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[Yanlin]

I am looking in the hands down best way to design hallways and living quarters without diagonal doors and the likes.

So hop to it thinkers. I tried my best.

[Gnomechomsky]

For my most recent fortress I went with a central 3x3 stairway, with 3-wide hallways radiating out in four directions.  I had many Z-levels, and never built anything very far from the central stair.  Not revolutionary, but it was my first time trying it, and I was surprised at the drastic gain in efficiency.

My next fortress will be the same, but with more attention paid to the outdoor entrance.  Right now it's too inefficient to walk outside, since it's connected to the central stair area by a longish hallway.

[Ascii Kid]

I'm not sure this is the best, but it's my two cents;

I start with a 5x whatever mainhall with three doors leading in.  The very start, just behind is usually cleaned out to provide more room for defence if the front door gets breached.  Then, off of that on either side I clear out two more 5x whatever halls and jam them with workshops I havn't, or don't want, already built outside.  The workshops take up the back 3 squares and I use the front bunch to place related materials to speed up production a little, though this really just bakcfires in the end.  Esthetics, really.
  At the end of this I put a 2x2 set of stairs going up and down, which leads to the bedroom hallways (Which I use a 3x whatever hall with 1x3 bedrooms adjusted for need) and the messhall(which is fully carved out and supported with statues and crap)/kitchen/brewery/foodstorage area respectively.  Once that's in place I've usually found some refineable ore, so I begin metal production, slam in a 3rd level for goods storage, and then expand as needed.   
  After that I've usually created a sustainable fortress that can trade all it needs to.  In fact, since the 3D went in I don't think I've had a fortress succome to anything but my own personal bordem or curiosity concern the affects on the world.  Tho I've suffered many, many tragedies.  =->

[WCG]

My next fortress will be the same, but with more attention paid to the outdoor entrance.  Right now it's too inefficient to walk outside, since it's connected to the central stair area by a longish hallway.

The outdoor entrance is a problem for me, too. I don't want the hallway to be too long, but it's important to keep my dwarves far away from the front doors during attacks (they keep walking outside, several paces out from the fortress, before remembering that they were supposed to stay INSIDE).

The solution, I suppose, is to build a long constructed hallway, with a built ceiling, which might keep the dwarves back a ways from the entrance. That's not too efficient, perhaps, but it seems to be critically necessary. But I'd have to design for that from the start.

Note that I have a separate, wide entrance right next to the trade depot, but this can be closed off completely with a bridge. Of course, it means that my dwarves can't load the depot while restricted to indoors. But then, it also means that caravans can still access my trade depot, even when my fortress is locked up tight. (And I have separate bridges - in fact, several different perimeters - which can separate the depot from everything else, if necessary. But usually, these are used to keep goblins from escaping, not to keep them out.)

Well, this is only my second fortress, so I'm still feeling my way. I know my main entrance needs work, but I'm not sure exactly what would work best. [Note, too, that I want my main entrance to be showy. This is, after all, the entrance to my mighty fortress. Efficiency should be less important than first impressions (and defense, of course). For role-playing purposes, the main entrance should make sense, don't you think?]

Bill

[iskurthi]

For my most recent fortress I went with a central 3x3 stairway, with 3-wide hallways radiating out in four directions.  I had many Z-levels, and never built anything very far from the central stair.  Not revolutionary, but it was my first time trying it, and I was surprised at the drastic gain in efficiency.

My next fortress will be the same, but with more attention paid to the outdoor entrance.  Right now it's too inefficient to walk outside, since it's connected to the central stair area by a longish hallway.

I did much the same in my last one. A 3x3 central stair going all the way down, and a '+' of 3 wide hallways stretching out. All production rooms were in a 3x3 or 7x7 arrangement which made everything fit together in a nice grid. I also built it up several z-levels in the same style to use up stone have carpentry operations and wood stockpiling on the surface closer to the trees.

The nice grid was broken up by things like the necropolis for graves and the cave river diversion to make everyone waterfall-happy...

