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[kotekzot]

Win 7's Paint seems to be as bad at drawing circles as Paint.NET. Or maybe I'm doing something 'rong.

No, it's not just you (and sometimes it 'corrects' my pixels when I draw, although that's not a problem for DF-style work). You can copy over XP's paint.exe and work with that, but it won't let you save anything.

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=30589.0

This topic has some sample circles drawn in Paint as well as some AHK scripts.

(edit: huh, maybe I had the window sitting open too long. Oh well, the link's still useful.)

Thanks a lot, those templates are what every true dwarf strives for!

[Wardo]

Grid paper, however acquired, by printing, buying or drawing it yourself, a pencil and an eraser.

But I only use it for interior room decoration, not to plan the entire fortress or megastructures.

[M.R. Siegal]

http://ldd.lego.com/

It's not perfect since you can't just tack on a block to the side of something like you can in DF, but once you get a hang of the limitations, it really comes in handy.  Helped me plan out a massive sculpture that will go into my current fort.

Eventually.

[gane green]

Excel. Start by selecting all the cells and resizing them to look like graph paper.
 Then I use borders to draw it and fill to color it. Merge cells for making common sized rooms ie workshops and other rooms. Open Office should work for people that dont have M$ Office. Hope this helps Cheers 

[BigD145]

Excel. Start by selecting all the cells and resizing them to look like graph paper.
 Then I use borders to draw it and fill to color it. Merge cells for making common sized rooms ie workshops and other rooms. Open Office should work for people that dont have M$ Office. Hope this helps Cheers 

OpenOffice has an actual drawing program built in. I would use it.

[Blackburn]

I make up pictures in my head then make them in the game.

Those are my fort blueprints.

[caknuck]

Things were slow at work today, so I started designing a new bedroom layout in Excel. I set column width to 1.75, making an acceptably proportionate grid. Cell shading for walls, symbols imported from Word for beds, tables, doors etc...

Now I'm going to use different worksheets for the individual z-levels.

[kotekzot]

PC: I told you making spreadsheets could be fun!

Excel and OO Calc sound like they'd be useful, i'll definitely try them out.

[UristMcGunsmith]

....Plan?

Sigged.

[Moosey]

If I'm digging something out I'll just plan it out with the designate-mine tool.

If I'm building something above ground, I still don't leave DF.  I usually find some place deep underground and off to the side where I won't soon dig.  I use the hotkeys to set up one function key to bring me there and another to bring me to where I'm constructing.  I plan out the shape of things at the underground location using designate-mine.  Then I flip back and forth between the two locations as I designate walls and floors to build on template.

[subbes]

Mild-necro, for:

I like to know the lay of the land before I build my mega-constructions, so I Reveal, export an image of each layer, then revert to an unRevealed save.  I then open Excel and insert the layer images, one per sheet, resizing the cells so one cell matches one tile on the image.

That way I can plan it out tile by tile, layer by layer, and I can work on it wherever I have access to Excel rather than just where I have access to DF.

Unfortunately it does rather spoil the Fun to Reveal if I have HFS on my map, so I try to avoid that.

[Bronze Dog]

Might as well post here while it's up, since it'd be better than making a new thread to get feedback.

I'm currently using a honeycomb design with 3 tile wide hallways separating each hexagonal cell, with a stairwell at each intersection. I've drawn up a few sections of 7 cells for the final workshop levels: Each cell can hold 7 workshops with one space between each and the walls. (I can wall in a strange mood dwarf if he's going to go insane.) One cell contains workshops, and the six surrounding ones contain sorted raw material stockpiles. I still need to figure out a good bedroom scheme, though. I do have some DF wiki plans I will make for a central tower of cheap apartments. Still thinking about what to do for the middle class.

The end result should make it easy to draw on just hex grid paper, with alterations for stuff that doesn't fit in the honeycomb, like magma/water pipes.

[AngleWyrm]

I've had some good experiences with Inkscape. It has snap-to grids that you can set to any size, so making objects on a grid is easy.

[Retro]

I've had some good experiences with Inkscape. It has snap-to grids that you can set to any size, so making objects on a grid is easy.

-stuff-

Huh, that does look good. I tend to just plan everything out in-game anyhow, but that might come in handy.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I never really plan, so I get a huge, fungal mess.