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[Mushroo]

Has anyone studied the FPS ramifications of having distinct rooms and corridors vs. completely mining out a large area?

[Montague]

Has anyone studied the FPS ramifications of having distinct rooms and corridors vs. completely mining out a large area?

I don't believe so, which is one thing I've always been curious about. Looking at how A* pathing works, I'm not sure which would be better, especially since nobody knows exactly what type of A* DF uses.

I want to say corridors and rooms, because traffic designations helps the pathfinding program find a path or rather look in fewer places to find a path, while open areas will force it to look absolutely everywhere to find a path. The downside with corridors and rooms are the pathfinding looking into dead-end rooms and trying to navigate around walls and more maze-like paths and locked doors and whatnot. While an open area is very straight forward.

[rtg593]

Series of 3x1 ramps dropping down, usually 5 levels, 3x30 hallway, at the end the Depot on one side with the brokers office attached, the main hall to my main trade goods stockpile on the other. Those 2 get closed off by bridges, a 3rd bridge opens at the end of the hallway exposing a ramp to a zig-zag maze with 100 cage-traps, Surrounded by archer stations for those that might try and ignore cages.

In the main hall is an intersection with 5 down stairs, as we go down, primary industries with stockpiles, secondary industries with stockpiles, and then any remaining industries. After that, citizen housing, then Noble housing, then a 20x3 hallway with staggered balistae to a series of stairwell leading down to the caverns, magma, and eventually, the circus.

Each cavern I reach, I stop the dig, wall off that stairwell, and resume digging to the side. Create my own defense system with a long hall entrance when I want to breach it. Still working on a design for breaching the circus, first time I've embarked and found a Upright Adamantite Short Sword down on z-level -18 :-D

My current fort is different, due to embarking on a small peninsula shooting into the ocean. 3 layers of soil above an aquifer:p My entrance has a system that locks down the halls and begins pumping a massive amount of water from the aquifer, rushing down the hall, and at the end dumping into an aquifer pit :-D

My .31 fort was getting 20,000 worth of trade goods from capturing the ambushes each year, so I'm working on a system to claim the good from the pit. Not gunna miss out on my main income source, lol.

[Vehudur]

I'm having trouble finding the most efficient way to lay out bedrooms in a 23 long 21 wide area.  Size doesn't really matter, all of my bedrooms that need to be large are already built elsewhere. 

Access is via a 3x3 stair occupying (with 0,0 being the lower left) a square with corners in (15,9) (17,9) (17,11) (15,11).  The X axis is the longer axis (the one 23 long).  The outer edges must be walls, so (0,n) (23,n) (n,0) (n,21) must be walls.

[thatkid]

I actively work to make my fort look like an actual underground city. The dwarves dig into the side of a mountain, and quickly begin to channel down.
There is a business district with workshops and the trade depot, a residential area (which usually doesn't get much more than a few apartments), a temple area which contains the LFR temples and the burial chambers, and an area for the prison. Then I branch out from there, adding more areas and slowly digger downward as it becomes more and more necessary to do so.
To go along with all of this, I tend to assign my soldiers into squads of two and give them the profession "Guard" or "Guard Captain". Then three squads are set up to constantly train, rest, and patrol a certain area- They're basically beat cops. What this generally means is that tantrums are quickly put to an end, but, since dwarves have their own houses and apartments, vampires are free to roam. I find it makes for some interesting dynamics.

Since this is a fantasy game, however, and these are dwarves, I tend to do some somewhat wacky things (and here I am revealing how lame I am by both the use of "wacky" and the example I'm about to give). For example, I might have an apartment or factory have two lobbies. One would be a few floors below the first, and would open up onto a second set of street that can only be accessed by moving through certain buildings.

Normally in the beginning I try to avoid marring the world too much, and most subterranean streets and buildings will fit with the mountain's edges and the like. I might, for example, just dig upwards and then build floor over a volcano rather than pump the magma somewhere. Eventually, though, I set off on a series of smaller projects like a pump system to create a waterfall for the "luxury" apartments or some noble's household courtyard, and this all changes. Once that's happened, I begin to seriously cut the place up as I work on bigger and better constructions and designs.
Naturally, this urge to conform to the natural lay of the land doesn't prevent me from setting up defenses. I usually remove all ramps around my entrance and then set up a rather large box of walls with a spear-filled moat and a bridge on one side. Then I set up archery towers in the corner of this wall-box, even if I don't intend to make use of ranged soldiers for some time.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Some Pre lay out cities of my own design, the first is the first "Standardized" layout I came up with back when forts where usually a single Zlevel:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The second was my first attempt at a more "artistic" feel to a city.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[rtg593]

I actively work to make my fort look like an actual underground city. The dwarves dig into the side of a mountain, and quickly begin to channel down.
-(snip)-

That... Is... AWESOME!

My next mountain fort is so going to be a hollowed out city... Skyscrapers and all... Crazy cool...

[Clotifoth]

Let me begin by saying my fortresses are almost always based off of organic need.  When a need comes along, I squeeze new elements into my fort to fill it.  There is no pre-set design, usually.

That said, my fortresses almost always have a number of things in common.  First, everything is always made to fit before the first cavern.  I prefer highly horizontal styles, even when this leads to vastly inefficient sprawl, because damn it, if I spent five hours running the damn thing, it better look pretty while I'm doing it.  The first level is usually the fort entrance, the most "static" design of all.  Usually this is a bridge to close it off, then all the military barracks, then the top layer of the central staircase.  Usually I have room above this, but I hardly ever use it.  The idea is that in case of an early sneak attack, if I have any military whatsoever, it sure as hell is going to be the first to die and the first to inflict casualties above the others.

