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[Antmf]

Being new and still trying to figure things out I have been watching videos. I see some people have different opinions on using ramps and or stairs. What are the pros and cons of ramps vs. stairs when starting from the surface and digging down?

[schlake]

Wagons will roll down ramps that are three spaces wide.

[greycat]

People who advocate ramps often do so because of some mysterious voodoo surrounding the pathfinding algorithms and FPS (frames per second) efficiency.  I never understood this at all.  Maybe it works, but if so it's not obvious why.

I use stairs because they're simpler.

[PatrikLundell]

As you've noted from the videos, people have different preferences for what they like (aesthetics, FPS voodoo, ease of designation, etc). My personal main method is stairs, with ramps only where it makes more sense (in my opinion), such as trade depot access, magma sea probing, single Z level roof access (building one ramp rather than first an Up stair and then a Down or Up/Down stair on top if it). A long stair can be "painted" in one go, while for a ramp each channel operation has to be designated individually (although macros can be used).
Some people prefer nails, while others prefer screws, but most agree the other type is more suited for some tasks.

[Mostali]

My preference, and it's just a preference, is to use ramps.  I get as much entertainment from architectural grandeur of my fortresses as anything else, and building ramps into the architecture is part of it.

As others have said, it's really preference.  But a word of warning, dwarves do fall down stairs.  If you build very tall flights of stairs make sure to place hatch covers every few levels.  You may not need them, and it may never be a problem.  But that's the thing about problems, they aren't problems until they are.  Lose one legendary weapon smith and you'll hatch your stairs forever.

[schlake]

I typically make 3x3 columns of stairs that go from the surface to the bottom (but actually stop at the first cavern encountered) and I can't remember ever having a dwarf fall down a set of stairs.

[greycat]

I can't remember ever having a dwarf fall down a set of stairs.

There would have to be some event to trigger the fall in the first place, such as a combat.  They won't just trip and fall down the stairs randomly for no reason.

[Chevaleresse]

I usually just break up my staircases a bit, makes it easier to control z-level access at the cost of slightly slower traversal. Also looks nicer imo.

[Sanctume]

The FPS voodoo comes from the number of ticks a dwarf takes to reach point a to point b via ramps, compared to using up/down stairs.

Code: [Select]

z+1   #.b    #xb
z+0   a^#    ax#


[PatrikLundell]

The FPS voodoo comes from the number of ticks a dwarf takes to reach point a to point b via ramps, compared to using up/down stairs.

Code: [Select]

z+1   #.b    #xb
z+0   a^#    ax#


No, it shouldn't.
I agree there are just two movements for a channel and three for the stairs in the example, so the number of ticks it would take to move the distance would be slightly lower in the channel case. This presumably also means the path finding would be very marginally faster as the number of movements is one less, but this extremely small effect ought not to be visible as an observable FPS difference.
Thus, you'd get movement across the distance in a shorter time (i.e. fewer ticks), but the ticks themselves shouldn't take measurably longer in the staircase case, unless there is actually some FPS voodoo involving something else at play.

[feelotraveller]

My understanding is that the fps difference here is from pathfinding.  For example a dwarf standing in the middle tile of a 3x3 up/down stair which extends z+1, z-1 has 26 first step paths; even in the corner of the stair the dwarf has 11 possible first moves (this is also, as I understand it, largely the reason for fps slowdown from flying creatures in open space).  A spiral ramp has many, many less possibilities.  A dwarf who has to avoid oncoming traffic recalculates the pathfinding...  That said stairs are likely to be very marginally faster for journey length (at least when taking into account passing other creatures during the journey).

Personally I prefer stairs but in order to aid fps have tended more to using 2x2 stairs, or 3x3 with the middle tile left as floor and blocked with a statue; the first being simpler and the second more aesthetically pleasing, imo.

[PatrikLundell]

feelotraveller's explanation matches what I've heard earlier fairly well. According to that logic, a single tile staircase would be basically the same as a single tile ramp from an FPS perspective, while a 3*1 staircase ought to roughly match a 3 tile wide ramp (the ramp being slightly costlier if it turns, as it does if it's spiral, due to the extra "padding" platform at each turn, as well as the extra meetings generated by the shortest path consisting of only the inner tile). A 3*3 staircase doesn't have any corresponding ramp implementation.

[FantasticDorf]

Depending on the material you're making a ramp out of and the surrouding area you are carving a ramp from (sand for instance will fall apart easily if the rules are violated) they sometimes fail to work or require a 4x1 space for a two tile ramp which is inefficient compared to what 1 set of stairs could do.

If you're constructing with the intent to ONLY cover 1 z level casually and you have space for artistic license, id advocate a ramp supported on either side with gold walls (naturally feeding into room design) as a noblehouse feature. Ramps can also create the illusion of space and horizontal like a stadium to compliment a large area that has been dug out via aggressive strip mining, where all the dwarf hovels can exist stacked into the side of a cave or hill for instance as long as it was carefully constructed to be like so or a two tiered room with a upper balcony.

[Stormfeather]

My preference is stairs, mostly for aesthetics.