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[NW_Kohaku]

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

Basically, it goes out in eight directions from the central staircase, and goes down a z-level every 4 tiles or so that it goes horizontally away from the central staircase.

The advantage to this over a normal central staircase design being that you could throw larger rooms off of the central "artery" of the long, slow ramp hallways to the central stairway since you would be able to put them stacked above or below other rooms on the next portion of the ramp.

[Karakzon]

for general fortress design it looks good,

but in a seige situation, it would be a nightmare. sure, if you had 26 squads to come down every single tunnel, or to shoot down into the central mass, it may be alright, but as soon as an opponent gets into the central node with 5 of his buddys, chaos insues at a rapid pace as they split up in random directions.

Im aware that it isent designed to be a defence, but ide suggest hooking up a mega trap in the central staircase and have the nodes connect to a "ring" like structure that just goes round the central staircase with doors on. that way, you could pour a mass volume of water down the centre and 'flush' invasions out into some pit or such like. Thats how ide see about handling the defence of the structre if your main line was breached or you had beastys coming up from the caverns.

I may try this design for my next fort.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Yeah, I'd suggest putting gatehouses/barracks between the main fort and the surface, and between the fort and the caverns. You would be kind of screwed if you let an enemy get to the central hub.

Remember that the central staircase is not privileged. Your fort's surface entrance might be up one of the ramps instead.

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

I tried doing a sketch, but it came out as an ugly mess of lines.

So, the central hub has 3 floors. The upper floor has a staircase going up, as well as ramps going up in all 8 directions (N, S, E, W, as well as NW, NE, SW, SE). The middle floor has flat hallways going in all 8 directions. The lower floor has a staircase going down, as well as ramps going down in all 8 directions.

[krenshala]

Don't forget that period (.) is already mapped for stepping forward in time while the game is paused.  So if you change from (< and >) to (, and .) you will probably have to remap (.) to something else first.

Also, the reason < and > are used for changing levels is that it is one of the more common commands for changing levels in rogue-likes (e.g., Nethack).

[MarcAFK]

I change my keybindings to use the direction pad more, usually in conjunction with shift or control so i need to think less about what keys to press.
examples: Secondary selector is shift+up and shift+ down rather than + and -
Move cursor fast becomes control + direction keys instead of shift + direction keys
i leave z level up/down at < and > because it's right next to my arrow keys and i'm used to it from dungeon crawl
lastly i find the following to be very helpful:
i change building height +/- and width +/- to shift + direction keys so i don't have to search around for umkh

[Normandy]

Isn't shift-5 and ctrl-5 go up and down levels? I find that very convenient.

[NW_Kohaku]

Isn't shift-5 and ctrl-5 go up and down levels? I find that very convenient.

Adventurers have shift and control to modulate up and down for all the directions.

I prefer 5 and 0 numpad because that way, it's all controllable by one hand's motions.  No need for a two-handed control, so I can tap other buttons to do things with my left hand while my right hand aims the cursor.

I don't play adventurer mode much, so I don't really care most of the time, but I just set up another set of keybindings just for Adventurer Mode, anyway.

... Although I should probably at least try to stay on-topic, here...

A random thought - What about combining this diagonal ramp method with the hub method I was talking about?  The ramps going NW, NE, SW, SE could all go downwards, the N, E, S, W ramps could all go upwards, and they all travel to a somewhat spherical "node" with more verticals inside them.

Of course, I also rather like having my nodes have a means of accessing one another directly, even if this goes against the whole "central staircase" mentality, which I've never really enjoyed, anyway.  You give an access tunnel from the woodcutter's (upper floor) node to the magma forge's (lower floor) node, and just make it only be part of a small number of dwarves' burrows.

[Karakzon]

ive dug our a fortress with this design. and i should add a few bonuses:

the design makes fortress design a breeze after the main pain in the ass node creation. sure, its not the most defensable structure, but thats usualy solved with spaces of a tile between each z level change ramp -ie:ramp up, space, ramp up- In wich to build door structures or traps depending on what your aiming for. or the likelyness of the affair.

[GreatWyrmGold]

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.

This.
Complicated designs are fine for experts, though.

[goge]

Since the edges are down ramps how can you dig out the outer "pods" so that they will still be accessible by dwarfs and not mess up the operation of the ramps below them?
Do you have an example of this design with the pods dug out?

[NW_Kohaku]

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.

This.
Complicated designs are fine for experts, though.

I dunno, I kind of like designing my fort by hand... you only have to designate a fort once, after all.  Plus, the sorts of forts you actually plan out ahead are typically the ones you spend more than just a couple years playing.

Frankly, laying out the fort is more fun to me than anything going on inside it most of the time, so I rather enjoy the manual designation.

[Urist McBusDriver]

I've never used the DF macro facility, but isn't this the kind of task it is designed for?

[NW_Kohaku]

I've never used the DF macro facility, but isn't this the kind of task it is designed for?

It works pretty well in designating some things like digging a set of up/down stairs 20 z-levels straight down, which are some pretty repetitive button presses. 

The thing about this, however, is that you would need to designate a new macro for every one of the eight cardinal directions you want that path to expand through.  This is something more fit for Quickfort.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Of course, I also rather like having my nodes have a means of accessing one another directly, even if this goes against the whole "central staircase" mentality, which I've never really enjoyed, anyway.  You give an access tunnel from the woodcutter's (upper floor) node to the magma forge's (lower floor) node, and just make it only be part of a small number of dwarves' burrows.

Yeah, some of the industries have overlap, so you might want a shortcut for special workers. In case of invasion and security lockdown/flooding, secondary travel hallways would be useful. I usually make wood burning part of the wood industry so it goes near a wood stockpile, but it makes charcoal and ash for other industries.

If you think about it, dwarves would only use the secondary shortcuts between nodes in this design if they were going to another industry's node, or if they were going to a bedroom node. If they wanted food/drink, they would go to the center.

Since the edges are down ramps how can you dig out the outer "pods" so that they will still be accessible by dwarfs and not mess up the operation of the ramps below them?
Do you have an example of this design with the pods dug out?

I don't understand your first question. Once you think your 3D hallways are long enough from the core, you can build rooms however you want at the end.

[IT 000]

I usually have a combination of both. If you just dig a long line down a goblin can easily preform a spinal tap and do some serious damage. Unless you do something dwarvenly like build an upsidedown pyramid on top. I tend to go into the mountainside a little bit before heading down. Then I set up military and some traps on the top level.