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[Shoku]

Well with the up down everywhere mentality what's the smallest checkboard sort of pattern we could make with ramps that roughly allows each direction of diagonal movement?

[veok]

=H+
^+^
+H=

alternating with

+^=
H+H
=^+

(with + as floor, = as wall, H as down ramp, and ^ as up ramp)

[ungulateman]

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.

Oddly, my FPS went the other way. I suppose that I assumed spiral staircases were good for my FPS, when it was my penchant for flat, shallow embarks instead.

(I'll try and get a picture of my spiral staircase up soon. It's quite nice in my opinion.)

[Shoku]

Shame that they have to take a step away from their target a lot of the time to get on course with that.
-
The ramps themselves should make paths shorter but making spirals 3 wide obviously adds a ton. I don't think many people actually do a double helix with 1 wide paths.

[Tsarwash]

How could you possible gain a hundred fps on any design? that means you go from 20 fps to 120 fps, or from 100 fps to 200 fps, which is too fast to play, imo. In my experience, you can gain five or ten fps by killing everything in sight, or atom smashing stuff, or stopping water/magma features. walling off half of your fortress might gain you twenty fps. Maybe your computer is much more powerful than mine. The whole games slows exponentially with population increase, so I keep my population low, lower than 50.

[Hyndis]

How could you possible gain a hundred fps on any design? that means you go from 20 fps to 120 fps, or from 100 fps to 200 fps, which is too fast to play, imo. In my experience, you can gain five or ten fps by killing everything in sight, or atom smashing stuff, or stopping water/magma features. walling off half of your fortress might gain you twenty fps. Maybe your computer is much more powerful than mine. The whole games slows exponentially with population increase, so I keep my population low, lower than 50.

My FPS cap is 500. If at all possible I try to keep it above 100 FPS while doing stuff. Idle speeds are around 250+ FPS.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I'll repost from the questions forum:

The simplest and most efficient design is basically this:

Code: [Select]

x.........x
.#########.
.#...#...#.
.#...#...#.
.#...#...#.
.#########.
.#...#...#.
.#...#...#.
.#...#...#.
.#########.
x.........x


It's repeatable, stackable, easily modifiable, and fits workshops with maximum efficiency.

The problem with it is that it's booooo-ring.

There are a number of fancier fractal designs on the wiki that are worth looking at, but most of them lack efficiency. I recommend looking at the quickfort site and trying out some of the pre-done dig plans there.


What I generally use is a slightly-modified snowflake fractal design, with widened hallways and all rooms 3x3, for workshops; I put a central stair down the center and side stairs up to storage levels, then use a circular bedroom level and hactar's H-fractal for my tombs. It works fairly well but usually ends up bigger than I actually need, so I have to check my fort locations carefully.

[Andir]

=H+
^+^
+H=

alternating with

+^=
H+H
=^+

(with + as floor, = as wall, H as down ramp, and ^ as up ramp)

Wouldn't this work?

Code: [Select]

+>+ +<+
<+< >+>
+>+ +<+

> = up
< = down
+ = floor

A dwarf could enter from any point and move 0-1 spaces to be able to to change elevation.  Also, depending on the direction you are going, you'd only have to ramp two places.

[Dariush]

Fractal bedrooms FTW.

[Shoku]

I just go with a winding hallway that goes down to the caverns. It isn't so out of hand as to tie everyone up hauling things forever but I do try to keep related things near each other. The kitchen and brewery are close to the food storage for the dining area. The mechanic and mason shops aren't very close to either of those. The loom and clothier shops are low if the cavern has webs.

Only thing I can't really get close together is sand collection and magma but that's just because I've got all the dwarves working on other things for the first few years. I haven't done any super pump stacks or big cave in engineering without ensuring food, water, and moderate safety first in quite awhile.

=H+
^+^
+H=

alternating with

+^=
H+H
=^+

(with + as floor, = as wall, H as down ramp, and ^ as up ramp)

Wouldn't this work?

Code: [Select]

+>+ +<+
<+< >+>
+>+ +<+

> = up
< = down
+ = floor

A dwarf could enter from any point and move 0-1 spaces to be able to to change elevation.  Also, depending on the direction you are going, you'd only have to ramp two places.

Thing is it's not ramps. They step onto the lower stair, up onto the top stair, and then horizontally in whatever direction. With a ramp they step onto the ramp, then they step horizontally on the next floor in whatever direction. This takes fewer steps and is thus faster... maybe.

[Andir]

I just go with a winding hallway that goes down to the caverns. It isn't so out of hand as to tie everyone up hauling things forever but I do try to keep related things near each other. The kitchen and brewery are close to the food storage for the dining area. The mechanic and mason shops aren't very close to either of those. The loom and clothier shops are low if the cavern has webs.

Only thing I can't really get close together is sand collection and magma but that's just because I've got all the dwarves working on other things for the first few years. I haven't done any super pump stacks or big cave in engineering without ensuring food, water, and moderate safety first in quite awhile.

=H+
^+^
+H=

alternating with

+^=
H+H
=^+

(with + as floor, = as wall, H as down ramp, and ^ as up ramp)

Wouldn't this work?

Code: [Select]

+>+ +<+
<+< >+>
+>+ +<+

> = up
< = down
+ = floor

A dwarf could enter from any point and move 0-1 spaces to be able to to change elevation.  Also, depending on the direction you are going, you'd only have to ramp two places.

Thing is it's not ramps. They step onto the lower stair, up onto the top stair, and then horizontally in whatever direction. With a ramp they step onto the ramp, then they step horizontally on the next floor in whatever direction. This takes fewer steps and is thus faster... maybe.

Those are ramps...err, can be ramps.  That's why the center tile is a floor tile.  If you walk in from the right or left, you are "on" a ramp at that point and would end up in the center of the next level.  If you come in the corner, you take one step onto a ramp of the direction you like.  Sorry, it does look like up/down stairs.

Edit:  Working from memory here, but I don't think ramps need a backing wall... as long as there is a floor before and after the ramp it should operate as a ramp.

[Shoku]

That memory is entirely wrong. They absolutely need a backing wall.

[Andir]

That memory is entirely wrong. They absolutely need a backing wall.

That's odd, because I built a ramp in front of my last fortress (31.31 I think) where there was no backing wall.  I needed to get up to the floor above (I mistakenly trapped a dwarf) and built a ramp in the middle of the walkway.  There was no backing wall and the dwarf was able to exit the floor above.

Edit: Hmm, that design doesn't work.  /shrug

[Shoku]

Ramps work in every direction there is a backing wall so you could have a four way ramp that they walk into diagonally, despite that being a really complex shape to try and picture anyone walking on.

[Andir]

Ramps work in every direction there is a backing wall so you could have a four way ramp that they walk into diagonally, despite that being a really complex shape to try and picture anyone walking on.

So in effect, that would work if the center tile was a wall... that would remove the 0 step method and every dwarf would have to step diagonally into the room form the side wall... if I get that correct.