40d:Design strategies

Fortress defense

3D map format

For more information on how to dig passages and structures in a 3D map, see digging.

Interior design

It may seem obvious to experienced players but it should be stated explicitly: for maximal efficiency your dwarves should spend the least amount of time moving about and the most time doing productive things. Fortress interior design is critical to productivity.

Bedroom design

Enterprising players often try to find a design for their living quarter area which is either very space efficient or easy on the eye. This subject haven't been tackled much yet but you can see the different designs most often used by players of older versions (0.23.130.23a and down, see link above). Most of them are still applicable on the newer versions (0.27.169.32a and up) but could possibly be heavily modified to benefit from the new Z-axis stairs placing.

THLawrence's Living Pods

Apartment Complex: Template:Qd Template:Qd

Lobby: Template:Qd Template:Qd

This design is compact and allows for a large number of rooms. Each room has 3 tiles and a door. To add the apartment complex build it one level above or below the lobby. The design can be stretched to make the rooms 3x2 or 3x3 depending on your preference. Though not as impressive as the fractal patterns it is very efficient in that it can allow for large numbers of dwarves to easily access the main hallway.

GnomeChomsky's Tessellated Apartments

Template:Qd Template:Qd Template:Qd

Access can be from above and/or below by the stairs, or a hallway can be run into the dining room level by removing the bedroom at one of the cardinal points. This design can be repeated as far as desired in the X, Y, and Z directions.

Workshop Logistics

At a certain point, the most important thing for your fortress is not that you have workshops, but that they are placed efficiently.

Pair workshops that have similar inputs or similar outputs or where the output of one is the input of another. Examples: Pair a mechanic's workshop with a mason's workshop because both consume stone and produce furniture. If multiple inputs are required (smelter, smith..), it is better to make specialized stockpiles rather than having a single 'input' stockpile because you want to make sure that there is always some of every input. Use the 'take from stockpile' interface to fill these subsidiary stockpiles from your main stockpile and vice versa.

One way of doing this is with the stockpiles on the next Z-level like this:

(view from above)

Level 0: Template:Qd Level -1: Template:Qd

i=input item o=output item W=workshop

Alternatively you can place input above and output below the workshops or the other way round, depending, for example, on the location of your trade depot. Additional stairs may be useful.

Moody Dwarves

One important consideration of workshops includes design to account for moody dwarves. Open workshops might be easy and convenient, but make containment in the case of a berserk dwarf difficult. One such layout that takes this into consideration is as follows: Template:Qd

Key: W: Workshop, X: up/downstaircase

Access and stockpiles are placed above and below the room. Similar workshops can be grouped together for easier checking on, and a door can be locked should a moody dwarf's wishes be unmet.

Fluid workshop locations

Alternatively, you can employ a "work site" methodology where workshops are constructed and destroyed as necessary. For example, if you mine out a huge dining hall and it is completely filled with stone, build a masonry shop in the hall to manufacture tables and chairs. This eliminates the need for a stone hauler because your mason only has to travel a few squares to get raw material. In addition it makes furniture hauling more efficient because the tables and chairs are right next to their eventual location. And of course it clears stone out of your dining hall, eliminating the need for a refuse hauler to dump it all.

Miscellaneous strategies

Use for soil layers

Soil layers (such as clay, loam, etc.) - which may at first seem to be of secondary importance - are very useful for large storage areas, as they do not leave rock behind when dug through and may be excavated much faster by comparison. You can also farm on soil tiles without first making them muddy.

Since soil cannot be smoothed or detailed, it is a less than ideal medium to assign rooms in. Workshops do not have happy thoughts for increased surrounding worth, so if proximity to another area is not an issue, soil is a great place to put them.

Since soil is primarily located near the surface, where a trade depot is often built, it is very useful to dig out large spaces for furniture and finished goods in soil for several reasons. First, it produces no stone, and is thus very fast to dig out. Secondly, having finished goods as close to the trade depot as possible is necessary for efficient trading.

Dams

See dam.