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[nanomage]

I use the 6*6 blocks with quadruple up/down staris in the middle as a basic building unit. Usually 1 z-leve is a square of nine such blocks. It has place for 9 noble rroms, 36 ordinary bedrooms, 4 workshops with adjacent stockpiles, 4 blocks of 9 coffins or 1 noble grave each. Now 10-12 of these levels make a fortress. The longest path inside is something like 50 tiles.

[wierd]

hmm.. I must routinely make megastructures then..

My usual layout is a modular grid layout of 10x10 floorspace, 1x thick walls, and 3x wide hallways, with 5x5 internodes.

Each 10x10 cell can be allocated any number of ways, be it a workcenter with a stockpile, peasant quarters, noble bedrooms, justice system use, or military use.

Storage usually omits a section of hallway, and combines many such cells together.

The 5x5 floorspace internodes have room for 5 up/down stairs in a checker pattern, should I wish to turn the internode into an access to an upper or lower z level, with room in the corners to put dwarf happiness generating statues or caged animals.

I hear the 3x3 hallway has a higher computational cost for the pathfinding algorithm, but I don't care, it modularizes better than a 2x hallway.

[kero42]

Of course!
Dwarves get unhappy toughts if they feel bad about the draft, so vertical design has practical and performance aspects.

Sorry for being a bit off topic, but when you say draft do you mean "wind" or "military"? I'm jut asking because although from the context I suppose you meant the first one, I've never heard of the former causing negative thoughts and have heard plenty of the latter doing so. Just figured I'd check.

More on topic, I'm still working on finding a fort design I like, and because I like to be able to find everything from one screen, I tend to expand horizontally. I make a separate level for bedrooms though, except for the bookkeeper/managers, whose is on the main floor next to his office and above his tomb. I sometimes use separate levels for stockpiles and workshops, to reduce hauling time. My main problem with vertical expansion is that I tend to lose track of things easily if I have to move through too many Z-levels t one time. I intend to make a vertical ant-hill like construction for my next Formic fort in DF from Scratch, so I should get a chance to practice vertical construction for a while.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Ok, here, I've come up with a good demonstration of what inspired the thread.

Below is a picture of two structures, each block representative of 1 movement 'tick'.

Spoiler: No convenient CAD software around.. (click to show/hide)

The left structure is based on vanatteveldt's design of a 30x4 cylinder. The right structure is based on Pinstar's design of a 23x23xZ cube.

The structure on the left has a usable volume of 2827 units, while the one on the right has a volume of 5819 units.

However, the constraint they both share is the maximum distance between two points.
Starting from the farthest upper corners of each structure, it takes 32 moves to reach the furthest point opposite it on the bottom level.

So, if one only needs a specific amount of square footage for their fort, one can make it much more efficient, (game-time-wise), by keeping it closer to the center & spreading it over multiple z-levels.

Spoiler: The structures may be misleading.. (click to show/hide)

 On (yet another, dangit) inspection, the structure on the right is actually 25x26x11. Also, the one on the left has a diameter of 29; this is due to there being no such thing as a pretty minecraft circle with a diameter of 30 blocks.

If anyone has the appropriate math skills, it'd be interesting to know the best ratio of floorspace-to-floors. Volume per distance.

Just for an extruded square:
Distance=(x-1)+(z-1)
Volume=x²*z


--Just doing some plug&chug, it seems like the 23x23 number's pretty close to home as far as maximizing 32 moves.

[JAFANZ]

I believe the popularity of circles stems from 2 things.

1) Shorter paths from edges to center on a given z-level (you rarely see anyone trying to design their fortress as a series of globes, though 3-z cylinders can be advantageous for managing workshops & their related stockpiles, or was before stockpile links).

2) Aesthetics.

[wierd]

Personally, I think managing foot traffic with workflow considerations negates most of the need for a circular layout.

Take for instance, a vertically integrated production line. (Yes, I know that is horrid market speak, but I mean it in the literal sense.)

Let's say, a jeweler's assembly line.

This jeweler is intended for pasting loverly little glass baubles all over trade goods puked out by the ceramicist above him in the production stack. We have a 5x5 room, with a central staircase column on each floor of the assembly line. The jeweler gets his green glass baubles from a directly adjacent jeweler, who gets his raw green glass from the glassworks, that is adjacent to the ceramicist, both of whom have their material supply yards either directly above the workshop, or right next to it.

So, we have something like this:

Lv1: a contrived layout (likely using dfhack. Shh. I won't tell.) Where we have a Kiln, Clay harvesting tiles, and stone storage for raw clay tucked inside a 5x5 room. A wall with a 1x wide opening separates this room from the equally contrived glassworks and sand collection site in the next room, which mirrors it, except with sandbag storage instead clay boulder storage.

