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[LordBucket]

Very interesting how different everyone's designs are.

I find it interesting how many people use a central staircase. I don't see any advantage to it.

[Eric Blank]

It keeps things closer together, makes sure every level can be accessed form every other with minimal distance traveled etc.
The biggest problem is defence, each hall extending from the stairwell needs to be seal-able to contain/seal out enemies if they make it through your gates.

[lanceleoghauni]

It's good for fortresses that Radiate outwards in a circular pattern. I don't do that because I don't like having no way to stop an invasion from reaching all levels of my fortress.

My Fortresses tend to be designed for functionality first, with a incredily small space between function and defendability. The widest my corridors usually are are 2 or 3, slows the dwarves down a bit, but 5 tile corridors are too much of a security risk.

Lever operated emergency doors are becoming more and more prominent in my desgins.

[LordBucket]

It keeps things closer together, makes sure every level can be
accessed form every other with minimal distance traveled etc.

No, it does the opposite, because it compells dwarves to regularly walk from the middle to the periphery and back, even if their destination is directly above or below them. Most central staircases designs could instantly get faster pathing simply by building additional staicases around the periphery. Instead of:

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This:

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X.....X
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Not only does that speed up pathing, it also gives you alot more room to work with because you can position input/output stockpiles relevant to any particular industry on adjacent z-levels. For example, we could place a furniture and finished goods stockpiles in the lower left of level 5, every workshop that needs stone and metal on level 4, the stone and metal stockpiles on 3, then the wood/bone industry workshops on level 6, and the wood/rubble stockpiles on level 7. Nobody has to walk to the central staircase and back, things are sorted nicely by type rather than sitting in a jumbled mess, and we're not compelled to have a huge entire level devoted to both industry and stockpiles.

The biggest problem is defence, each hall extending from the stairwell needs to be seal-able to contain/seal out enemies if they make it through your gates.

I haven't usually found that to be an issue. In my experience, if an orc army or something gets inside the fort, it's already over. There's no need to defend each level separately. The vast majority of my defense goes above ground. I usually add a couple drawbridge airlocks to the main entrance to seal off the whole place if need be, but if a siege manages to slaughter my army and break through a couple levels of above-ground castle only to be stopped by a drawbridge...I don't think there's a whole lot of point continuing. I've "lost" if it comes to that, and it's time to start over.

[LordSlowpoke]

I dig, dig, dig, and if I need more space, I dig some more.
My dorfs usually need over a thousand steps to get from the ore stockpile to the smelters, but when I make those, I have something like this in mind:
Screw you, neurotics. If I WANT those dorfs to live in 1x1x8 boxes, I WILL find a way to make a room that spans 8 z-levels.

[Squirrelloid]

Lord Bucket:
That all depends on how close you keep things to the central staircase.  If no dwarf is ever more than 3-4 tiles from it, its really hard to save travel time by making additional stairs.  And those additional stairs occupy space.

The designs I gave would not benefit from additional staircases much if at all, although certainly they can be added if there is an improvement.

The big efficiency saver is in transporting things that have to travel a long way - say from workshops to stockpiles for trading.  Or in shortening the time dwarves travel from work to bed to food/drink and back again (while keeping them out of the noise radius).

Basically, the entire fortress is closer together so overall efficiency is maximized.  You might gain some specific improvements in efficiency for particular tasks by arranging a few things differently, but if you don't otherwise use a central stair you'll lose efficiency lots of other places.

Also, just a single staircase is a bad idea for the same reason just a single-tile hallway is.  Similarly, the wider you space additional staircases, the worse it is for pathfinding because you can get into situations where a dwarf moves back and forth between two or more options as other dwarves come down the stairs.  The closer the stairs are to each other, the faster he can transition to an open path, and thus the less likely he is to get stuck moving to and fro.  (Adjacent stairs also permit for 3D diagonal movement, which means more paths are available even given the same number of staircases).

Edit: I do make a separate stack for my Trade Depot which doesn't sit over the central stair.  And it has stairs off each corner for more efficient access to its stockpiles, which are above and below it).

[stormyseasons]

I dig usable rooms around a central staircase or rampway. Mostly central staircase, that is, as I tend not to use up/down stairs until the lower levels. Usually I favour at least one additional stairway that also runs through most of the fort, as an alternative pathing solution. Danger from surface enemies is met by way of a drawbridge that is constructed as soon as possible - spent too much time playing DigDeeper and coping with orcs sieging in the first year.

In current fort, defense against cave critters is met by way of a small drawbridge that guards the only open accessway into the caverns. All other routes being blocked by walls. Uncertain of how well this works, or if raised bridges still work like constructed walls against buildingdestroyers.

The depot and woodstockpile is usually on the first layer dug into; including the food stockpile if there's soil at surface level. If not, food stockpile is placed near wherever I place my farms. Crafts workshops are built one level below the depot, directly sprouting off the main stairway, with a stockpile of stone for stone crafts and a stock pile for finished goods, plus 2 workshops, all in a 10*10 room. Usually the carpenters, masons and mechanics are placed in a 10*10 room on this level as well, with a stone stockpile for the masons/mechanics. One level below that, a furniture stockpile that is a minimum of 10*10. Refuse stockpile wherever I feel like placing it. Food workshops either on same level as food stocks, or one level above or below.

[Narmio]

I use cross-shaped blocks of four 9x9 rooms connected by 3x1 walkways with access to a 3x3 staircase in the very centre.  I have a 9x9 standard bedroom block, 9x9 dining room and standard nobility suite block.  I tend to put four related workshops in the corners of one of these blocks and use the space in the middle of the room for input stockpiles.  Larger stockpiles are in their own 9x9 blocks elsewhere.  So a workshops floor can have 16 workshops, etc.  Although I usually have one "side" of the cross be for low-noise jobs so that bedroom complexes in that area don't spawn bad thoughts.

I mostly do this for designation ease (I have the designation and furnishing of most of my standard rooms bound to macros), although it does produce neat, compact forts.  Not so sure how 9x9 blocks connected by 1-tile-long 3-tile-wide halls jives with pathfinding, but I never had too much trouble staying above 30-40FPS back in 40d#.

[Proteus]

I haven't usually found that to be an issue. In my experience, if an orc army or something gets inside the fort, it's already over. There's no need to defend each level separately. The vast majority of my defense goes above ground. I usually add a couple drawbridge airlocks to the main entrance to seal off the whole place if need be, but if a siege manages to slaughter my army and break through a couple levels of above-ground castle only to be stopped by a drawbridge...I don't think there's a whole lot of point continuing. I've "lost" if it comes to that, and it's time to start over.

Same for me.
My defense works are usually overground,
an elevated highway of reractable bridges and platforms leading to my castles entrance.
The castle often being medieval style, with a central keep that housesthe stairsto the vast underground world of my fortress surrounded by  castle walls with battlements on top of them.
Sometimes with a surrounding moat filled with water.
(sometimes instead of a central  kkeep I have a heavy defended cave entrance, surrounded by said castle walls).

If the enemies get into the keep/cave entrance usually already everything is lost as my main defense strategy consists of keeping enemies away from it.

[Hugna]

Farm plans:

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Craft area plans:

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Storage:

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Offices:

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Dining Room/Meeting Room Plans:

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Bedrooms:

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3x3 for normal, 5x5 for specials.

Mausoleum Plans:

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Hospital rooms/storage/Hospital surgery room sizes:

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I'm trying to finish the rest, but this is my basic layout.