Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Xyon]

I wonder if anyone has tried carving their hallways out of up/down staircases to reduce pathing for up/down movement by just allowing the dwarfs to move up/down everywhere there is a hallway.  I havent done it yet, but was plannin gon trying it out in a new fort.

[abadidea]

My gut instinct tells me that this will hurt FPS 

[Musashi]

Also, if someone faints/falls, I'm not sure they will wake up in one piece, or wake up at all, however, their body parts will certainly be found to the very bottom. Can be solved with floor grates, but honestly, do you really want to make and place so many?

[garfield751]

im going to assume that this will hurt your fps as much as if you made all dwarves, livestock, pets, forgotten beasts, traders, diplomats, seiges bascally everything able to fly

[Raap]

Anyone know for sure if this would really hurt fps? I'm trying to think of why it would, but I can't really see why it would hurt more than, say, making the (no-stairs) hallway 3 tiles wide instead of 2. I mean, why would z level pathing/walking be more taxing than x and y level pathing/walking? Is this just a rumor/myth, or does anyone know for sure? Does a 10 levels deep staircase tax the CPU more than a ten tiles long hallway?

[Interus]

Well, and this is purely guessing, I'd think it's because every hallway square will also have access to the tile directly above and below it.  I'm not entirely sure how pathfinding works but if it looks at which tiles are accessible, than that might add up.

[Xyon]

I did think that falling and possibly even flooding will be an issue with hallways like this, I just imagine the dwarfs  climbing around like in a jungle gym.  I don't see how it would effect FPS any more than usual though.  This whole z-level thing has been having me think of how best to place staircases and run hallways for better traffic zones and less crowding and such, I thought this may be a solution.   Maybe only run staircases 2 levels high each, and stagger them around to cover all levels that you may want.

[Interus]

I'll admit I'd considered that idea too.  Not sure why I didn't do it.  It sounds fairly reasonable though, especially if all your hallways line up.

Oh, I probably didn't because I like the + symbol more than X or something like that.

[Raap]

Well, and this is purely guessing, I'd think it's because every hallway square will also have access to the tile directly above and below it.  I'm not entirely sure how pathfinding works but if it looks at which tiles are accessible, than that might add up.

Well, there's that of course. But wouldn't that pretty much mean that every single tile you carve out, anywhere on the map, would contribute to this?

[Interus]

Well, and this is purely guessing, I'd think it's because every hallway square will also have access to the tile directly above and below it.  I'm not entirely sure how pathfinding works but if it looks at which tiles are accessible, than that might add up.

Well, there's that of course. But wouldn't that pretty much mean that every single tile you carve out, anywhere on the map, would contribute to this?

Yeah so I'm not sure how big a deal it would actually be.  Basically, in an open area, an open space will have access to 8 other open spaces, and a staircase will have access to 10, since I don't think they can go to tiles adjacent to the one above them.  If they can... then it's something like 26, and that might be a problem, but I really don't think it's the case.

I should really point out that again that I'm just guessing, and hoping that somebody will know enough to correct me if I'm wrong, and/or get the idea to try and test what actual effect it has on fps.  All I know for sure is that the biggest drain on FPS is probably pathfinding, and that I've heard up/down stairs are worse than ramps for pathfinding.

[darkflagrance]

I don't think anyone has really confirmed that up/down stairs have a significantly negative effect on fps yet save thru speculation, so please build your fort and prove it once and for all.

[Biag]

I've heard people say that they've increased their FPS by quite a bit by replacing all staircases with spiral ramps. This would suggest that stairs use more processing power for whatever reason.

[Xenos]

I've heard people say that they've increased their FPS by quite a bit by replacing all staircases with spiral ramps. This would suggest that stairs use more processing power for whatever reason.

But I have also heard people say they have had FPS increases from replacing ramps with stairs.  So I would assume that ramps are better for some forts while stairs are better for others.  One thing is for sure, as long as no dodging/fainting is going on, your dwarves will fly around the fortress at crazily efficient speeds.

[Aner-Dyfan]

When my current fort crumbles I will try this.

[Raap]

Well, and this is purely guessing, I'd think it's because every hallway square will also have access to the tile directly above and below it.  I'm not entirely sure how pathfinding works but if it looks at which tiles are accessible, than that might add up.

Well, there's that of course. But wouldn't that pretty much mean that every single tile you carve out, anywhere on the map, would contribute to this?

Yeah so I'm not sure how big a deal it would actually be.  Basically, in an open area, an open space will have access to 8 other open spaces, and a staircase will have access to 10, since I don't think they can go to tiles adjacent to the one above them.  If they can... then it's something like 26, and that might be a problem, but I really don't think it's the case.

I should really point out that again that I'm just guessing, and hoping that somebody will know enough to correct me if I'm wrong, and/or get the idea to try and test what actual effect it has on fps.  All I know for sure is that the biggest drain on FPS is probably pathfinding, and that I've heard up/down stairs are worse than ramps for pathfinding.

Just occurred to me, I actually think staircases might have access to adjacent tiles on the levels they connect to as well. I can't remember atm if I've seen them move from a lower/higher z-level straight into an adjacent tile without walking on the staircase of the current z-level first, but I've seen several times when I've had 4x4 staircases where they've moved both down one z-level and sideways to another stair in the same tick.

Still though, I guess it's all moot if we've no idea how pathfinding actually works. I'd also assume there's two pathfinding algorithms, one for short distances which is called every tick (i.e. to find out if there's another dwarf blocking the way and whatnot) and another for long distances which sets up the route the dwarf will take and which is likely called fewer times; possibly only when a new order is triggered.