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[Phant]

woah woah. you're destroying every fort plan ive ever had here Phant. Do you know for a fact that dwarves fall down multiple z levels of stairs?? Have you seen it happen, maybe its been changed by now even??

Trade Depots gotta go inside, in my opinion. Protection from flying enemies and minimize the chance that the huge load of meat and booze you just bought doesnt just spoil right then and there (ive had this happen to me, EVEN THOUGH my depot was inside. I think people stomping on it and not hauling it was part of the problem there. It would be even worse if it was outside, right?).

I dont have a problem with a complex magma system.
Not if it reduces the amount of time our forgers need to spend drinking, thus increasing efficiency, you see?

Does magma disappear or maintain a constant level and exist forever?

I havent actually seen it happen for many versions, but I get in a habit like that and Im not likely to break it I geuss.

I still dont understand what your getting at with the magma stuff. Maybe theres something about magma im not aware of.

As for the stair thing, I always build 4 main sets of stairs in a nice large stairwell to prevent trafficjams. As it is, Bustgates has reached the point where I have nothing to do but provide booze and food, trade, and occasionally fend off ambushes, as ive not had a siege for several years now. I may try up/down stairwells on my next fort and see if that reduces
pathfinding lag though, can never reduce it too much.

[Hyndis]

A central 4x4 stairway with a vertical fortress design makes for a good, efficient fort.

However if you want to be excessively efficient at the expense of all else, simply designate the entire map to have up/down stairs dug, thus dorfs can walk from any place on the map to any other place using straight lines, but such a thing will be greatly lacking in aesthetics.

I tend to try to build my fort on a single level. Storage is done on different Z levels as it doesn't need any maintenance, usually just a simple stairway below the workshops, but everything else is all on the same screen for easy management.

[Hishan]

My forts are always highly aesthetic, I just cant stand forcing all my workshops in one room surrounded by staircases, its just not right, but cramming your stairs full of stockpiles is also extremerly efficient.

I like my designs to be as natural as possible, even at the expense of efficiency and function. But I suppose its more of a test of how much you will sell out this to get efficiency, and to find a happy medium in which to work. I like my designs, Because they are relatively easy to set up and are quite walk/space efficient.

And yes the last bedroom design is too big, but it was just an example of the continued pattern.

[sphr]

youre right sphr, i forgot that main reason. hey do YOU have a map to show us? I feel bad for phant with us picking on his fort, and hes the only one showing us his goods so far

Unfortunately, my most recent map has very complex z terrain and I haven't got as good defence design as many others.  I had a hard enough time trying to put up a defence (which involves removing lots of natural ramps, cutting of edges of cliff into a seperate hills, a series of guard towers/battlements that is sealed off from the surface and only accessible from underground main barracks etc....

anyway, if you are interested, here's 2 capture of the surface entrance to depot and the actual depot one level down.  What is not shown is the 2nd level U-shaped gate house for marksdwarves (includes archery targets so that squads off duty also contribute to defence).



Ground Level (a narrow section of a river valley) showing the entrance ramp.  It is covered by lever operated hatches  Oh yeah, I have lots of ballista, all configurable for both training and shooting... however, some of them are built above ground so they can only be fired if I don't order the dwarves underground, so they are not really effective...  planning to dig a long underground "lure" tunnel with underground ballistas instead.... but anyway, all these towers are inaccessible from surface.   They are all accessed from a special section below ground which is separated from main fortress.


1 level below ground where the main trade depot is.  I haven't finished building this part, but mainly, the access corridor to main fort will be sealed off with a channel/drawbridge.  There is another narrow access from main barracks to the surface courtyard for dwarves.  It also shows part of the tunnels accessing the ballista/guard towers.  This region is off limits to pets (which tends to stand at the head of ballista and get killed) hence the pet resistent doorways (which does not work 100% but enough to keep 90% of pets out.  A second layer of such doors at the towers make it very unlikely that a pet will wander in by accident. At least there are no more ballista related pet deaths so far).

EDIT: Though I don't really find my fort THAT efficient (I prefer simplicity to human eyes at times, would that count as efficiency??), here's the map on the map archive...
http://mkv25.net/dfma/poi-6559-undergroundtradedepot

[Hussell]

In general, I find that efficiency comes from arranging your workshops and stockpiles to minimize hauling. In particular, putting input stockpiles as near as possible to the workshops that use them helps a lot. So, for example, your still should have a brewable plant stockpile and an empty barrel stockpile next to it.

Most output can be allowed to accumulate in the workshop for at least a little while, so output stockpiles can be further away. The exception to this is seed stockpiles. It helps a lot to put all your seed-generating locations next to your seed stockpile, so that empty bags don't all end up with 1 seed each. So my still, millstone, farmer's workshop, and dining room are all as close to my seed stockpile as possible. The seed stockpile, in turn, is as close to my fields as I can get it.

Stockpile dependencies like this generally dictate the layout of my fortress. Don't be afraid to relocate workshops and stockpiles if you notice a big inefficiency!

