40d Talk:Traffic

"Also route them around food stockpiles, as food can get trampled, and if it happens to be a masterwork cooked dish, expect an insane cook."

Is this true? Did this change in the new version? Has anyone actually experienced such damage, unequivocally caused by traffic?

I remember some discussion of this long ago with the old version, but it turned out not to be damage due to traffic. (I think it was temperature?) —0x517A5D 00:54, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

It was a temperature effect, according to Toady. I don't think this has changed. --Peristarkawan 02:20, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

Going to remove it from the main page then, as I've never experienced trampling of things in stockpiles either. -twincannon

Has anyone experienced an increase or decrease in FPS when traffic zones are used heavily? I was just wondering if this helps or hurts pathfinding algorithms and how it affects game speed. Schm0 06:14, 20 November 2007 (EST)

I haven't seen much effect on FPS personally, but the algorithm Toady One uses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_star) typically has a heuristic which assumes that all tiles are weighted equally. Generally speaking, adding tiles with high movement costs can cause A* to search much larger areas than it would normally. If you are only restricting small, non-chokepoint areas though, it should never be an issue, as A* will find a route adjacent to the restricted tiles, if possible.

I think there should be some mentions of what traffic controls, and workarounds for common problems here. For example, Traffic designations don't work for me to prevent a dwarf from standing on the wrong side of a moat while he's channeling. My current work around for this is to place a wall where I don't want him to stand, then suspend it. Then I remove the suspended wall once the channel is dug. Also, another confusing point is that traffic restriction apparently has little/no impact on job ordering. For example, say you are constructing concentric moats, and you'd like your dwarves to start on the inner moat first, then, when thats done, work on the next outer moat. Traffic restrictions will not force them to dig the inner channel first. I don't currently have a workaround for this style of problem; the wall thing doesn't seem to work for it. Tulthix 12:38, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

Traffic designations only affect path preferences when pathfinding. Dwarves choose their destinations without thinking about them. VengefulDonut 13:19, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

A good example of traffic control would be to designate a main underground tunnel as high traffic, so that dwarves aren't trying to find shortcuts by going outside.