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[Jacob/Lee]

Just like the title says, I need some efficient room designs. My current architecture level is Dabbling (Very Rusty)

In specific, I would like mass housing (make the rooms as small as you please), mass burial and efficient room designs for nobles (each noble should have a bedroom, office & dining room).

[Lemunde]

Try looking through some of my older maps here. http://mkv25.net/dfma/browseby.php?searchValue=lemunde&searchArea=author&submit_search=Search

Some of them are designed with adjacent dining rooms but usually I keep the offices separate. I try to mix it up, using different design styles for different forts.  I think a good idea would be to make a stairway going down, make large rooms around the stairway and use those as hubs for the bedrooms.  Silverydusts has something like this.

[Canalan]

My noble rooms always are some variaton of my patented apartment model.  Always smoothed and engraved.
= = wall     # = door
+ = floor     % = table
@ = bed     ^ = chair

===========
+++++++++++
+++++++++++
+++++++++++
=====#=====
=++%=+=%++=
=++^=+=^++=
=+++#+#+++=
=====#=====
 =+++++++= 
 =+++@+++=
 =========
Go with something like that, and lesser nobles will be super happy.  Enlarge for baron, king, etc.

[Urist Imiknorris]

From the wiki:
Bedroom Designs
Workshop Designs

For bedrooms, I am personally a fan of the 32 rooms/level Greek Cross design.

[Namfuak]

Usually for bedrooms I go with the up/down method

#=rock
-=space
i=up/down stair
j=down stair
u= up stair

z+1
########
- - - #- - -#
- j - #- j - #
- - - #- - -#
########

z+0

######
- i - - - i
######

z-1

same as z+1, but with up stairs

This can be repeated and works with a very small amount of room.  I usually have a central staircase in my forts, so I put this near that, usually with a dining room nearby as well (on the z+0 floor).  In my last fort, I also built a kitchen/fishery/butchery area beneath the dining hall and storage above, and three up down staircases with them.  I use this simple design for dining rooms.

#=rock
c=chair
t=table
s=statue

##############
c c c c c c c c c c c c c
t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t
s s s s s s s s s s s s s
t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t
c c c c c c c c c c c c c
##############

The walls aren't important, I usually actually use a huge cavern to make this since it can fit huge numbers of dwarves in a small space.  What I love about it is it takes all those statues you are mass-producing to keep stone levels down and actually makes them useful.  In all honestly, if you put this design in an all rock area, engrave every tile, and use exactly this design, it doesn't take all that many rows to make a legendary dining room, probably 20 or so (never studied it in detail).  This is nice if you like to have a few different living areas, and on top of that every time a dwarf goes in and out of their room, is going from the bottom of the fortress to the top or vice versa, or is actually eating they get the positive thought of going through a legendary dining room.  There are so many statues that they often inspect them on top of that, and putting some food storage and kitchen areas above and below makes for very quick kill/gather to eat time.

As for offices, I don't have a definite design.  Usually I do something like this.

#=wall
-=space
c=chair
t=table
b=bed
d=door

Manager/Bookkeeper:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
#######d d##########
###- - - d - - d - - -######
###- b - d - - d - c -######
###- - - #### - t -######
###################

Kind of got messed up, but you get the point.  As for my sheriff and leader who require nicer rooms, I usually just carve out 5x5 or so rooms with two space openings for doors for each of their needs, and engrave them.  If I have a long central staircase, I'll often just carve them out around that, and leave the 4th side for expansion if I decide to expand.

I once tried to make a waterfall that caused mist to get into the mayor's office, but it resulted in a lot of unintended fun, so I don't recommend it.

[Hyndis]

Efficiency is boring. 

The most efficient fortress is made entirely out of up/down stairs, with the occasional flat spot for workshops or furniture. But this fortress design is extremely boring to play.

[Urist McTaverish]

I've only gotten serious nobles a couple of times, but I've always wanted to make that honeycomb pattern on the wiki.

[ungulateman]

Efficiency is boring. 

The most efficient fortress is made entirely out of up/down stairs, with the occasional flat spot for workshops or furniture. But this fortress design is extremely boring to play.

WRONG!

A spiral staircase of ramps is significantly more efficient. On FPS, at any rate, and that's what matters.

[Khift]

Efficiency is boring. 

The most efficient fortress is made entirely out of up/down stairs, with the occasional flat spot for workshops or furniture. But this fortress design is extremely boring to play.

WRONG!

A spiral staircase of ramps is significantly more efficient. On FPS, at any rate, and that's what matters.

Also wrong. Tests have shown no actual benefit one way or another.

[Aramco]

Efficiency is boring. 

The most efficient fortress is made entirely out of up/down stairs, with the occasional flat spot for workshops or furniture. But this fortress design is extremely boring to play.

WRONG!

A spiral staircase of ramps is significantly more efficient. On FPS, at any rate, and that's what matters.

Also wrong. Tests have shown no actual benefit one way or another.

So, the idea of all up-down stairs isn't FPS suicide? I always wanted to make a fort like that but didn't for fear of FPS! I must make a new fort right now.

[Passive Fist]

I prefer the Greek cross housing design, as seen on the wiki:
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Housing#Greek_Cross_design

[Zidane]

I build rows and rows of 3x3 rooms, if a dwarf needs something, I just add on a 3x3 room.

It's worked well for me so far.

[Zaik]

I generally build a 4 tile wide hallway from my central stairway towards the edge of the map, then turn left or right and make about 8-12 bedrooms, then turn that direction again, make a few more, and make a big spiral that goes into itsself until the center, and i put the noble rooms in the center with the space that is too much for one space but not enough for two, hoping they'll starve to death in the time it takes to walk all the way around and out to somewhere.

[veok]

I use this.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

quickfort .csv available upon request.

Edit: there are two up-ramps orthogonal to the two down ramps, but they're covered by rock in that picture. Stupid chert!

[Hyndis]

I've found a night and day different in FPS hits when using spiral ramps and blocks of up/down stairs.

A 2x2 or 3x3 block of up/down stairs is vastly, vastly more efficient than a spiral ramp. Sadly this has forced me to abandon the spiral ramp design, as awesome as it looks. The FPS hit is just too severe.

I don't build stairs everywhere though. The blocks of stairs are used sparingly, with them being the only way to reach that other area above or below the main level.

I've gained probably 100 FPS from abandoning spiral ramps and going back to up/down stair blocks.