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[tHe_silent_H]

Now I've searched the Game-play questions to see if this exists, only rumors. And the suggestions forum has only vague references appearing in other threads (Que post having thousands of links).

 I think we should allow roads to increase speeds of ANY creature that walks on it, depending on size of road, size of creature quality and materials, not only will this make roads more useful( not all the variables have to be used. the reson why i would like to see this implemented is that in the old days wlaking on a nice smooth road was much better than having to traverse rocks, potholes and other terrain variations etc thus allowing one to move faster. sign posts would be nice for advanture mode, but that's another story.

 Alternatively we could just make it speed up caravans, but that would be boring, I'd prefer it if the Gobos just rushed to the traps so the siege is over sooner... anyway it would be nice if roads were more useful for more than attracting useless nobles/use up spare stone as they do currently.

[NW_Kohaku]

The problem with this is that nothing increases the speed of creatures right now.  Nor does anything really slow them down except adding mass to the creature.  Even travelling directly upwards is as fast as horizontal travel.

It also starts to cause some pathfinding issues if we start making roads start making dwarves go faster...  a speed up would imply you would want dwarves to prefer walking along those roads, which means you want a pathfinding bonus for those roads, which means that there's at least one more gradient of traffic designation that the pathfinding program will try to look for, which isn't as easily eliminated as simply setting pathfinding weights to [1:1:5:50], and can lead to more pathing inefficiencies.

[Cotes]

The problem with this is that nothing increases the speed of creatures right now.  Nor does anything really slow them down except adding mass to the creature.  Even travelling directly upwards is as fast as horizontal travel.

It also starts to cause some pathfinding issues if we start making roads start making dwarves go faster...  a speed up would imply you would want dwarves to prefer walking along those roads, which means you want a pathfinding bonus for those roads, which means that there's at least one more gradient of traffic designation that the pathfinding program will try to look for, which isn't as easily eliminated as simply setting pathfinding weights to [1:1:5:50], and can lead to more pathing inefficiencies.

Why not just make the pathfinder ignore the roads and let the player manually set traffic zones?

[Uristocrat]

The problem with this is that nothing increases the speed of creatures right now.  Nor does anything really slow them down except adding mass to the creature.  Even travelling directly upwards is as fast as horizontal travel.

It also starts to cause some pathfinding issues if we start making roads start making dwarves go faster...  a speed up would imply you would want dwarves to prefer walking along those roads, which means you want a pathfinding bonus for those roads, which means that there's at least one more gradient of traffic designation that the pathfinding program will try to look for, which isn't as easily eliminated as simply setting pathfinding weights to [1:1:5:50], and can lead to more pathing inefficiencies.

I think that what it should really increase is the speed of wagons (and any other wheeled cart-like thing added later).  For path finding, they could simply treat all roads as high traffic areas (or as restricted areas if said roads were flooded or had items that were on fire, but that's another matter...).

[Capntastic]

Pretty sure once underbrush and similar rough terrain is in, roads would simply prevent slowdown caused by it, rather than giving a magical speedbuff.

[Silverionmox]

In addition, wheeled vehicles are flat space only.

[Inspiration]

It also starts to cause some pathfinding issues if we start making roads start making dwarves go faster...  a speed up would imply you would want dwarves to prefer walking along those roads, which means you want a pathfinding bonus for those roads, which means that there's at least one more gradient of traffic designation that the pathfinding program will try to look for, which isn't as easily eliminated as simply setting pathfinding weights to [1:1:5:50], and can lead to more pathing inefficiencies.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't traffic designations do exactly that?

[Sunken]

It also starts to cause some pathfinding issues if we start making roads start making dwarves go faster...  a speed up would imply you would want dwarves to prefer walking along those roads, which means you want a pathfinding bonus for those roads, which means that there's at least one more gradient of traffic designation that the pathfinding program will try to look for, which isn't as easily eliminated as simply setting pathfinding weights to [1:1:5:50], and can lead to more pathing inefficiencies.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't traffic designations do exactly that?

If roads multiply costs by, say, 0.5, then the ratio between (typical cost) and (best imaginable cost) will increase by a factor of two, meaning the A* search will become hugely less efficient.
Could probably be avoided by dealing with the cost slightly differently. It's traffic designations that are the big problem anyway.

[Funk]

roads can only make travel faster by:
A) being flat and free of scrub plants.
B) haveing briges.
C)going is a stright path.

only over long roads do you get time saveings

[Shades]

roads can only make travel faster by:
A) being flat and free of scrub plants

This is the only one that really matters. Being a flat (and firm) surface means it take less effort to use and so you can go faster with the same effort expenditure. The lack of obstructions such as plants helps with this. The distance and straightness are irrelevant.

Obviously the less flexible and adaptable the thing moving on it the more impact these have. Good for legs, better for soft wheels, down right essential for hard ones.

[Neonivek]

I do think that Roads should have other aspects similar to what happened in real life.

For example it is fairly easy to find your way around if you follow a road. Bandits attack roads but patrols often patrol roads.

[eggsome]

I always thought that roads that touch the edges of the map should encourage caravans to enter at that point...

[NW_Kohaku]

I always thought that roads that touch the edges of the map should encourage caravans to enter at that point...

That WOULD make sense, especially as caravans are supposed to be unable to cross mountains, but will happily come from the side of your fort that is all mountains and pass through boulder-strewn 45 degree slopes like it was a paved highway...

Maybe when we start getting sprawl, we can actually build roads to the edge of the map that will actually continue off the map and into the sprawl, which can then be continued out to wherever the caravans come from, theoretically making them the only path they use to enter the map.  (Remember, worldgen roads are 7 tiles wide.)