Another trick is to put 2 barrels of booze near all of your distant worksites: near veins being mined out, wood cutting and/or herb gathering operations, fisherdwarfs' favourite ponds, and your sand gathering zone. This prevents, e.g., wood haulers from walking out to pick up a log, then dropping it to walk back to the fortress for a drink. Putting booze near your beds is also important, since dwarves often wake up thirsty.

The old one-tile refuse rooms can be improved by taking advantage of Z-levels and the fact that miasma does not spread diagonally:



You can put cages with all your young domestic animals (puppies, kittens, foals, calves, etc.) in your meeting area, where they generate a lot of happy thoughts for your dwarves (most dwarven animal preferences are for the domestic animals), while the adult animals go in a pit where they can breed freely. In no event should your non-pet animals be allowed to roam freely through the fortress, since they slow traffic.

About corridors: is there any reason to have corridors more than 2 squares wide? In my fortress, heavily travelled 2-wide corridors seem to automatically self-organize into 2 lanes going in opposite directions. Yes, sometimes there's a perfectly agile dwarf who needs to pass his slower comrades, but there's so rarely a solid wall of dwarves moving in the other direction that passing is almost never leads to a dwarf getting trampled.

I hope these are useful tips.

[Sergius]

Sergius your design is even less efficient than Phants.

Stairs should be groups of up/down stairs. You dont want dwaves having to pathfind constantly because theyve only got one place to go. and you certainly dont want them to have to decide to walk over 4 squares to get to a different staircase to continue on their way. Once you hit 80 dwaves or so youve got a giant traffic jam going on right there.

Plus, massive lag.

The fortress is currently at 150+ dwarves and there have been no traffic jams. Most dwarves don't use the same stairway, and even during major haul projects they rarely bump into each other. I've never seen a dwarf change staircases to avoid another dwarf.

[Sergius]

I tend to try to build my fort on a single level. Storage is done on different Z levels as it doesn't need any maintenance, usually just a simple stairway below the workshops, but everything else is all on the same screen for easy management.

That is actually a good guideline, I used to make everything on its own level so my fortress was a tightly packed cube, but it's a nightmare to get an overview of things and noise management is also a pain.

I prefer to make the general layout 2D and use multiple levels as "building floors", so the "granary area" is a 5+ level cube, the "housing area" likewise, etc. Since noise travels the same number of levels up and down as it does tiles horizontally, and you only get 20 or so usable levels while the potential width and height is pretty damn huge, trying to separate noisy dwarves from sleeping dwarves works best on the horizontal level.

[coldstone]

well serge, you can tell me its working, but you cant tell me its efficient. try this: turn off wood hauling while you cut down a forest. then, turn on wood hauling and at the same time throw up a huge stone stockpile outside. then try to tell me theres no traffic jams

i guess the reason it seems to be working now is that you do have 4 of them placed, but to me its a one lane hallway taking up 2 spaces and requiring twice as much walking.

again, i want super efficiency here.

[puke]

there was indeed an issue just a few versions ago where dwarfs on high traffic areas would trample and injure each other just like football (soccer) hooligans at the worldcup.  it had the added bonus of knocking them down stairs, though this may have been taken out as i havent seen it lately.

but there is still an issue (feature) where multiple characters on one tile have to lay down and crawl.  so you always want your hallways wide enough for dwarfs to walk around each other.

I have a design that i have been toying with that uses a central common area, around which there are a set of quadruple-helical-ramps.  activity (farm, work, storage) areas are on the outside and related work areas are 1-z appart joined with their own sets of stairs.  each stair way only spans one z-level, mainly because they only need to span one level to get between each stage in the production process.

I've keep putting off building the full scale version of it, as its probably going to be my next massive trophy fort, the kind of which i havent made since Sigunlokum on the 2D version.  maybe the next major release, i'll get it going.  i've also been thinking of using that direct-memory editing auto-designation utility to lay out the floor plans for the thing.  is that utility working in the latest version?

[Wirrit]

advance warning:  All of my examples are going to come from the same fort -- which was made primarily to be tidy, rather than just for efficiency.  Some things are made to be massive, instead of just practical.  Pardon in advance, I don't have anything else worthwhile uploaded.

Hallway size:  I prefer hallways that are at least three wide, personally speaking -- Here are some examples of why.  While occasional side-passages that are 2 or 1 square wide are okay, it's a lot easier to make 3-wide halls everywhere on the off chance that you expand your fort out that way later.  Having the main hall be 4-5 wide is a nice aesthetic choice, but probably not as efficient.

As for movement between floors...  I'm a fan of a grand central staircase in the very center of a fort, and periodic (every 16-20 squares, ideally) similar stairways all throughout the main halls in the fort.  I use up/down stairs in every fort; and have never had a problem with dwarves falling to their deaths.  Careful interlinking across Z-levels is really one of the keys to efficiency, I think.

I'm also fond of modular housing and compartmentalized refuse heaps that ensure miasma can't spread.  Big enough compartments that it saves space; small enough that dwarves don't usually have to venture into miasma.

