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[G-Flex]

It's possible Toady just made ghosts flood-fill pathfind entire maps until they found their destination to cut down on how much he'd have to code or take up memory for a secondary connectivity map that includes every tile, or something.  It would certainly explain the massive lag ghosts cause.

True, but for something that moves like a ghost, you don't need a connectivity map anyway; you could even just shoehorn in a "go in a straight line" stub algorithm for their pathfinding.

[The Merchant Of Menace]

What I have to wonder is why it only affected certain ghosts.. So it may have been something to do with what type of ghost it was.

Or am I just totally misunderstanding the usage of the word certain?

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, it may also have been possible that the code for ghosts trying to "relive" certain past events from their lives was incompatible with the code stub for going in a direct line.  Possibly, that was somehow extremely inefficient. 

[darkflagrance]

Given the prevalence of flying wild animals, invaders on flying mounts, flying FBs, and flying HFS, maybe Toady should just bite the memory bullet and allow the secondary map for all of these? Or would this kind of map be far too ridiculously memory intensive?

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, given the seige stuff that comes later (with tunnelling enemies and bridge-builders), the fact that he wants enemies to remember paths that have lead to massive casualties in the past (I.E. remember where the deathtraps are), and avoid them, to have things like "Improved Hauling", where dwarves can pick up and haul more than one item in a single trip, minecarts, and several other things that will require special pathfinding code to make work, he may just be trying to coast on what he has until he's ready to overhaul the whole system. 

Tunneler units, especially, can blow the whole pathfinding thing up, depending on how much they are allowed to dig.

[Lovechild]

When 3D mineral veins are in, how will you know when they go upwards or downwards (without digging stairs everywhere)?

[Untelligent]

What's wrong with digging stairs everywhere?

[SalmonGod]

Speaking of which, is stairs one of the things that got an FPS fix?  I remember some science proving stairs drain FPS more than ramps, but then we get this update where some unspecified sources of fps problems were cleaned up.  So can anyone tell if stairs was one of those?

[Garnett]

Is there a way to strangle/cut throats with weapons besides slashing/stabbing them in aimed combat?  It would be cool to some sort of stealth kill for scrawny rogue characters, such as the aforementioned throat cutting and garroting.

[NW_Kohaku]

Speaking of which, is stairs one of the things that got an FPS fix?  I remember some science proving stairs drain FPS more than ramps, but then we get this update where some unspecified sources of fps problems were cleaned up.  So can anyone tell if stairs was one of those?

I would highly doubt that, as the cost of stairs is probably due to having a more open environment (as in, more tiles to stand on) than a ramp would have interacting with A* pathfinding.

Those problems are relatively minor, as far as I remember, and would really only be fixed by working on a change to the core pathfinding code, itself. 

[Shinziril]

Is there a way to strangle/cut throats with weapons besides slashing/stabbing them in aimed combat?  It would be cool to some sort of stealth kill for scrawny rogue characters, such as the aforementioned throat cutting and garroting.

You can strangle using aimed wrestling (hand or limb -> throat).  Once they're unconscious, you can use an aimed melee attack to cut their throats easily.  It works quite well. 

[PTTG??]

I think the most appropriate way to do that would be to sneak up on a target and then, while undetected, use an aimed attack on the throat with an appropriate weapon.

Assuming an unaware opponent provides a bonus, that should work for you. I'll have to try this out in the arena with a highly skilled sneaker and a peasant.

[Kogut]

some other general lag issues

Can you specify what was fixed?

[Cruxador]

some other general lag issues

Can you specify what was fixed?

Did you check on Mantis? If not, you would do well to do so. If you did and require additional information, you would do well to make your question more specific.

[Kogut]

some other general lag issues

Can you specify what was fixed?

Did you check on Mantis? If not, you would do well to do so. If you did and require additional information, you would do well to make your question more specific.

Yes, I checked and only "0003651: [Undeath] Ghost appearing/disappearing causes a massive slowdown" is lag related.