We prove that a minimal second countable ample groupoid has dynamical comparison if and only if its type semigroup is almost unperforated. Moreover, we investigate to what extent a not necessarily minimal almost finite groupoid has an almost unperforated type semigroup. Finally, we build a bridge between coarse geometry and topological dynamics by characterizing almost finiteness of the coarse groupoid in terms of a new coarsely invariant property for metric spaces, which might be of independent interest in coarse geometry. As a consequence, we are able to construct new examples of almost finite principal groupoids lacking other desirable properties, such as amenability or even a-T-menability. This behaviour is in stark contrast to the case of principal transformation groupoids associated to group actions.

In this paper, we construct and study a semigroup associated to an action of a countable discrete group on a compact Hausdorff space that can be regarded as a higher dimensional generalization of the type semigroup. We study when this semigroup is almost unperforated. This leads to a new characterization of dynamical comparison and thus answers a question of Kerr and Schafhauser. In addition, this paper suggests a definition of comparison for dynamical systems in which neither the acting group is necessarily amenable nor the action is minimal.