40d:Bedroom design

There are many ways to design the layout of bedrooms. Designs must consider simplicity and ease of designating, efficiency, and aesthetics. The ability to modify the design to enlarge, improve, or add rooms can be important as well. Proximity of the rooms to noise should also be considered.

Many of the designs shown here were taken from this forum post.

Plain square design

If it is 2×2, 3×3 or more, square designs are probably the first choice of many players. Easy to plan, easy to put in place, this kind of design is one of the best when the player value his playing time instead of the overall layout of his fortress. While square designs are easy to reproduce en masse, most are not optimized either for beauty or space efficiency, two aspects that other designs excel at.

Line design

Line designs have the advantage of being very space efficient and very adaptative. From 1×1 to 1×4 and longer, it can fit almost anywhere, can be upgraded later on as long as you have the space behind your first original line and do not need excessive corridor space for the bedroom access. Simply dig a few lines out of an access tunnel already in use in your fortress and voila, you have new living quarters. This kind of minimalistic design is perfect for when the economy kicks in, as it can be adapted in a flash for any kind of low wage citizen.

Communal design

The space-conscious fortress designer who wants his dwarves to walk less and work more might decide to cut out the walls altogether, as dwarves do not require privacy (but you can imagine hanging sheets between the bedrooms if you prefer). This design is perhaps the most efficient use of space (without resorting to barracks-like single tile rooms). It places a large number of five-grid bedrooms in a small space. No bedroom overlaps any other, each has the basic furniture, and there is even room enough for extras. Additional value may be provided with engravings, brassware, decorations, or through catering to the taste of specific dwarves.

T shaped design

T shaped designs, also called triangle designs, are efficient, but are not separated by impassible walls. While this doesn't bother the dwarves, it does somewhat void the aesthetic purpose of having individual walled off rooms. This kind of design usually ends up very ugly once the player begins to smooth the surfaces as this will result as mostly "O"'s for pillar everywhere, a concept hard to grasp for the eye in an already symbol rich ASCII world.

Fractal designs

Betting on design beauty and on geometrical symmetry first, fractal designs can also be at the same time very space and walk efficient. They however require a lot of time and space both to plan and execute and are most likely out of reach of all but the most serious players. Most players however agree to say that they are the most incredible of all the designs around, if not the for the sheer challenge of successfully executing something as complex, then for the extra touch it give to the whole fortress as a whole once it is done.

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