The room above holds a charcoal storage bin stockpile that spans both rooms.

KKKCC|SSGGG
KKKXC|SXGGG
KKKCC.SSGGG
SSSSS|BBBBB
SSSSS|BBBBB

Lv2 through Lv4

Just Finished goods, and Gem stockpiles.

FFFFF|GGGGG
FFFXF|GXGGG
FFFFF|GGGGG
FFFFF|GGGGG
FFFFF|GGGGG

Lv5:
Here we have the 2 horizontally supplied jewelers, the cutter on the right, and the setter on the left, and some local stockpile space for cut (left) and raw (right) gems.

JJJGG|GGJJJ
JJJXG|GXJJJ
JJJGG.GGJJJ
GGGGG|GGGGG
GGGGG|GGGGG

Lv6 through Lv8:

Finished goods storage, output from gemsetter above.
Note that the assembly line doesn't need a right and room anymore. That space can be allocated some other way. Perhaps adding a glazing process?

FFFFF
FFFXF
FFFFF
FFFFF
FFFFF

Lv9:

Minecart transport station, with access to above stockpiles.


Why this way?  The pathing distance for the workshop drones through the up/down staircases is very minimal, compared to the total storage space allocated for the assembly line. The drone will/should store goods near the stairwell, before putting it further out, because the pathing distance is less. As such, the workshop drones don't stray very far from the jobsite when accepting or delivering product.

The bottom of the assembly line is the minecart transport station, where bulk freight is loaded, then kicked off toward the destination using either powered rollers or impulse ramps.
In this case, this is clearly a bulk tradegood mass manufacturing system, so this cart track stops near the trade depot, and dumps right on top of said depot, then returns the cart to the loading station. This way when you want to trade, all those glass studded ceramic tourist bangles are right there, ready to go.

Careful planning of the locations of each of these workflow cells, based on the inputs and outputs of each industry, will radically reduce walking by your dwarves, and epic quantities of....stuff.... can be made very quickly.

Again, the issue is the memory allocation problem with too many vertical assembly shafts being put on top of each other. Using short minecart loops to put logically stacked cells so they are parallel to each other, and avoiding using dwarves to ferry it the extended distances, can help with that.

You should link the workshops with their stockpiles, so that dwarves don't get wild hairs to run off across the fortress to go get that one special sock that they feel really needs glass baubles put on it, and other such foolishness.

[Larix]

I've come to frequently 'stack' magma workshops with their attached stockpiles, so that access especially to the ores is quicker than would be the case if they were all on the same level (the magma's also on a different level, but that's not really vertical design).

Other clusterable workshops tend to end up on largish 'workshop levels' - especially the farming industries, which deal in lightweight items and have many connections between each other, so splitting them over levels would make it difficult to keep track of what's going on. But since i generally build my first few industries while digging the first shafts, they invariably end up on different levels and consequently i just fill in the gaps when expanding, putting related industries and stockpiles adjacent, and it doesn't matter too much if those connections are horizontal or vertical.

My more recent bedroom designs also tend towards vertical stacks with limited horizontal sprawl. This is most prominent in forts with limited horizontal space (crammed everything into a ~30x30 square in one as a designing challenge, but colonising spurs of rock also limits space). On the whole, my matured forts take up roughly between six and fifteen z-levels of actual constructions.

[jonanlsh]

My most recent fort settled into a shaft configuration.

A vaulted 2 level high entrance, with a corkscrew ramp going down into the heart of the fortress.
Z-0: Trade Depot, surrounded with a finished good stockpile
Z-1: Workshop Floor, all the non-food related industries.
Z-2: Storage Floor, all the non-food and non-finished good stockpiles. Also comes with a magma aqueduct, supplying the magma workshops.
Z-3: Empty
Z-4: Empty
Z-5: Housing Floor, 3x3 rooms with furniture for all them dwarfs. Nobles get 5x5 with attached 3x5 offices. Hospital also located on this floor, 3x3 rooms for the wounded with well, CMD office and soap stockpile.
Z-6: Food production, 8 storage vaults and 1 farm vault. Also comes with an attached 10-cell Jailblock, with office and dining room for the CotG.
Z-7: Mining and Aqueducts. Got that floor mined to a small extent.
Z-9: Catacombs, 2x3 plots for each and every dwarf in the fortress, larger rooms crammed with coffins in every square for pets and guests.

here's a shameless link for a better understanding. link is outdated by 5 game years, might upload a newer one soon.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-11711-polishseals

[Snaake]

Too many Z levels can actually decimate your FPS, as it caused DF to allocate considerably larger blocks of memory. Normally, sky that has nothing in it doesn't get allocated, and thus, does not get simulated. Same with deep earth that hasn't been revealed yet. Building a space elevator fortress can make for bad juju.

