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[CyberianK]

Hello everybody.

I am asking this question because I was curious on some designs that I saw at places which claimed to be incredibly "efficient". For one example this here: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/File:Organics_processing_complex.png (just one of many)

Now I don't claim to know better here I just want to understand how this game works. So I try what I know so far but please correct me if I am wrong
As far as I know Dorfs can pass through most buildings, items and zones. There are a few exception to that most notably the occupied workshop tiles and some constructions (btw is there a list somewhere which exactly is unpassale?). If need be they can go through other Dorfs occupied fields slowly but they usually don't and path around them. Diagonal movement costs same as normal movement. When fetching raw materials Dorfs always choose the closest one. Even if a pile of wood is 2 tiles away behind a wall and needs walking through your whole castle to reach it he will prefer that one instead of the 4 tile away one.
Now because of the diagonal movement even between workshops there are usually many 2 or even 3 tile wide pathways which don't cost extra cause a zig-zag path costs as much as a direct line: . Now this leads to the cube being the perfect body in DF instead of the Sphere like in the real world. Every part of the outside of the Cube has the same distance to its center in Dwarfen Geometry.
To honor that I want to go with a 16-23 central cube without any dedicated walls. So probably 16x16x16 (3x3 workshops plus side stockpiles + extra staircases) or up to 23 (4x4 shops) I am not sure yet. Yes this has some problems for Berserk, Defense and certainly Rooms.
Can you name a few problems that I have to overcome or do you have any advice? I want to state I will have a small additional outside defense perimeter probably in a tube like shape leading away in all sides, so to defend against sieges and lower caverns. If they breach inside my main room I might be dead although I will still have staircase hatches, the bigger problem might be inside threats which I can't contain very well.

So can you explain to me what reason there is to leave empty space? Aesthetic reason is perfectly fine but is there any other?
Anyone did giant cube without inner walls yet? Yes I know it is probably the most boring and simple design I am not claiming to be very creative here anyway I only had this game for a week, artistic I can get later.

Thanks for feedback,

Chris aka CyberianK

[utunnels]

Diagonal movement costs same as normal movement.

Are you sure?

[CyberianK]

Diagonal movement costs same as normal movement.

Are you sure?

I am not, I am just a noob

but I read that on multiples occasions like here: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/40d:Design_strategies#Diagonal_design

is it true?

[Loyal]

There isn't any particular reason to have empty space between workshops, and you can indeed make it more efficient with intelligent use of z-levels.

However, the diagram you linked isn't really all that great regardless.

• At least with kitchens and butcheries, you will want to keep them segregated from other workshops, walled off with only a small access space through a door or two. Dwarves get an unhappy thought if they witness animals getting slaughtered (possibly also with corpses butchered?), and a corpse/meat that isn't handled in a timely fashion (butchered, taken to stockpile, etc) will rot and produce miasma, generating more unhappy thoughts for anyone passing through.
• It's good to have a stockpile for barrels near your stills and Farmer's Workshops. But you can go through barrels very quickly and that pile is far too small to be useful during productive times. It's also good to have a stockpile for buckets for milking animals.
• The refuse stockpile is also too small, as bones and shells cannot be binned and tend to accumulate rapidly. I would have an entire section of 3-4 craftdwarf shops (for all crafting needs, not just bone) separate from the rest, with big ol piles of bone/shell stockpiles and smaller stockpiles for stone and wood on the side.
• There isn't much reason to have a Prepared Meals stockpile anywhere near the food processing, as that food is as processed as it's ever going to get. Consider instead putting it (and booze, unless you like to cook booze) next to your large dining rooms and mess halls.
• Entirely a matter of preference, but many players prefer to have craft/leather/mason/tailor/etc shops separate and sealable, similar to the kitchen space, in the event you have an undesirable or unfulfillable strange mood and need to seal the moody dwarf in before they cause any damage to the rest of the fort.

[ptb_ptb]

is it true?

I'm pretty sure it is. People who should know(tm) have told me so. Also you can see the effects of it in adventurer mode. In adventurer mode a circle around your hero is visible. If you throw something North, East, South or West it will get near to the edge of that circle, but not out of it.  However if you throw something diagonally it will end up out of sight. It goes the same number of 'tiles' in either case, whether that is left/right or diagonal.

