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[spokehedz]

Most of the time, the path from point A to B is pretty static. Sure, there are some incidentals like when a item is misplaced or if the bridge raises... But 99% of the time, it is just A-to-B in the shortest path possible.

Last I remember, DF recalculates the path with every step, does it not? If it does, why don't we just recalculate whenever an object gets in our way?

Also, if the dorfs would learn the rule of "walk on the right side" of a hallway then a lot of the congestion that we have now in hallways would be eliminated. It just seems logical--even though this game is not strictly about logic, it still tries to apply it as much as it can.

And lastly, if we could have pre-calculated routes that are highly traveled (such as where the booze is held) then it would also help a bunch.

[Safe-Keeper]

And lastly, if we could have pre-calculated routes that are highly traveled (such as where the booze is held) then it would also help a bunch.

Does the use of traffic zones or whatever they're called help matters, CPU wise?

[Aquillion]

Last I remember, DF recalculates the path with every step, does it not? If it does, why don't we just recalculate whenever an object gets in our way?

Pretty sure it calculates in advance and recalculates if you hit something, actually.  I've seen dwarves walk up to a recently-forbidden door, stop, then recalculate their path, say.

[garfield751]

I have something to add to this. why not have the game calculate paths while the game is paused? like if you suddenly unforbid or mark a giant pile of stone for dumping, the game should calculate paths for idle dwarves. to prevent the massive lag that this could make, there would be a cap of how many dwarves the game would calculate paths for at one time, while paused.

[Grendus]

I have something to add to this. why not have the game calculate paths while the game is paused? like if you suddenly unforbid or mark a giant pile of stone for dumping, the game should calculate paths for idle dwarves. to prevent the massive lag that this could make, there would be a cap of how many dwarves the game would calculate paths for at one time, while paused.

Except the tasks haven't been assigned yet. Unless the game wants to make predictions about which dwarf will be assigned which task, which is risky because most reasons for pausing are caused by things that add new, possibly higher priority tasks, it doesn't know which paths to calculate, and calculating paths for every dwarf for every task, even with limits, would be a waste of cpu resources.

[garfield751]

Well you have alot more computer rescorces when the game is paused then unpaused so i think this will balance it out some what, also i was thinking that whatever the game assigns to said dwarf, gets done before moveing onto more inportant tasks.

[Rotten]

I have something to add to this. why not have the game calculate paths while the game is paused? like if you suddenly unforbid or mark a giant pile of stone for dumping, the game should calculate paths for idle dwarves. to prevent the massive lag that this could make, there would be a cap of how many dwarves the game would calculate paths for at one time, while paused.

Except the tasks haven't been assigned yet. Unless the game wants to make predictions about which dwarf will be assigned which task, which is risky because most reasons for pausing are caused by things that add new, possibly higher priority tasks, it doesn't know which paths to calculate, and calculating paths for every dwarf for every task, even with limits, would be a waste of cpu resources.

Also the game would jump around a lot then, for example you're running a fort with 300 dwarves at 5 FPS or so, then you pause and grab a drink or similar. Every path gets calculated and you unpause half an hour later to 60 or 70 FPS for a second or two before dropping like a stone again. Would annoy people (i.e., me) a lot.

[QuakeIV]

When i thought about pathing optimizations, i thought, if the dwarf need to get from point A to point B. Lets frist draw a perfectly straight line between them for the dwarf to try to use to path there. If it bumps into something, it modifys the path, realtime, ultimately turning right or left around the object, then continuing on their way until they bump into something else. They could experiment with this, figuring out where everything is for a while, the hallways and such, then store a rough path of how to get to various places. They could call up the memory of this path, start taking it when they need to get from A to B, then simply dogde around obstacles, and continue on their merry way.

There are some obvious problems with this, but i was just throwing it out.

[lucusLoC]

discussed, at length, here:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=43265.0

[Draco18s]

ultimately turning right or left around the object

Which way do you turn?  How do you deal with "bumping into the floor"?

Strait line silly pathing is not good in this instance.