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[Urist Da Vinci]

Take a look at the dfma map:
Use the up/down or top/front/side buttons to view how the halls are laid out.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-10123-castleshoot

Some people make mostly 2D forts.
Others make "central staircase" 3D forts.
Some of the above also use diagonal hallways.
I haven't seen diagonal ramp hallways used before.

Since the plan is 3x3x3, you have 26 possible destinations, plus the central hub. If this design was scaled up, the central hub could contain the meeting zone, dining hall, and food/booze stockpiles. All idle dwarves would be found at the hub. The 26 outer locations would include everything else in the fort. Each of the 26 outer pods could belong to a single industry. I guess you could put the bedrooms in outer pods as well.

I came up with this idea after watching how dwarves would path around the fort, or where they would spend most of their idle time. It isn't as compact as a "central staircase" 3D fort, but it does have a nice "spiked ball" theme.

[white_darkness]

I like the initial design.  It's definitely got some interesting potential.  Definitely keep things updated as it goes along.

[Aramco]

I have one problem with diagonal hallways--not that they look bad, but that they take so long to designate. (Especially with ramps!) So, while I would never make them like that, I do like the design.

[NW_Kohaku]

Generally speaking, I tend to create 3d "hub" forts.  I don't see why people have a 2d fixation at all, since vertical building is so much more efficient.

Generally, I make one level be my "hub" floor that connects all the other nodes with diagonal hallways, with residential in the middle, and all the industries and the enterance being a spoke off of that.  Each node then has a storage area around soil layer, and there are the workshops dropping down directly below the stockpiles off of staircases in the stockpiles. 

I then try to make 3d fractals for my actual nodes, at least my residential node, although those are total pains in the ass to plan before I even unpause from embark, much less complete, so I generally have to live on the surface or in my lumber or magma furnace nodes for the first 3 years just so I can get my residential district zoned without screwing something up.

[ghosteh]

I like central staircase forts, my forts tend to be pencil-shaped (if you were to view them from the side or front)

[darkrider2]

Well having everything on one level means less changing levels looking for the stuff. Its efficiency vs. convenience.

[Kogut]

Generally speaking, I tend to create 3d "hub" forts.  I don't see why people have a 2d fixation at all, since vertical building is so much more efficient.

There are easier to plan, manage and admire.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well having everything on one level means less changing levels looking for the stuff. Its efficiency vs. convenience.

You really have to rebind up and down z-levels to 5 and 0 (provided you use the numpad already).  I can't see any other way to play the game, and having < and > as defaults is just far too inconvenient.

[Kogut]

I thought that remapping is heavily bugged (I think that I will change to , and .)

[ral]

This is cool, but does look difficult to designate. Wonder how much macros could help.

So far I tend to do 3D central stair shaft designs.

[NW_Kohaku]

I thought that remapping is heavily bugged (I think that I will change to , and .)

I change it through the in-game menu from escape.  I've never had problems doing this from 40d up to 31.19, and do it as one of the absolute first things I do in any version.

Putting z-axis movement on the same chunk of the keyboard that the x and y-axis take up makes so much more sense to me than anything else that I don't see why it isn't default.  I can get used to almost any other crazy keybindings, but not < and >

[shlorf]

I kinda like the idea, but with that many possible paths I'm pretty sure you will get crappy fps rather soon.
I've went from central staircase designs to central (single) spiral ramp designs and it seems to have a positive impact on fps for me.

[Urist Da Vinci]

I kinda like the idea, but with that many possible paths I'm pretty sure you will get crappy fps rather soon.
I've went from central staircase designs to central (single) spiral ramp designs and it seems to have a positive impact on fps for me.

Actually, from the central hub, there is only one possible path for a dwarf to take to get to a destination. As long as the destination is not a point on the surface or in a cavern, they can also walk in a straight line towards the destination. This is intended to be a very efficient, no-backtracking, design for good pathing.

Pathfinding doesn't explore all possible paths, unless the fort design or the coding is bad. Watch this video that someone else made, and learn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo1LbEwtpnw

Be careful of digging into caverns while laying out such a design. Also, I rely heavily on the hotkey fast zooms (F1 through F8) rather than mashing the z-level keys.

[MagmaMcFry]

Can someone post a diagram? My Flash 10 can't handle the DFMA.

[MasterMorality]

I just dig out and down and almost at random to see where I end up. If some rooms need adding I stick them out of one of the walls. I usually hit a central staircase that occurs after the first few levels, but for a while it's fairly chaotic.