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[Scottzar]

I have no bedrooms. I have a single square meeting room, where all my dwarves sleep. It seems to work fine.

[jonanlsh]

not for long. your fortress will eventually drop in happiness. given lots of micromanaging and mist generators, you should be able to put that off for some time.

[Xinael]

Why does a wider hallway cause an FPS hit? Does it offer more choices of path to search through or something?

Sort of, but the wide hallway problem goes away if you paint the hallway with a HIGH traffic zone.

I cringe when I see fractal spiral bedroom designs, because those really kill FPS. The pathfinding code (A*) always checks first for a straight line path. The most efficient fort is where all major destinations are directly connected by straight tunnels, with no misleading dead ends.

That's really interesting! My favourite designs have always been ones like this one, because I love trying to get the distance they need to travel as low as possible, but I can see how that would make that counterproductive. It would be cool if there was a tool to visualise or otherwise measure how badly a design will make A* crap the bed to compare.

[CognitiveDissonance]

It would be cool if there was a tool to visualise or otherwise measure how badly a design will make A* crap the bed to compare.

I can help with that! I am not a math student by any means, but I have an amateur ability to interprete things. So I went to look at the wiki entry, and Wiki has this very useful animation:

Spoiler: A* Search Visualized (click to show/hide)

Wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A*_search_algorithm

Notice that having the interruption slowed down the search process significantly, and the slow down was affected by the size of the obstacle. Once past the obstacle, the rest of the distance was resolved very quickly.

Another gif, showing the effect that multiple paths have:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All of this implies that:
- Any bend in a pathway increases computational time
- More than one pathway drastically increases computational time

From my understanding, the best pathway would be straight lines leading out of stairways, leading directly into relevant rooms.
This seems to imply that small corridors and large rooms with high/low traffic designations should result in best FPS.

EDIT: What I wonder about is how is this computed on a three dimensional level. Is the initial straight line drawn through Z levels, or individually to Z-level transitions?

If through Z levels, this would mean that idling areas should be right on main staircases to minimize path to/from stairs.
Frequently, the journey is Start in resting area -> Go to point A -> Go to point B to finish task -> Go back to resting area

[hanni79]

I always make 3 wide hallways with five 3*3 rooms:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Depending on the planned end size of my fort, I sometimes leave out crossing hallways, so like here I ended up with 10 3*3 rooms on the left hallways.
It's nicely rectangular and I like my Dwarves to have some space. Below is the Dining Room and above the Production layer.

@ Remsly and Centigrade : I really enjoyed your designs

[Bronze Dog]

Now I know a little more about pathfinding and have more motivation to take the time to designate traffic zones.

It's been a while since I played, but I like to lurk on occasion to keep up with the developments. I tend to favor aesthetics over raw efficiency, and have a fetish for hexagons. I have a general idea for a honeycomb layout built around a central surface megastructure with dining hall. (I suspect some of the efficiency-minded are cringing, again.) At the moment, I'm thinking of consolidating groups of dwarves into large hexagonal cells with different z-layers for different functions. There'd be a "public" layer for offices, workshops, and such, where the major halls are, layers for stockpiles related to the workshops (raw materials and finished products), and finally, a bedroom layer. Craftsmen and nobles are thus only a few z-levels away from their workplaces. I'm not sure what to do for haulers and military, though I'm tempted to do vertical apartments of some sort inside hexagonal cells.

Vampire wariness is something I haven't thought about.

[jonanlsh]

Now I know a little more about pathfinding and have more motivation to take the time to designate traffic zones.

It's been a while since I played, but I like to lurk on occasion to keep up with the developments. I tend to favor aesthetics over raw efficiency, and have a fetish for hexagons. I have a general idea for a honeycomb layout built around a central surface megastructure with dining hall. (I suspect some of the efficiency-minded are cringing, again.) At the moment, I'm thinking of consolidating groups of dwarves into large hexagonal cells with different z-layers for different functions. There'd be a "public" layer for offices, workshops, and such, where the major halls are, layers for stockpiles related to the workshops (raw materials and finished products), and finally, a bedroom layer. Craftsmen and nobles are thus only a few z-levels away from their workplaces. I'm not sure what to do for haulers and military, though I'm tempted to do vertical apartments of some sort inside hexagonal cells.

Vampire wariness is something I haven't thought about.

Some inspiration for you perhaps. http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-11672-polishseals

Absolutely no shameful fortess showing off going on here.

[Justiceface]

This is cool.  Really really cool.  I like the windows, and of course the dwarfy touch of having a coffin in each room.  Then you don't have to worry about where to bury them!  Beautiful and practical.  Grade A.

My current fortress is built around a huge central pit, so I created a ring-shaped bedroom layout. Every room has a chest, cabinet, window to the outside (despite being 15+ layers underground), high-quality engravings, and a coffin for each resident, just to tell the dwarves, "you're going to die here."

A picture of one of the several levels:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[jimjulius]

Organic bedrooms designed around a river (currently frozen). Everyone get their standard container, cabinet and window. design is stacked for four levels (one with windows under the water). I like my forts to flow around the natural terrain rather than be symmetrical.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[CognitiveDissonance]

Organic bedrooms designed around a river (currently frozen). Everyone get their standard container, cabinet and window. design is stacked for four levels (one with windows under the water). I like my forts to flow around the natural terrain rather than be symmetrical.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oh man, those rooms must be so cold!

[jimjulius]

Oh man, those rooms must be so cold!

Trust me; it ain't as bad as the ice-castle fortress I made. Hmm... I wonder how difficult it would be to set up some ad-hoc magma heating?

[jonanlsh]

Organic bedrooms designed around a river (currently frozen). Everyone get their standard container, cabinet and window. design is stacked for four levels (one with windows under the water). I like my forts to flow around the natural terrain rather than be symmetrical.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

beautifully done. applause is required

[Cerbsen]

My last 2x3 bedroom layout:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

red = stairs

[Smarmet]

I've been using a compact Greek Cross design spread over many z levels (up to 10 for 200 dwarves, though I rarely go that far.) I just did some counting, and if I counted right it should be slightly more walk efficient than the windmill cottages on the wiki. It's also easier to designate in my opinion, and pretty A* friendly. There is a shared door, but I've read (though not tested) that doors aren't included in room value, so that should just be saved effort.

Max Distance incl Z:15
Average Distance for 10 Z-Lvls:9.5*
Average per level:5.0

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

*edited from 10.0 after I realized the 10th Z-Lvl is only 9 from the 1st, etc

Edit 2: After trying to check my work against the wiki, I am bamboozled. How did they generate those numbers for the windmill cottages? I am measuring from the top of the staircase stack to each bed, and I get 43/7 (6.1) as the average distance per level, and thus 9.1 for a 7 Z-lvl stack (with noble quarters you never need 8 stacks.) Can anyone explain the methodology used to produce the 5.4/10.2 numbers?

[Catsup]

Organic bedrooms designed around a river (currently frozen). Everyone get their standard container, cabinet and window. design is stacked for four levels (one with windows under the water). I like my forts to flow around the natural terrain rather than be symmetrical.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

wait until a titan(most titans can swim), zombie building destroyers, or sieges with aquatic building destroyers show up. Those windows will go down very fast, and your fort will be flooded in addition to being wrecked from the inside due to whatever broke in. Your military wont be able to respond due to the flooding.