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Author Topic: Stockpiles, bins, fps etc  (Read 2001 times)

WhimsyWink

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Stockpiles, bins, fps etc
« on: October 08, 2013, 01:25:36 pm »

I have seen separate assertions for the following:
~large stockpiles impact fps
~bins are buggy in that dwarfs will sometimes refuse to retrieve items once they are in the bin (which tells me I should use them primarily for trade items AND that when I make bone bolts I should forbid ammo in all my stockpiles)
~pathing is a big hit on fps

Does pathing algorithm seriously 'consider' turning into a large empty room and every tile in it a potential path?  I can see an issue with entrys on either end of a large space.  And I guess with anything wider than 1 tile for a corridor.

Stockpiles are the only way to protect food from rotting (food won't be placed in a barrel/pot either without the stockpile) but otherwise it seems to me that placing the workshop that produces the item that would have gone to the stockpile.  EG a leatherworker may as well pile up his goods and forbid leather items from all stockpiles.  Worst comes to worse, quantum stockpiles can be employed. 
Any holes you see in those thoughts?

If the initial assertions of this post are correct, a bin bug would induce us to us bigger stockpiles which we need to avoid to narrow fps effects.  Has anyone accepted those premises and come up with a solution that works for them?
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toomanysecrets

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Re: Stockpiles, bins, fps etc
« Reply #1 on: October 08, 2013, 02:06:59 pm »

I think what a lot of people do in 34.11 is make pairs of stockpiles.  This is what I do for meat/plants/armor/weapons/clothes/leather/cloth or really anything that ends up being heavy in a bin: make two stockpiles, right next to each other.  One is maybe 5x2 and DOES NOT accept bins.  The other one, probably larger, is right next to it and accepts from links only and takes from the original and DOES allow bins (or barrels).  This way, when a dwarf picks up a bin to stuff an item into it, he is only traveling a couple tiles instead of halfway across your fort.

This keeps dwarves from hauling bins to the surface and otherwise spending days at a time carrying heavy-ass bins.  You said dwarves "refuse to retrieve items from bins" and I don't think I've had this problem.  It is true that is you modify a stockpile, the "removed" items do not get drawn from "mixed" bins but this is rectified by just making your stockpiles hold what you want the first time you make them.  (IE don't make a stockpile that holds all finished goods and weapons and armor at the beginning no matter how tempting...)

Large spaces that are mined out but aren't going to be used should be sealed off or marked with traffic designations. But, if you are going to use the space for something, then there's no need to stress about the FPS loss.  I think it will be marginal anyway.  I am by no means an authority on the issue, but I remember spending an afternoon trying to boost my FPS in a large fort with about 200 population.  I felt like time spent messing with pathing and traffic designations yielded very little (if any) change in FPS.  However, there are many other things which can and will raise your FPS:  lowering G_FPS, turning off weather and/or temperature, destroying excess stone, destroying/trading useless items, and slaughtering/caging large numbers of livestock.  Personally, I never saw ANY change in my FPS by changing traffic designations.  That's just me, though. Certainly do not worry about 2-tile wide hallways.

You said something about letting items pile up in workshops.  This is fine, to a degree, but workshops WILL become cluttered and this has an impact on how quickly items will be completed in that workshop.  Just a warning.

Quantum stockpiling with minecarts is awesome, and pretty easy once you get the basics of setting up a route.  Follow the guide on the wiki and you will have it down in no time.
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FuzzyZergling

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Re: Stockpiles, bins, fps etc
« Reply #2 on: October 08, 2013, 02:15:04 pm »

I have seen separate assertions for the following:
~large stockpiles impact fps
~bins are buggy in that dwarfs will sometimes refuse to retrieve items once they are in the bin (which tells me I should use them primarily for trade items AND that when I make bone bolts I should forbid ammo in all my stockpiles)
~pathing is a big hit on fps

Does pathing algorithm seriously 'consider' turning into a large empty room and every tile in it a potential path?  I can see an issue with entrys on either end of a large space.  And I guess with anything wider than 1 tile for a corridor.

Stockpiles are the only way to protect food from rotting (food won't be placed in a barrel/pot either without the stockpile) but otherwise it seems to me that placing the workshop that produces the item that would have gone to the stockpile.  EG a leatherworker may as well pile up his goods and forbid leather items from all stockpiles.  Worst comes to worse, quantum stockpiles can be employed. 
Any holes you see in those thoughts?

If the initial assertions of this post are correct, a bin bug would induce us to us bigger stockpiles which we need to avoid to narrow fps effects.  Has anyone accepted those premises and come up with a solution that works for them?
As far as I'm aware, this is all true.
Personally, I just accept the FPS hit and have larger stockpiles.
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Merendel

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Re: Stockpiles, bins, fps etc
« Reply #3 on: October 08, 2013, 04:06:02 pm »

I've never had a situation where dwarves just flat out refused to take items from bins as long as the bin was preasnt in the stockpile at the time the dwarf arived.  The main issue with bins is when a dwarf wants something from the bin and then another dwarf picks up the bin before he gets there to go get a single Xpigtail sockX from the other side of the map.


As to the pathfinding through empty rooms you might want to take a look at this thread http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128855  A bunch of !Science! was done on the computational cost of the pathfinding algorithm.
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WhimsyWink

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Re: Stockpiles, bins, fps etc
« Reply #4 on: October 09, 2013, 03:48:15 pm »

Thank you for the responses and the link to the !science!.

I've always felt that fort design was going to end up being the solution to fps as long as I kept a rein on the goose and yak population.  I just needed to know things like: traffic jams in a 1 wide hall are much worse for fps than having option of 3 tiles with each step forward.
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