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[Ifeno]

So for some reason, any frequently trafficed grassy area turns into sand.  Now while this isnt an issue gameplay whise, i'm really starting to get tired of starring at a yellow screen when i started off in a lush green forest.  Any ideas how i can stop this and why this is happening in the first place?

[Quietust]

Are you running Dwarf Fortress 0.31.19 or later with a fortress generated in version 0.31.18 or earlier? If so, you're running into this bug, and the only solution exists in the form of a DFHack plugin "regrass" which needs to be run periodically.

[Ifeno]

highly likely.  Thanks a lot!  I refuse to re-gen.  It's a quirk of mine.  I like to see my "main fortress" progression.  however i update the game for my little side projects... time to download DFHack...

[MrWiggles]

Its called trampling.  Any path will get worn down into just dirt.

The real PITA is in they're walking on saplings, and kill them.

To control where they walk, this is where the Pathing Cost comes in handy. Its in Designation Menu, in the same sub menu where you can hide, or mass dump.

For bonus points, I build roads to where my dwarf frequently path toward. I've also been know to build to build bridges over brooks, then set the brook to restrictive, and have the bridge be a reduce cost with a reduce cost bordering the brook.

It encourages them well enough to using the bridge.

[Ifeno]

I actually already have roads built to the places where their supposed to go.  Should i set them to "high" traffic areas?  How EXACTLY does the whole trafficing thing work?

[Ifeno]

also, I just downloaded the DFHack bundled with DFusion and Stonesense however i can't seem to find an exe.  Did i download the wrong thing?

[FuzzyZergling]

Traffic designations change the number of steps a tile counts as when a dwarf tries to path over it.

[Ifeno]

so high traffic areas mean dwarves could practicaly fly across the roads?  So, would it be a good idea to designate EVERYTHING as high traffic?  (if i didnt care about this whole plant thing that is)

[Sphalerite]

No.  Traffic zones do not actually change the time it takes the dwarf to move.  Traffic zone designation affects the pathfinding logic.

Dwarves pick jobs to do, and based on that pick places they have to move to.  Once they have a destination picked out, they call the pathfinding code to figure out how to get there.  The pathfining code finds the shortest path to the destination.  Traffic zones can be used to make the pathfinding code think that paths are shorter (or longer) than they really are, in order to force dwarves to prefer or avoid walking through certain areas of the map.  So you can set your roads high traffic, and your dwarves will then prefer walking on the roads over taking off-road shortcuts.  Or you can set areas where you're trying to grow grass low or restricted traffic, and your dwarves will try to avoid walking through them if at all possible.

[FuzzyZergling]

so high traffic areas mean dwarves could practicaly fly across the roads?  So, would it be a good idea to designate EVERYTHING as high traffic?  (if i didnt care about this whole plant thing that is)

No no- it means that a dwarf will look at a low traffic tile and see it as more tiles than it is for the purpose of pathing, and see a high traffic tile as less.
Normal tiles count as 2. High, low, and restricted tiles count as 1, 5, and 25 respectively.
For example:


############
######____##
#####_####_#
D____######X
#####_####_#
#####_####_#
######____##
############

D: A dwarf.
#: Walls
_: Floor
X: Where the dwarf wants to go.

Using normal traffic designations, the upper path costs 22, while the lower costs 26. A dwarf will always use the upper path.
If you designate the lower path as high traffic that cost changes to 13, so a dwarf would always use the lower path. If you designate the upper path as restricted, it would cost 275.

[Quietust]

also, I just downloaded the DFHack bundled with DFusion and Stonesense however i can't seem to find an exe.  Did i download the wrong thing?

No - the latest DFHack loads itself into Dwarf Fortress itself by pretending to be "SDL.dll".

Also, it looks like the latest DFHack release doesn't include my regrass plugin - either you can download the sources and compile it yourself (assuming you've got Visual Studio 2010 - Express will work) or wait for the next release (which will probably be soon).

[Garath]

on traffic: because of the easier path choosing, it helps with FPS. It's also useful for avoiding water edges or frozen ponds

[Glitch(TMG)]

Oh boy. I was about to start a similar thread about this myself; "Grass won't grow back?"

I'm running DF v0.31.25, and I'm having a similar problem. The areas I made activity zones for grazing pastures for my livestock hasn't quite been sufficient and my livestock number's been going up (i really need to kill most of them off), and they've started eating away the grass in the areas I penned them up in. The most visible is a huge perfect rectangle that was eaten up by some watter buffalo/yaks I had before I slaughtered them. The grass is gone, it's red sand beneath. It's been an in-game year or two, and nothing has regrown there, same for a few other patches of red sand that have been eroded out.

On the other hand, I earlier went through a project to drain some murky pools I had near my fortress entrance. Basically, all I did was build a screw pump next to it and gush all the water out of the pool and onto the ground beside it (before paving over the murky pool tiles to remove them from collecting rainwater). However, I was then left with a huuuge blot of ground that was covered in 'piles of mud'. Nothing really grew back there...until I looked at the wiki about cleaning up mud, and then paved a dirt road over the muddy area. That seemed to work, and the furrowed/paved dirt is growing grass again. However, there's one big difference. The ground is peat in this area, not red sand.

So, I wanted to know before I go any further if this makes any difference, but most of all, how can I start the red sand growing grass over it again? I need the pasture space...

[Quietust]

If you're playing in a 0.31.19+ world and grass isn't growing back, it's because your livestock are grazing in a mountain biome - for whatever reason, mountain biomes have grass in them when you first embark, but that grass never grows back once it's been removed.

[Glitch(TMG)]

If you're playing in a 0.31.19+ world and grass isn't growing back, it's because your livestock are grazing in a mountain biome - for whatever reason, mountain biomes have grass in them when you first embark, but that grass never grows back once it's been removed.

Oh no! And there's -no- way around this? Someone above mentioned a hack or something... but if not...dang, I -will- have to relocate my livestock to across the river, much further away from my fortress, I'm in a dual mountain/forest biome embark...