The second level varies but is usually farming combined with seed stockpiles and animal storage due to the soil that grows fungus.  In my latest fort it somehow ended up the workshop layer. o_O

The third layer is usually a lazy universal stockpile for all sorts of items besides food.  Yeah.  Sometimes it also ends up being the workshop layer, which gets confusing quick.

The fourth-eighth layers vary widely, but one is usually a 10x12 dining hall with a 8x12 store and two stills / two kitchens inside, one is usually a hospital, and one is usually bedrooms.

After that, the only "always there" element are the ore veins mined out.  The closest one from the surface, I fill with coffins.  I don't know why and I know it's waste, but I just do it.

What I think I will try in my next fort is a "burrow", with the basis that the dwarves inside are brigands looking to seize various merchant goods.  If I can't kill off a dwarven caravan without causing a loyalty cascade... there's the humans to pillage, at least!  Features would have to include fortification turrets and lots of sprawled out order. o_o;

[jamesadelong]

Horizontal, especially when dealing with zombies. Vertical fortresses allow movement far too quickly.

I use double airlocks and a permanent guard behind windows. Allows me to see exactly whats going on outside.

I love a nice solid basilica after my airlocks, one with a wide and covered mezzanine. Station marksdwarves on top of that and you can ensure a clear line of fire between it and who ever is below.

After that, I have a small sunken area with just a little water, to help clear off any major symptom dusts or whatever.
This leads on to a redoubt that allows a group of marksdwarves to open fire as the enemy cram themselves into a 3x3 tunnel before they get to my marksdwarves however, there is a covered chamber in which my CQC teams can engage them, allowing the marksdwarf squad to retreat.

Finally, I like to have a staircase to an external tower behind that with a drawbridge door and a small burrow carved out nearby. When in doubt, retreat.

As it stands, the systems have only failed to the basilica. After that, the system is relatively untested.

[Aspgren]

I like to try new things but something that is pretty much always included are structures that transcend Z levels. I often hollow out large sections and turn them into completely useless voids. Why? Because I just can't appreciate a large room with a low ceiling... and for this reason my above-ground constructions always require a lot of material and rise pretty high. 

Since I don't appreciate single Z-level mines either I channel out areas and then I make new channels inside of the channels. If I don't have an aquifier and I'm building a surface fort then there will always be a large dwarf-made gorge that looks neat in stonesense. I also frequently make pillars with statues places on top of them just because it looks nice.

 Also I tend to not use stairs. I prefer ramps and complicate my structures accordingly. Also I fill out areas with large amounts of unneccessery grates and floodgates instead of walls. but apart from all that ... there aren't many recurring themes in the fortresses.

[Veylon]

I tend to favor vertical forts these days. Each layer is either an 13x13 open room used for storage or workshops, or else cut up into small rooms (2x3) for quarters.

[gunnyfreak]

I generally have a standard design for dorf fortress and a more organic "as needed" bases for human towns i modded in

dorfs start out with a 3 by x hallway until there's enough room to dig a 11 by 15 entrance hall which is the priority to smoothen and engrave (once man dorfpower becomes available) and generally filled with statues upgraded over time as better ones come along

the hallways are smoothed if possible and engraved in the middle tile for dorfs to admire on the road (they do do that, right?)

the outside, irregular parts of the mountain are used for barracks, diplomacy (noble offices, trade depots) and fortifications and will likely have a secondary 3 tile entrance for wagons.

the inside are divided into "modules" of templates of 3 by 7 but is very flexible

these modules are always multiples of 4 - 1 in both dimensions, by extension the entry hall (12-1 by 16-1) are really just big modules, same goes for the streets, makes for a very organised feel to the fortress.

example:
Dormitory (used for temporary accommodation since new bedrooms take time to build and stone removed) are 3 by 7 rooms with 12 beds lined on the sides and possible extra beds or statues on either end (or improvised hospitals that has chests/bags) that can have doors on both sides for a infinite chain of dorms

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

wwwwdwwww
wbbb+bbbw
w+++++++w
wbbb+bbbw
wwwwdwwww

apartments can also be chained (each 3 by 7 modules contain 2 rooms with a infinitely extendible hallway of 1 tile)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

wwww+wwww
w++w+w++w
wb+d+d+bw
w++w+w++w
wwww+wwww

initial meeting hall is a 7 by 7 room (think 2 3 by 7 modules together with the wall removed) with chairs and tables lining the middle of the hall and possible statues:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

wwwwdwwww
w+++++++w
w+c t + t c+w
w+c t + t c+w
w+c t + t c+w
w+c t + t c+w
w+c t + t c+w
w+++++++w
wwwwdwwww

the back door can then lead to a kitchen/still module (these modules can conveniently fit 2 workshops together and allow a way through/between them, useful for things like forge/smelter module or double jeweler module where one does the cutting and the other encrusts)

advantages of this design lies in the fact that all the rooms are perfectly sized for most workshops (7 by 7 can fit a woodfurnance, a forge, and 2 smelters), stockpiles (since they're almost always perfectly rectangular), and always odd in dimension allowing a definite centerpiece (7 by 7 tombs, 11 by 15 halls with legendary statues in center etc.etc) and that it minimizes wasted space by only having 1 tile thick walls

[Montague]

I tend to favor vertical forts these days. Each layer is either an 13x13 open room used for storage or workshops, or else cut up into small rooms (2x3) for quarters.

How are the staircases arranged?

[NinjaBoot]

Has anyone studied the FPS ramifications of having distinct rooms and corridors vs. completely mining out a large area?

Areas that are mined out period will hit your FPS, the bigger the area, bigger the fort, the bigger your FPS hit will be. 

Now, if you keep your fort nice and compact, the FPS hit will be barely noticeable, but if its a huge-sprawling fort with underground labyrinths, then yes, it will be noticeable.

[MuseOD]

@thatkid LFR?