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[Merlon]

(Dwarf Fortress 0.27.169.33a)

Sometimes the pathing AI acts up a bit and sends dwarves on large detours.

Here's an example:

The mason on this picture is targeting the middle unbuilt floortile. He arrived on the roof from the up/down stairs to the south, then walked all around the perimeter of the roof and only then built the actual floor.

Another perhaps more common example would be the miner standing diagonally adjacent to his miningdesignation of choice, but rather than dig straight away he'll always choose to walk to any exposed non-diagonal side of the tile instead (if one exists). This can often lead to the miner walking 20 extra squares when he could've started mining instead.

With two paralell tunnels designated 1 tile apart, a miner will often mine one tile in each in an alternating pattern, thereby running twice the total length of the tunnel for each tile mined. (DF 32a, haven't yet dug in paralell in 33a)

[Draco18s]

It has to do with building/digging location preferences:

West, then east, then north, then south, then NW, SW, NE, and finally, SE.

As west was available here, he walked all the way around.

Marking an area as Restricted doesn't stop this behavior.

[Dwarfu]

I'm glad I did a search on pathing before posting this again...

I designated a huge area for mining and sat a bit the watch the little guys do their thing.  I immediately noticed how even if the diagonal (or even cardinal directions) was available/exposed to the miner, he'd still choose to walk (sometimes way out of the area) to get to the same square from a different angle.  Between the two miners, they did this many times.  Very inefficient.