[Eater of Vermin]

I tend to build mine in much the same way, but there are a few areas that don't easily fall into the style.

eg. bedrooms need to be X squares away (4, I think?)  from workshops else the sleepers are kept awake by the noise.   They also need to be even more squares away (8?) from areas of mining or woodcutting.   This includes z-levels.

So, assuming that the average fortress is something along the lines of:

z=0  :  Trade depot & stockpiles, barracks
z-1  :  Farms and food processing
z-2  :  Finished goods stockpiles
z-3  :  Workshops
z-4  :  Raw materials stockpiles

...then the bedroom levels need to be down at z-8 or z-9 to ensure peaceful sleep.

I prefer to have a central staircase with 3-tile wide hallways running in the cardinal directions (with more or less the above build) except that one of those corridors is 5 tiles wide and extends under a hill or mountain, (preferably one >z+4 levels high) and a second 3x3 staircase which caters to the living areas.

This connecting corridor becomes my "Grand Hall" and has offices and heroes tombs branching off either side.

My living areas tend to be along the lines of: 

z=0  :  Processed food and drinks stockpile  (and "overhead" plumbing)
z-1  :  Legendary Dining Hall & private dining rooms.
z-2  :  More legendary dining hall
z-3  :  Zoos, Sculpture Gardens, etc.
z-4  :  Barracks & cheap Quarters.
z-5  :  Luxury Quarters.

Of course, what with HFS and cave rivers, chasms, etc. popping up where least expected it's not always possible to build this way...  but it's the basis of all of my forts just the same.

[Ascii Kid]

I personally think the name of the game is beautification.  The thoughts generated by eatting/sleeping in grand dining rooms/above normal rooms seem to heavily outweigh those caused by sleeping distractions.  Does material have anything to do with the range nessisary from a workshop: ie.  Does sound travel more easily through sand than granite, say?  Actually, that's just a question reguarding physics that one could ask too.  =->

[Derakon]

For bedrooms, just big one huge open room and put all the beds into it (designating a new bedroom from each bed, covering the entire room), then decorate the heck out of it. You'll need four times as much decoration as normal to get to a given room level, but you have a lot more space to work with, and every single dwarf benefits from the result.

This is sufficiently cheesy as to probably qualify as an exploit.

[kurisukun]

The outdoors problem is easily fixed by constructing a large walled in area for your dwarves to gather/cut wood/plants in, with a large bridge going from your entrance to outside the wall.

In case of an assault, the opponents have to go up and over your dwarves who are outside, before they can attack anyone.  That allows you to have a nice long hallway to rain down ballista arrows with.

Course, BUILDING such a thing is a huge pain in the ass...



Oh, and Derakon, if you don't want dwarves being kicked out when the economy kicks in, I'd not decorate it at all.  Keeps the rooms uber-cheap.

[Yanlin]

I myself usually don't really care about noise. My legendary dining room made my entire fort ecstatic...

[Derakon]

Kurisukun: it's easy enough to make a similar large open room that's full of cheap housing later on once the economy kicks in; in the meantime, I like all of my dwarves having royal bedrooms but can't be arsed to spend the time to dig each one his/her own individual bedroom.

[LegacyCWAL]

The outdoors problem is easily fixed by constructing a large walled in area for your dwarves to gather/cut wood/plants in, with a large bridge going from your entrance to outside the wall.

In case of an assault, the opponents have to go up and over your dwarves who are outside, before they can attack anyone.  That allows you to have a nice long hallway to rain down ballista arrows with.

Course, BUILDING such a thing is a huge pain in the ass...

Eh, not really a pain in the ass depending on where it is and how you do it.  Just digging a trench around an area with an underground access tunnel is enough for basic defense, and a legendary miner can dig a LOT of trench REAL quick.  It can be sped up even more by linking ponds or river sections together (if your map doesn't freeze) or building next to a sheer cliff, both of which reduce the amount of trench needed to create a barrier around an area.  Ranged attackers will be totally nullified by adding a wall, which can be built on the inside edge of the trench to keep your masons safe.

