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[JustMercy1994]

My friend and I are doing a succession fortress. I prefer aesthetically appealing fortresses while he prioritizes efficiency. This leads to obvious design disagreements.

He likes to build long hallways, three tiles wide, extending out from an open 3x3 U/D staircase. I think this looks horribly ugly and immediately build walls around the staircase and single tile doors.

I argue this is also for security purposes, because locking down entire z-levels with doors and hatches is damn useful. He says he'd get an FPS boost of +10 if we didn't use so many single tile doors.

Does this make a significant difference, either way? What also causes lag? We have forty or so animals and quite a bit of the fort is covered in blood/vomit. I think this might cause more lag than the door designs... Thoughts?

[Zuglarkun]

Oh boy, there is a significant amount of information out there regarding lag and its causes. As far as I know, main causes of lag are size of world, size of embark, pathing calculations, number of items on the map, heat calculations and liquid flow calculations. I'm pretty sure there is more missing. Make sure to read up if you are at all concerned over poor FPS. But that said, the latest versions of DF are noticeably laggier than the ones preceding it (34.11 is more lag friendly than 40.24 onwards due to lack of active world gen and multi tile trees for instance.)

What is relevant in your case is pathing calculations. Your friend is right in the sense that 3 tile hallways are significantly better for pathing instead of dwarves trying to climb over each other in a narrow 1 tile corridor. It's like the difference between a 3 lane road versus a 1 lane road. You are far more likely to get a congestion on a 1 lane road. However, I'm no expert on whether this is a significant source of lag or not. What is the FPS like in your fortress?

Personally I use 1 tile doors and 3 tile wide hallways along with 3x3 stairs for efficiency but I do like my aesthetics Well, different people different strokes, what looks nice to one person, may not look that nice to another person

To be honest, I don't see why you both can't mesh your sense of aesthetics with his need for efficiency. But hey, play the game the way you want it to

[Insanegame27]

I usually do 2x2 halls and 2x1 doors and 2x2 U/D stairs. It is good aesthetically and from a security/efficiency POV

[timotheos]

I design my forts on a grid system. The initial build has the corridors 1 tile wide and the doors into the workshops/meeting halls/etc also 1 tile.
I get 2 boosts to fps as time goes on. The first is when I set priority routes just using the corridors, even though they are still 1 tile wide, rather then taking short cuts through the workshops. Then a second when I widen the corridors to 3 tiles, with the priority lane still 1 wide down the middle.
The hall widening gives a bigger boost but both are noticeable.

[PatrikLundell]

And it IS possible to build 3 door in a row to bridge a corridor... A door requires the existence of an adjacent wall, but the wall can be removed afterwards.

Personally I consider my fortress to be lost if a significant enemy has penetrated the outer layers of defenses, but if I wanted to be able to lock off internal corridors I'd use drawbridges. Given that it's possible for visitors to be weres, I may have to reconsider my defense strategy, though (and weres are building destroyers, so doors will only delay them).

[Detros]

...and weres are building destroyers, so doors will only delay them).

Unless they are, ehm, of artifact quality .

[Insanegame27]

...and weres are building destroyers, so doors will only delay them).

Unless they are, ehm, of artifact quality .

I wouldn't count on that happening too often