Print

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

[Flying Dice]

So yeah, I've noticed a steady stream of these. About run out of interest on my current fortress, so I decided to post a layout summary and see what thoughts people had on it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Most is pretty self-explanatory. Questions, comments, flames? 

[Mitchewawa]

Looks nice, a lot roomier then what I do. Why did you mine out a vein of kimberlite?

Also, next time crop the images. For people with slow internet it's kinda annoying to load and scroll through.

[NW_Kohaku]

If you're sure you want a critique, then my first critique looking at several of those pages is that I try to avoid rectangles when excavating, and go for more interesting patterns, like the fractal room designs.

I'm working now on trying to create 3d fractals not just for residences, but also for workshops and stockpiles.

Doing things like crystaline tetrahedral structures so that the fortress looks like it was formed in hollows inside of a cyrstal structure as a form of dwarven architecture, or the like.  (The next one I'm planning on doing, with my nagas mod, is a giant caduceus where the rooms are "scales" around a serpentine helix in a mostly vertical fort.)

[slothen]

is that the standard design for spiral-ramp-staircase?

Your above ground structure is much nicer than anything I've completed.  Some comments w/ some MS paint text might have gone a long way.  Sad to hear you're running out of steam, to me it looks like you've finished laying a solid foundation for building a megaproject, or doing something else interesting.  I'm pretty sure I've had wells worth more than your whole fortress though.  Build dwarven swimming pool or something.

[Danarca]

You did well with the workshops, they're placed neatly next to the relevant stockpiles.
You should try to utilize the z-axis when designing your bedrooms, those looks like they take ages to travel to and from.
Your above-ground fortifications are very nice, however you should make some pathways on the walls not exposed to the enemy, to allow your marksdwarves to retreat without getting an arrow to the knee.
It also looks like you have a ☼Massive Power Generator☼, although I could be wrong.
Perpetual generators drain a crazy amount of CPU, and I can't even fathom how you can play with a beast of that size.
Also, you can upload those images to the DFMA (http://mkv25.net/dfma/), which will make it easier for us to check out your fort

[NW_Kohaku]

You did well with the workshops, they're placed neatly next to the relevant stockpiles.
You should try to utilize the z-axis when designing your bedrooms, those looks like they take ages to travel to and from.

More specifically, I'd say that when I'm not trying to make a "pretty" fort, I tend to make my workshops sprawl vertically downward from stockpiles, where there are just staircases in the middle of the stockpile floors leading down to small rooms arranged in a star from the stairwells.  Each workshop horizontally must be spread an additional 3 or 4 tiles from the stockpile.  Each workshop vertically need only be spread an additional 1 tile from the stockpile. 

Similar uses of vertical space in housing let you stack an entire fort's population around 4 stairwells on only 4 to 8 floors, depending on max fort size using the simple "*" style of housing. 

Of course, if you really want a showcase fort, I still try to go for the more complex 3-d fractal types, although they are much harder to include in stockpiles or the like.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, I went for a mix of efficiency and natural growth. So regular patterns, but not necessarily the best use of space or the prettiest. My  workshop layout when I'm going for greater efficiency is a stack of six-workshop hexagons with raw mats stockpile stacks above. And my 'efficient' nonfractal living quarters are typically small, highly vertical dealies as well.

It also looks like you have a ☼Massive Power Generator☼, although I could be wrong.
Perpetual generators drain a crazy amount of CPU, and I can't even fathom how you can play with a beast of that size.
Also, you can upload those images to the DFMA (http://mkv25.net/dfma/), which will make it easier for us to check out your fort

That power station... 19800 power, with something around 17500 net power. It wasn't a perpetual motion machine or a diverted river, etc.; it was a rather beautifully situated, very small aquifer, maybe 60 tiles total, and the drainage was only a single tile, so there wasn't much of a hit to FPS.  I might go back at some point in the future and use that to power a magma-flood device, but I honestly get rather bored when there aren't viable threats, and I can't seem to stop myself from making things as safe as possible for my dwarves, and once there isn't anything to really 'fix', I lose interest. I think my next embark might be a total minimalist embark in an evil biome, just to give myself something to do.

[King DZA]

I think it's lovely overall. The above ground portion is definitely impressive. The below ground portion is nice as well, nothing really extravagant, but nice nonetheless. However, I find mineshafts to be a big blow to aesthetics, and the lack of any notable monument to me is very disappointing.

[Nostril actor]

It looks really nice to me... I always forget to go vertical in my fortress until I reach the edges of the map but if you're bored by all means think of an idea to pursue in your next fortress and embark. Even if you never come back to this one it was a fun experience.

[zombie urist]

why are there 3 wagons?

[melomel]

How did you get the magma to the workshops?  What are the fortification/engraved wall thingers in the oval hall?  I'm guessing the small office/lever room is where the vampires are locked up...

Pretty nifty--I love screenshot threads--but notes would've helped...  if I haven't built it in my fort, I usually have no idea what it is.  =P

[Flying Dice]

why are there 3 wagons?

Because I'm a nitpicky bastard who likes his walls to all be the same color, and putting embarks up to 10k and embarking with a ton of granite is a lot easier and prettier than digging out entire z-levels for building material. Embark with enough items, and you'll have multiple wagons.

How did you get the magma to the workshops?  What are the fortification/engraved wall thingers in the oval hall?  I'm guessing the small office/lever room is where the vampires are locked up...

Pretty nifty--I love screenshot threads--but notes would've helped...  if I haven't built it in my fort, I usually have no idea what it is.  =P

1. In this case, because I'm a lazy bastard, and the inefficiency of having magma workshops a hundred z-levels or so away from my stockpiles is equally as annoying as the FPS loss caused by setting up a pumpstack, so when I don't do a volcano embark or have a handy magma pipe, I tend to play until I hit the magma sea normally, then deconstruct the workshops, channel the appropriate tiles, and use dfhack to drop magma in. I should really cut that out.

2. That is what engravings look like when you turn off the 'unique' option in the init files, if you're tired of a ton of annoying shapes all over the place. Unless you're talking about the marksdwarf training box in the old mine that's full of dead daemons and goblins.

3. Yep, vampire lever/bookkeeper chamber. I'd have made extensive notes, but I was rather sick of this fortress when I decided to end it. Also, see 1.