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[ral]

Sorry if this has already been covered somewhere... I tried to search for it but came up with nothing.

I've read on the wiki that it's good to have 3 tile wide passages so dwarfs don't have to "crawl over each other", but how much of a problem is this really? At the entrance to a fort it seems most ideal to use a 1 tile wide passage so you can force enemies into a series of traps, war dogs, and whatnot.

Elsewhere it seems like wide passages make more sense but do they really help dwarves move any faster?

[Dwarfotaur]

They do help. When you have 100+ dwarfs running about the same hallway, then yea it really does become noticeable if it's only 1 wide. Three wide allows a 'flow' of traffic with a third lane for overtaking/avoiding.

My entrances are all 1 wide to bottleneck invaders, dwarfs only go out there to collect wood. All internal corridors are at least 3 wide.

[krenshala]

I've noticed that when one dwarf avoids another, regardless of their directions of travel, the one that steps out into another "lane" doesn't always step diagonally.  Sometimes (s)he steps sideways, basically adding one tile to the distance they must travel.  Occasionally I've seen them step diagonally backward, but usually only when the hall is extremely crowded (e.g., 50 dwarves suddenly leap up and start running for the warehouse to haul goods to the depot for trade).

For a three wide hall, I like to designate the center as high traffic, leaving the left and right as normal.  This appears to give decent dwarven-throughput.  Of course, if heavily trafficked areas, you probably want the left and right marked as high traffic, especially if the path the hallway takes leads to dwarves preferring opposite sides for each direction of travel.

[Hyndis]

I prefer at least 4 tiles wide for major traffic routes. Generally 4 tiles wide is enough for even the largest crowds.

[forsaken1111]

I do 5 tiles for my main thoroughfares, but that's because I like odd numbers.

[NecroRebel]

I've read on the wiki that it's good to have 3 tile wide passages so dwarfs don't have to "crawl over each other", but how much of a problem is this really? At the entrance to a fort it seems most ideal to use a 1 tile wide passage so you can force enemies into a series of traps, war dogs, and whatnot.

As far as this goes, you can get the best of both worlds by having your entrance go through a 3+ width tunnel, but also having a means to close down the tunnel's width to 1 width. For instance, if you've got a 3-wide tunnel, have there be lines of drawbridges along both walls, raising towards the walls, so that the sides become inaccessible when a lever is pulled. Alternatively, have them be retracting bridges over deep channels, and you've got the makings of a dodging trap.

Generally, it is believed that wider pathways help both fort efficiency and FPS to an extent. Once you've got hugely wide hallways, dwarves will take the shortest route, which will tend to put all paths at corners, so there will be collisions at corners regardless of whether you've got 3-wide, 5-wide, or 99-wide hallways.

In addition, the wider the hallways you have, the more possible paths that the game has to calculate, so widening halls can hurt FPS, though since the pathfinding algorithm appears to go around creatures whenever possible, having wider than 1-width halls will allow it to go directly around a blocking creature instead of halfway around the fort to find an alternate path, helping FPS.

In short, hallways that are 2-5 tiles wide, depending on expected traffic, are more-or-less ideal for all concerns except defense. Much more than that and you stop having hallways and start having long rooms, and single-tile halls cause repathing issues and so are less efficient.

[Dwarfotaur]

Side stepping isn't always a problem as it keeps their step movement the same. If I recall correctly, dwarfs actually slow down when passing over each other. This requires more steps (game steps, not foot steps) per tile and probably takes longer than adding 1 extra tile to a normal speed dwarf.

If you don't know what I mean by steps it's basically... The games clock and a dwarf takes so many steps before moving a tile . Dwarfs don't move 1 tile a step (you can test this by pausing and pressing [.]), however trained dwarfs do walk faster (look at any legendary military when pressing [.] you will see that it takes less presses for the military dwarf to move compared to a normal dwarf).

Using more steps is bad as I think it effects performance too.

[Girlinhat]

I notice this most often when building above-ground, particularly when I add ramparts to a wall.  When a dwarf passes another dwarf (or some other creatures, sometimes) one of them will stop and let the other pass, usually making them remain stationary for 3-4 steps (footsteps, not game steps), but the other dwarf is unaffected.  So, in crowded hallways, or when Urist McNoble absolutely HAS to go take a drink while everyone else is hauling to the depot, then you'll see the entire flock of dwarves come to a halt as that one person runs the opposite direction.

