anything else I may or may not need.

Thinking of adding in a public dining room on my Food/Drink level to reduce wasteful movement.