Trash chutes (although defensively risky) are quite handy for handling a number of issues around the fort, especially the disposal of unwanted items or creatures.  For this reason, it's nice to build one's graveyard, refuse pile, and a few butcher shops / tanneries / bonecrafters in the general vicinity of the bottom of the trash chute.  Just make sure to zone it such that the dwarves will walk around the bottom of the chute, not under it, to avoid crushed dwarves.  It's also a good idea to have stairways in this vicinity; because dwarves sometimes get very picky about which floor they want to throw things off of, if they're given a choice.

For trading -- build a tower and sub-basement above/below your trader's depot, and make sure all (or most) of your saleable goods are stored in that tower/basement.  It makes trading much, much faster.

For food -- build a few stockpiles somewhere near your farms, and have all of your stills / kitchens right beside them for ease of cooking / brewing.  Put smaller stockpiles inside dining halls however -- for more efficient eating.  It may also help to have numerous small dining halls, instead of one big one.  Haven't tested that yet, though.

For water -- All I can say is that it should be near the very center of the fortress, if you want anything to get done.

[Haven]

Hm... For bedrooms, this design seems to be most efficient... Can't remember where I read it from though.

Code: [Select]

WWWW
   W
WWWD
   W
WWWW
Cuts down on door production, though I haven't looked into the loss from dwarves waking up at the exact same time... Doesn't seem to happen.

As for food, I imagine farming will be central top (soil) Z-level, with a dining hall at the highest appropriate stone Z-level (to facilitate Legendary rooms via engraving), both centered on a fort's stairway column. Not sure how they're going to fall down the stairway, but you could avoid it by alternating stairway locations to create solid barriers every few Z-levels at the cost of about 2x travel time. As far as I can tell, the wide column should have space enough so that a fall through the stairs won't impede movement.

Wide hallways are generaly a good choice that I know of. 3 wide works for a suitably Z-level decentralized fortress, and a 3x3 stairwell seems to be almost equal to a 9-wide hallway, so it should be more than enough. 2-wides should work for bedroom columns, but there should never be a 1-wide path in the fortress unless the area at the end is used for only one purpose that can be seen to by three or less dwarves.

Efficiency in prospecting can feed into compact-fort plans by making two-wide paths at regular square intervals, and carving out the resulting blocks as rooms for nobles, though personally I tend to make them into manors for dwarven families, that's solely an asthetic matter.

[Teeto_K]

A central 4x4 stairway with a vertical fortress design makes for a good, efficient fort.

However if you want to be excessively efficient at the expense of all else, simply designate the entire map to have up/down stairs dug, thus dorfs can walk from any place on the map to any other place using straight lines, but such a thing will be greatly lacking in aesthetics.

...(snip)

What terrifies me about this idea is the thought of defending such a fort in the case of security breach: It'd basically be like Air Combat, and I have trouble enough wrapping my brain around the Z level as it is.

[Soulwynd]

I keep my forts very simple, unless I'm trying to be fancy with it. I don't try doing those anymore simply because I end up stop playing and lose another fort I took a long time to design.

So my basic shape is modular, like this:

Code: [Select]

#===+===+===#   #
             ><>
             <8<
             ><>
#===+===+===#   #
|           |   |
|           |   |
|           |   |
+           +   +
|           |   |
|           |   |
|           |   |
+           +   +
|           |   |
|           |   |
|           |   |
#===+===+===#   #
So each square has 3 tile wide corridors all around, can fit 9 work stations without problem, or can be a 121 tiles stock. Note that the square is done by using shift+left then shift+up for example (shift makes the cursor move 10 tiles, if you didn't know, counting the one your cursor is on, you get a 11x11 square), so it's really easy to keep a standard size and there are lots of stairs for dwarves to go around without depending on a 'main' stairway. In the middle of the stairs I leave chains for war dogs or build statues. It's hard to defend once things are inside the fort, but I tent to have only one heavily guarded exit/entrance.

My other uses for that square are; Noble housing, each noble with a square of those, gives pretty damn good housing when engraved. Slums, each square holds 16 3x1 rooms. Average bedrooms, Each square holds 8 3x3 rooms with a neat atrium in the middle (some times statue garden, some times tomb, some times just an open space set as gathering area). Fancy bedrooms, 2 11x5 bedrooms. And so on.

[danielout]

I like to do a 4x4 central stairwell, utilizing U/D stairs around the 'ring' with a 3x3 pit through the center. At the very bottom level, I run a line of magma and a line of water, so I can designate a dumping station on each level, and build 3 wells; one for each water tile they can access. Usually one well will be on the 'military level', where i have my barracks and weapon/armor dumps. The other on the dining level, and the last on the workshop level.

I build my housing at one of the lower z-levels, and keep my production towards the top. This allows me to mine out the soil layers easily to generate vast storage areas, then build the workshops underneath. A large z-level buffer keeps the noise away from the deeper bedrooms. I didn't design to be as efficient as possible, but I do find that this method seems to work well. (I just liked how it looked!

[Inquisitor Saturn]

I just stick everything into a 15-level column of 21x21 rooms with a 3x3 staircase in the center. The dorfs don't seem to mind. Each bedroom can be just as nice, there's just no walls or privacy. Spartan living, that's my motto.