I do 3 wide halls, and never have traffic problems.  Fort entrances should be 1 wide, per perhaps 2-3 if you want to use floodgates instead, or want to do the thing with a 3 wide area, with 1 extra wall in the center to support two doors.  Any wider becomes nigh-impossible to channel enemies through, but 1 wide is ideal still.

[Maklak]

On a related note: When I look at my 3 wide corridors I see a lot of wasted space. Would it make sense to cover all my corridors in stockpiles, or would this decrease FPS even more?

Also, what about having no rooms at all, just big open spaces with stockpiles and workshops connected up and down?

[ral]

On a related note, how good of an idea is it to create a huge room (say 100x100 or so) full of stockpiles and workshops?

I've also considered creating clusters of workshops with their own stairways to stockpiles above and below.

[forsaken1111]

Defense isn't really that bad for a 3-tile hallway either though. I do a 3x10 array of traps behind a 3x10 array of cages. Works fine, I've never had a siege breach it in vanilla DF

[Dwarfotaur]

On a related note: When I look at my 3 wide corridors I see a lot of wasted space. Would it make sense to cover all my corridors in stockpiles, or would this decrease FPS even more?

I do this. I have wood stockpiles outside the carpenter area, certain stone stockpiles by the masonry (for example, I wanted a bunch of obsidian so I designated obsidian to be stored next to the workshop), certain ore stockpiles by my forges (if I'm smelting iron, I designate that stock pile to hematite or something).

As far as I'm aware it doesn't slow down the dwarfs, change pathfinding, change steps require, change performance, etc. In speeds on your production though as any idle dwarfs will be doing the job of carrying the required materials to your workshops as the products are being made, and the guy working the workshop only has to move a few tiles for his materials.

[Dwarfotaur]

On a related note, how good of an idea is it to create a huge room (say 100x100 or so) full of stockpiles and workshops?

I've also considered creating clusters of workshops with their own stairways to stockpiles above and below.

Problem here is that any near the back of this 100x100 room will take a lot of movement to reach. Stacking up/down is a better idea. I use 12x12 areas with 9 workshops in, the other squares have stairs on. The floors above/below are stockpiles.

Also, what about having no rooms at all, just big open spaces with stockpiles and workshops connected up and down?

Any building destroyer or rampaging dwarf will make short work of your craft areas.

Edit: Not to mention it'd be rather difficult to manage. I like to put my workshops in organised areas so I can always see what's going on at a glance. Things like, how is the food stockpile, how many bolts do I have left, why is the magma forge not active, etc. I group my workshops with their respective stockpiles below them.

[Girlinhat]

I prefer some order and cleanliness for the most part.  Mass dump the stone in the hallway, then smooth it all over, possibly engrave if I'm feeling generous.  It makes for a very clean fort, helps mask the hellhole that you're actually in.  I'm hoping there will be a moodlet for "Urist has been annoyed by cluttered floors recently" to encourage cleanliness.

For the same reason, I like to organize workshops and such as well.  Having your 3 wood burners, 2 smelters, and 2 forges all together looks pretty nice.  On the other hand, if you dig out everything, it's usually easy to re-wall it again to your desires.  I do usually dig out whole layers and then wall in what I want, because I like having same-type stone for walls

[plisskin]

I prefer some order and cleanliness for the most part.  Mass dump the stone in the hallway, then smooth it all over, possibly engrave if I'm feeling generous.  It makes for a very clean fort, helps mask the hellhole that you're actually in.  I'm hoping there will be a moodlet for "Urist has been annoyed by cluttered floors recently" to encourage cleanliness.

For the same reason, I like to organize workshops and such as well.  Having your 3 wood burners, 2 smelters, and 2 forges all together looks pretty nice.  On the other hand, if you dig out everything, it's usually easy to re-wall it again to your desires.  I do usually dig out whole layers and then wall in what I want, because I like having same-type stone for walls

Dwarves, bothered by filth? I think they roll in it on purpose.

But seriously, I hate having stones everywhere too. I always think my masonry/stonecrafting workshops will do the trick to clean it all up, but there is just too much stone.