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[zchris13]

The lesson here:  You suck

[LegoLord]

The lesson here:  You suck

D:
What?!  Why are you saying such cruel things? 

[zchris13]

Zchris13, legendary mechanic, has slept in a decent bedroom recently.  He has eaten in a decent dining room recently.  He has obeyed the voices recently.

[Silverionmox]

Too bad some people's comps can't DO 40 FPS.  That's a major problem in your plan.

The duration of tasks should be adjustable in the raws, in any case.

But it doesn't matter. If your mason spends twice as much of his time (not your time) in the workshop, that means that he doesn't need to pathfind during that time, freeing up FPS for a hauler, that will get his turn to use the CPU faster. Your game will progress (in terms of dwarf actions) at the same speed in real time. Requiring a dwarf to spend more dwarf time (i.e. frames) in the workshop per task, doesn't mean the game overall has less CPU power at its disposal. The only thing that will change is the proportion of haulers vs. crafters: haulers will get more done relative to craftsdwarves, therefore you need less of them, the halls will be less crowded and make pathfinding easier, if anything.

[tsen]

Y'know, it just occured to me while I was scanning threads that one possible partial solution would be carts on rails. They would be player planned so you could customize the route, and there would be virtually no pathfinding needed other than "are there enough entities of sufficient size in the tile to block it? No-> move on. Yes-> wait 2 frames and re-check."

Because a lot of us pre-plan materials flow to optimize hauling this would simply enhance existing gameplay and help out people with slower systems. Thoughts?

[Felblood]

This thread has split into several different suggestions, and some people failed to notice.

Being able to toggle the FPS cap in game would only help a small number of people, but it might grow more useful as the CPU load problems are mitigated. Someone with an interest in it should add it to Suggestion Voting.

Teleporting dwarves solves nothing. You still have to calculate their pathing the same, or you get lots of bad quantum effects. Ergo, it would reduce CPU load.

Increasing the dwarven movement rate by a minor percentage would reduce CPU load, by reducing the number of hallway collisions.

Making the year longer, to accommodate more events, would require more events for years to accommodate. Because so much of the game is currently bound to the calender (especially invasions, migration and trade), the balance ramifications of this change are vast, and would require careful planning and extensive testing.

E:Mine cart rails as player designated cached paths is a novel fusion of ideas with the potential for increasing both depth and FPS.

[Silverionmox]

There's one more, rebalance time needed for hauling vs. crafting, which would potentially reduce the number of haulers and therefore path recalculation.

[Felblood]

^True.

I glossed over that one myself, under increasing the dwarven movement rate, but in truth, increasing the movement rate is just on of the ways you could shift the balance toward clearer hallways.

[Granite26]

Too bad some people's comps can't DO 40 FPS.  That's a major problem in your plan.

The duration of tasks should be adjustable in the raws, in any case.

But it doesn't matter. If your mason spends twice as much of his time (not your time) in the workshop, that means that he doesn't need to pathfind during that time, freeing up FPS for a hauler, that will get his turn to use the CPU faster.

Excellent point... I hadn't thought of that.

Fellblood:  For me, the point was to talk about the problem : Movement across the map hurts the things we can do with crafting, mining, and the military by putting a large base cost (just getting to the area in the first place). and looking for player suggestions about what to do about it.  (Or in some people's cases, a denial of the existance of the problem in their eyes)

The problem then becomes : Either it takes too long to mine and make things, or else dwarves are zooming across the screen, and even if we go with 'dwarves zooming across the screen' solution, people will have FPS problems, because game speed is limited in large part by dwarves moving (both pathing and drawing).

So I guess what people are talking about now is ways to speed up the game by reducing the amount of pathfinding?  I dunno.

Have I pointed out that the material loss in melting could be safetly reduced without killing play balance if the time taken to smith were make longer?  It's the same problem as any tech tree game (and item quality is analagous to a tech tree) : It's hard to justify doing anything until you're fully ramped up. 

[Felblood]

Long commutes, and poor city planning should still be serious problems, but they shouldn't be as overbearingly serious as they are now.

[Sowelu]

I agree that the bulk transport which carts could provide would offer a big reduction in the time dwarves spend hauling stuff.  That aside, I think burrows would very greatly help pathing time, too.  The concept behind burrows is that dwarves only work/eat/sleep/get crafting goods within their own burrow.  Essentially, it would let you ensure that your craftsdwarves live right next to their workshop, and don't run across the fortress each time they eat.  As you reduce the distance dwarves have to walk, the inherant problems there become a little less important.

Still, mine carts WOULD help, but they're really a different topic.  Maybe you should start a new topiFOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T START A NEW MINE CART TOPIC.  It's the single most oversuggested thing ever, and it's literally the first thing that over half the forum population suggests.  The AI isn't smart enough to handle it yet, though, even if they did exist...Logistics is a LOT harder than it looks, and you really really want at least a little automation involved!

[Granite26]

Long commutes, and poor city planning should still be serious problems, but they shouldn't be as overbearingly serious as they are now.

Yes, but if 4 hours of my day were spent getting to and from work...

[profit]

Still, mine carts WOULD help, but they're really a different topic.  Maybe you should start a new topiFOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T START A NEW MINE CART TOPIC.  It's the single most oversuggested thing ever, and it's literally the first thing that over half the forum population suggests.  The AI isn't smart enough to handle it yet, though, even if they did exist...Logistics is a LOT harder than it looks, and you really really want at least a little automation involved!

The logistics AI would be horrendus to write with the current demand to detail, but if the player base would allow a little abstraction,  Players could place stations on the mine cart rails and any materials moved to one station could be available at any other station...   I know that will never happen because of the realism at any price crowd, just showing that it COULD be done without a Massively-Uber, Time-Efficient Quasi-Static job cast and recall Algorithm.

[Felblood]

Long commutes, and poor city planning should still be serious problems, but they shouldn't be as overbearingly serious as they are now.

Yes, but if 4 hours of my day were spent getting to and from work...

I know a guy who drives 50 miles, each way, every day. It's not a common thing, but it happens. He still manages to put in 8+ hours a day at the actual office, not counting lunch breaks, even though he hates the huge drain that this puts on his free and family time.

What I'm pushing here is an adjustment of the current balance, where dwarves are faster, so travel takes less of their day, but not so much faster that travel time becomes irrelevant, and movements are impossible to track.

[Captain Mayday]

I thought I'd stop by to note a few things.
1. The game is already measured in ticks.
2. Jobs take a number of ticks to do. Movement also takes a number of ticks. Growth takes a number of ticks.
3. This will eventually be in the RAWs.