[CyberianK]

However, the diagram you linked isn't really all that great regardless.

yes that's what I thought too that it wasn't so super efficient like it claimed, way too horizontal and I saw no reason for all those spaces thats why I was curious and created this thread. 


thanks for the other advice that is really useful
so the consensus would be no pathways of empty floors needed you can use the stockpile areas for movement plus empty workshop tiles

also thx for the rotting animal remains reminder but I might do that above ground (walled) or with Glass ceiling in my Cube playthrough as I want to try without inner walls in the central cube

[Eldin00]

Diagonal movement costs same as normal movement.

Are you sure?

I am not, I am just a noob

but I read that on multiples occasions like here: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/40d:Design_strategies#Diagonal_design

is it true?

The link you post is for an older version. In the newer versions I believe that diagonal movement costs more than orthogonal movement.

As to the empty space between workshops, it isn't always necessary, but most (all?) of the workshops have 1 or more impassible tiles, so you have to be careful of those when placing them to ensure that you don't block or restrict access. For example, bowyers and jewlers shops have 3 impassible tiles on the left and right sides, respectively, so can easily block doors if placed against walls in the wrong place. In vanilla ASCII graphics, the impassible tiles are darker green when placing the workshop.

And finally, if you're really wanting an optimal design, you need one that takes advantage of the fact that the game has 3 dimensions. I find a cluster of workshops around a central staircase, with stockpiles immediately above and below, to be significantly more efficient than the specific one you linked to. The wiki is a great resource, but make sure the page you're looking at corresponds to the version you're playing, and keep in mind that sometimes you will find outdated information even on the current page. That design would have been much closer to optimal back in the 2D days than it is today.

[CyberianK]

The link you post is for an older version. In the newer versions I believe that diagonal movement costs more than orthogonal movement.

THX

I am aware of the version control, somehow it must have switched when I clicked links it does that sometimes.
Here the quote from the new version:

Moving one step diagonally takes about 1.4 times as long as moving one step orthogonally. This matches the real world, where Pythagoras tells us that it should take √2 (about 1.414) times as long. You can optimize floor plans for pathfinding by adopting more circular shapes into your design.

So my Cube Plan switched to Sphere again
as for lots of Z levels I am already doing that. But with diagonal taking more, straight corridors definitely make more sense than I thought before.

THX everybody for clearing my confusion

[PatrikLundell]

The wiki pages for workshops display which tiles are impassable. If the workshop is available to you (magma versions isn't until you've found some), trying to build one should display the impassable tiles (with the Phoebus tileset they're darker).

One reason for having space between workshop is that they tend to get cluttered, and I suspect cluttering slows down walking speed as well as work speed, but I don't actually know.

I tend to have the farm plots and its production chains on the "upper" floor, since that's the one that's typically farmable (i.e. not stone floor). Beside the farm plot(s) I have an indoor seed only stockpile. Thus, I have the still beside the farm with a stockpile that only takes brewables (including outdoor ones) in between them. Another stockpile is dedicated to pig tails (and hemp... overland crops) for thread production, then a farmer's craftshop to process the plants, a thread quantum stockpile, then a loom and a cloth quantum stockpile, and then a clothier. Since I use DFHAck workflow, I actually create three clothiers, one for each type of cloth (plant, yarn, silk), so I just can restart the production list when enough material has accumulated. If I bothered with milling it would end up here as well, with its own source stockpile. The pressing mess would also end up here, with all the stockpiles required to ensure you didn't just crush your last rock nuts (which I don't grew, since food is not an issue).
On the second level I usually have "ordinary" workshops, with a general quantum stockpile in the middle, with its feeding stockpiles around it, and on the next level the big food stockpile (that excludes brewables/threshables) on one side of the main corridor, the kitchen opposite it, fishery on one side of the kitchen and butcher on the other, tanner beside the butcher (with a raw hide only refuse stockpile), and then the leatherworker beside that. Behind the butcher I place the indoor pen (birds, dogs, typically). Below that I have the mess hall, and below that I have several levels of dorf's accomodations (something like 12-20 a level on each side of a corridor, with staircases at each end). In the completely enclosed courtyard the grazers' pen is located, with a farmer's workshop for shearing/spinning (I've given up milk/cheeze since it's too much work, especially since I have serious food over production as it is, but when I did, I had a separate farmer's workshop for milking/cheezemaking). I also have outdoor farm plots here, and a bit later, when I've got some time, I dig out a little area (from the cliff face I dug into) for outdoor seeds only.