...of course, it won't help against Giant Eagles, but then, what will?

Oh, and Derakon, if you don't want dwarves being kicked out when the economy kicks in, I'd not decorate it at all.  Keeps the rooms uber-cheap.

It helps to make sure you have some newbie carpenters and masons to make crappy furniture with.  That'll help keep the rent down.  I've made rooms with a bed, coffer, and cabinet that have only 44 monies rent, and that can be brought even lower by putting the room in dirt instead of stone.

[Teldin]

I tend to have many of my layouts like this:

Code: [Select]

       ====   To warehouse district
       ====  =
<============>= To farming district
       ====  =
       ====   To crafting district

This is all built on the Z-level in the soil, and then I dig straight down until I hit rock, at which point I dig out bedrooms, a dining hall, and all those other buildings that need quality.

The large square room east of the entrance staircase is a barracks, and it's always full: this way if anyone tries to sneak in they immediately get a face full of angry swarming dwarves.

My hallways tend to be 2-wide between the entrance and the barracks (for doors and ease of traps) and 4-wide throughout the main sections of the rest of the fortress.

[Rafal99]

My usual fortress looks like this:

Code: [Select]

       ╬_   <-- WALL + FORTIFICATIONS -->   _╬ 
       O                                     O
_______O_________________>>__________________|_____<- GATE
                    SOIL XX SOIL
                    SOIL XX SOIL
[STOCKPILES + WOORSHOPS] XX [LIVING AREA]
[STOCKPILES + WOORSHOPS] XX [LIVING AREA]
[STOCKPILES + WOORSHOPS] XX [LIVING AREA]
[STOCKPILES + WOORSHOPS] XX [LIVING AREA]
[STOCKPILES + WOORSHOPS] XX [LIVING AREA]
           [MINING AREA] XX [MINING AREA]
           [MINING AREA] XX [MINING AREA]
           [MINING AREA] XX [MINING AREA]

2x2 stairway in the middle with 2-wide hallways to all directions.
Several levels with bedrooms in one side and stockpiles, workshops and other rooms in the other side. Usually 5-7 levels like that. All levels under them are used entirelly for mining. In the first rock level under the soil levels i usually build food stockpile, kitchens, stills, fisheries and awesome dining room. All non-noble bedrooms are 2x2 with bed, cabinet, coffer and 1 empty tile.
In the surface i build a square shaped castle with fortifications on the top of the walls, and usually some archery targets and small ammo stockpiles, so my marksdwarves stay there and are always ready to empty their quivers at the enemies. I usually build one gate in each direction.
Inside that "castle" i build a trade depot, refuse stockpile and workshops using it (butcher, tanner, craftsdwarf). Usually also a separate building (with walls and ceil) containing barracks and weapons/armor stockpile.
Around the trade depot i make trade goods stockpile (for crafts and narrow clothes) so my dwarves don't need to haul them from distant places when the caravan come.
Trade depot usually have walls and floodgates around it and cistern with water above it, and an empty one under it so i can do some fun stuff with the traders...
I very rarely build any farms neither outside or inside because food brought by caravans + fishing + butchered dogs is more than enough.
    


 

[Porpoisepower]

Here's a screen shot of my base layout.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The bottom left courner is the main area/pattern I use for my fortresses

I use the 7x7 rooms for stockpiles of supplies/goods and the 5x5 for workshops.  I extend this up and down and it makes great looking towers/walls above ground. usually with catapult balista at the top.  On some levels I use the Center area for legendary dining halls etc... everything builds well off of it and you can do exploritory mining without ruining the theme. The Channels are great for seem to help minimize Cave Adaptation.

Sometimes I'll line the walls with tombs.

And the bedrooms are far enough away from the workshop areas that I never bad thoughts from noise...

The top left section is sleeping area, 3x3 for the mass housing 7x7 for legendary and nobels.  I'll some times use 5x5 for legends as well.  but the 5x5 are for private dining/studies.