Bay 12 Games Forum

Digging out large areas slows you down in a combination of ways, I believe, but it can be managed.
As far as I know the major causes of slowdown are a) the extra pathfinding routes available and b) the endless piles of stones, but I imagine c) the extra LOS checks possible (though probably small) and d) the extra temperature (etc.) checks possible (though I don't think these are done "brute force"; maybe it depends whether the tile is exposed to the sky, too) may slow things down too.

Pathfinding problems can be avoided to some extent by ensuring that you have large corridors - or by doing a true stripmine - or perhaps best, by walling off your entire mining area and locking any doors to it (which will stop pathfinding dead at the edges in much the same way that the previously existing rock wall would have done).

Stone problems can be avoided by dumping the damn stuff down the chasm, chucking it in magma or smashing it to atoms with a drawbridge, but the cost in dwarf-hours is... huge.

I'd also recommend finding which is your most common stone type, going to it in the stocks menu and (h)iding it.  Your dwarves will still move the horrible things around but at least you don't have to look at them cluttering the place up.   

(edit)

Actually as to the pathfinding, channelling out a whole level should remove that whole area from pathfinding possibilities, so you could in principle exchange large inaccessible areas (inside rock) for large inaccessible areas (in the air), which would be a largely neutral action.

(Levers here too.  My recent fortresses have been festooned with levers and my brain can't cope.)

To check your graphics card, right click on "My Computer" and choose "Manage".  One of the options will be "Device Manager".  Click on that and device manager should open in the right hand panel of the window.  Where it says "Display Adapters" there will be a plus symbol to open the list of graphics hardware - open that and see what card is listed.

'fraid I can't help as to the cause of the slowdown, though.  Has it been running faster previously, and only just slowed down recently?

(Edit - that's assuming you're running Windows!  Bad me but I guess you are.    )

I agree, although my personal favourites for that are mechanics (as mechanics can be trained without making anything, hence no low quality objects to dispose of) and gem cutting / gem setting (cutting green glass / setting green glass.)

My trouble is that you don't get that option with dwarf children, and as a fortress gets older, the only people getting moods are the children ('cause everyone adult has had a mood already.)  So you end up with many of your children attaining adulthood as legendary whatevercrafters...

Actually bonecrafting ain't so bad as you at least have the chance at some artifact armour from the mood, bone bolts are useful and a supply of bones is easy to maintain, but stonecrafting is fairly pointless despite the ubiquity of the materials (unless you really like stone crafts) and woodcrafting... woodcrafting?  even if you have tons of wood (which is by no means trivial on many maps), there's better uses for it than woodcrafting, which (let's face it) is more of a poncy elven occupation at the best of times.   

Quote from: Muz on September 08, 2008, 08:43:01 pm

Lol, sometimes I think DF should have LESS origin tracking. Sometimes I just want some frigging leather armor, not having to inventorize between cougar leather armor, wolf leather armor, and baby dwarf leather armor.

It should be an option to turn on and off

Sometimes I feel that way... though mostly it is because quality and price don't differ enough for Leather and bones for the most part with a few mild exceptions.

It would be nice if the game tracked the different types of leather, cloth, stone and so on, but had an option which would present items to the user without adjectives unless specifically queried.  In other words, it's "an exceptional silk cloth left glove well dyed blue with dimple dye", but the game just says "glove" unless you ask it for more details.

Just as an option.  The stocks screen already does something like this - tells you you have 300 units of silk cloth without giving you all the gory details of exactly what each one is, unless you tab into more detail.

How about "Turtlebucks"?     That would kill two cave-swallows with one felsite pebble.   

I wonder if any non-brits will get that.

Wiki reckons 385 million people ought to get it, so there's a fair enough chance.   

In my experience the caravans (in the absence of a liaison of any kind) do tend to get fixated on the things you buy (although there seems to be an overbearing tendency to bring entire forests of logs with them, regardless of whether you buy any or not - this is intensely annoying!).

However, the caravans sometimes seem to "reset" if they get slaughtered by the gobboes.  After a jolly good murderising, the next caravan to turn up will often bring a random selection of goods again.  It may also be the case that not allowing them to get to your trade depot triggers a reset too.

I would recommend locking the caravan out of your fortress (where they may possible meet death-by-goblin), or if you're feeling especially cruel, murdering them all.  The next bunch to show may bring better goods!