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[TheFreshPrince]

I do my best to keep the number of items the game has to keep track of to a minimum, so it's always depressing to see a heavily ladden human caravan massacred by goblins, who don't plunder their stuff but leave it to sit there and drag down fps.

I was thinking the best way to eliminate it asap would be to designate a nearby garbage dumping area and designate it all to be dumped, have a bridge built and raised over said dumping space, and atom smash it. This would use a ton of dwarven manpower though, is there a better way?

Any tips and tricks for removing items from play, and for improving fps in general (I've read the wiki article) are appreciated.

I know reduced embark size has an effect, but is it really noticeable? What are the other big things that you guys personally have known to be effective?

[Tacomagic]

Depends on how easy a source of magma you have.  If you have surface magma/lava, then you could wall up the caravan, dump lava on it, then clear the lava out.  That'll get rid of everything not firesafe, which is usually around 75% of the stuff.

Probably would take longer to do all that then to dump and smash, though.

[TheFreshPrince]

If I build a road, will caravans always enter the map from the road entrance and use it to reach my depot?

[greycat]

If I build a road, will caravans always enter the map from the road entrance and use it to reach my depot?

No, a road alone will definitely not do that.

[Vattic]

You could dig vertical shafts down from the dead merchants to somewhere safe and have the dwarves dump the items before you cap it off. That way you can more quickly get your civilians back inside and deal with the items in your own time.

[Cholek]

Build atomsmasher near items. If you can't bring your problem to atomsmasher, just bring atomsmasher to your problem.

[SixOfSpades]

I was thinking the best way to eliminate it asap would be to designate a nearby garbage dumping area and designate it all to be dumped, have a bridge built and raised over said dumping space, and atom smash it. This would use a ton of dwarven manpower though, is there a better way?

Never carry the stockpile to the workshop. Build the workshop inside the stockpile.

It's too bad you can't build bridges already in the Raised position, otherwise you could set them up right on top of the humans' wagons/pack animals. You'll just have to settle for right next to them.

Note to self: Do not chase cat while replying, lest ye be ninja'd.

[escondida]

Really, the solution is to control the surface as best as you can. In a mature fort, that means things like watchtowers, squad patrol routes, constructions to manipulate enemy pathing, etc. Until you get to that point, making an airlocked trade depot could work. Let the wagons come in however they like and shut the gate behind them. When it comes time to leave, open another gate that lets them take the seeeeeecret back way out.

If lag from their abandoned junk is that bad, you might also consider slightly more cheaty creative methods that even let you control their path into the depot, such as using raising bridges to construct walls out to the edge of the map, leaving only one wagon-accessible entrance, or wagon-only ramps (more difficult now with enemy climbing, but can still probably be done).

[neblime]

you don't have to construct walls/bridges on the edge of the map, just make only 1 path from a certain part of the map edge to depot (so any other entrances smaller than 4 wide) and the traders should start on the only map edge they can reach the depot from, you shouldn't need to make all the rest of the map edge caravan inaccesible

[ltprifti]

bring the atom smasher to the corpses/items... bridges can be built anywhere (if location is blocked they just move the item over right?)

[flameaway]

Smaller embark footprints make a huge difference... on my machine.

Trenches are good for managing how critters enter the map.  They are easier and faster than walls, but don't protect you from missile fire.  On flat maps it's pretty easy to just cut a 1 tile wide trench all the way around the map leaving a 3 wide path for caravans to follow.  If you build roads, then you don't have to worry about trees popping up and making your Trade Depot inaccessible... usually just in time for the caravan's wagons to pass you buy...

{watches a few pitiful yaks enter the map instead of wagons full of steel}

{is sad}

This solution allows you to cordon off entire sections of the map and seems to me to be an efficient answer to your dead caravan problem.  You'll already have the bridges as part of the perimeter infrastructure, so you won't necessarily have to build more to use as atom smashers.  Just set up your fort with this contingency in mind and your dwarves will never have too far to tote all that annoying crap.  Put a dump under an existing bridge that is already likely in the raised position and then double tap the lever.  Problem solved. This can even work during sieges if you can contain and maneuver the invaders using bridges. Though you'll likely want to have walls to protect your dwarven  retrievers from archers and the like.

I do this a lot when I don't want to bother with setting up a military.

This kind of all the way round the map trenching is extremely difficult to setup properly on maps with lots of elevations changes.  Lots of channeling through lots of layers. So if that describes your fort's terrain then you likely won't want to do this.

Turn off invaders entirely and completely avoid the whole problem.  I mean if you are desperate to save the FPS. There's always the stuff in the caverns to fight. 

[RocheLimit]

If you are looking for a DF hack way to do it, Autodump destroy works well.

[PLANKS]

you don't have to construct walls/bridges on the edge of the map, just make only 1 path from a certain part of the map edge to depot (so any other entrances smaller than 4 wide) and the traders should start on the only map edge they can reach the depot from, you shouldn't need to make all the rest of the map edge caravan inaccesible

This is an idea!

Does that mean all caravans would come to that accessible spot or would some pass by because they can't get to the spot they want?