I try to keep my fortresses compact, and within 10z, at most.

Usually CPU power is stated as a bigger limiter than memory, due to DF's (mostly) single-core nature, no? (Graphics run on another core, and if you have stonesense, that can take a 3rd, so with the OS on the 4th, a quad-core gets ok usage, but still...)

In any case, if it's just "which z-levels have to be considered because they've been opened up at some point", most forts/players probably don't consider limiting themselves to only 10z an option, due to missing out on deep metals (and some of the surface ones, even potentially the rock layer), cavern fun, magma, and HFS. Of course keeping the majority of the fort within 10-15 z is definitely more effective in terms of pathing distances than spreading it out over a whole z or making it even more narrow, or just occasional used levels interspersed in unmined rock.

[Spitfire]

I found that once you get the basics of DF down getting a fort to run "good enough" is not a great challenge. So, you can pick for yourself whether to choose aesthetics or efficiency.

Personally, I think managing foot traffic with workflow considerations negates most of the need for a circular layout.

Though I agree with both, an efficient fort layout isn't necessary, but it is fun. So I'll do my best answering your question.

If anyone has the appropriate math skills, it'd be interesting to know the best ratio of floorspace-to-floors. Volume per distance.

The math is a simple minimum value calculation. If it's not that simple to you, I'd gladly walk you through the solution process. For now, the results:

For a fort with a given floor space and central stair case, the maximum distance between two points is minimal, when the height of the fort equals half its width.

I did the explicit calculations for cuboids and cylinders. I'd be suprised if the solution for other geometric shapes (spheriod, cone, pyramid anyone?) would be any different. Out of the vast range of fort shapes available, the most efficient walking wise would probably be the double cone. But you have to keep in mind, the bottom and top most levels in a fort thus shaped are only a couple of tiles wide, not enough space for even a workshop. A cuboid or cylinder would be more practical.

edit:
And, because everyone else did it, here's my layout z-level wise.
All floors have a round shape. Both complexes left and right have a central staircase, consisting of ramps, because I try to avoid stairs. So basically the fort is four slanting cylinders connected by the dining hall.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[mirrizin]

I've fallen into a pattern to, partly inspired by the tutorial on the DF wiki, though I've begun adapting it to my own, buildling everything roughly 10 z levels down.

0-Trade Depot, Dump Cave (later Barracks and after that decorative antechamber) and farms.
1-Mining. I don't like ti break open rooms, so instead I start mining tunnels that branch out from here to chase the precious veins.
2-Huge storage dump for clothes and trinkets and brick-a-brack.
3-Crypt, Prison, Bar
4-Primary workshops
5-Secondary workshops and furniture storage (I picked up the habit of building a square of workshops surrounding a storeroom
6-Metalworks
7-Empty, possibly magma.
8-FOod Prep
9-Dining
10+-bedrooms and noble quarters. I'm stack St John's Cross layouts ad infinitum.

And all of this radiating around a simple 3x3 staircase. It ain't always pretty, but it works and builds pretty quickly. After this is established I  tend to build a hospital a level above the entrance (makes the well easier) an external statue garden, two walled in courtyards, one inside the other, for livestock and outside crops. Cavern entrance accessed through the outer courtyard. Thinking about it, I like to use terraces for external construction.

Wow, that's pretty systematic. It works, though.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

For a fort with a given floor space and central stair case, the maximum distance between two points is minimal, when the height of the fort equals half its width.

I did the explicit calculations for cuboids and cylinders. I'd be suprised if the solution for other geometric shapes (spheriod, cone, pyramid anyone?) would be any different. Out of the vast range of fort shapes available, the most efficient walking wise would probably be the double cone. But you have to keep in mind, the bottom and top most levels in a fort thus shaped are only a couple of tiles wide, not enough space for even a workshop. A cuboid or cylinder would be more practical.

Ha, nifty! 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

When this next version is birthed into the world, I think I'll make myself a dwarven double-pyramid.

[wierd]

That's only part of the solution though. You also have to keep the hallway artery and tributary topology in line with the same conceptual model, and place workshops and resources appropriately to capitalize on this idea.

Eg, if the route to a destination is twisty and turny, you have just negated the purpose of the design.  Next you have to design the fortress's "organs", and "vascular system."