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[donald]

I currently am embarked on a terrifying glacier and set up my fortress on the first cavern level. The cavern is very porous to the edges of the map in both the x/y direction as well as z levels (not on it right now but IIRC many long borders of a dozen or more z levels). I've had no FBs yet my army couldnt deal with (the toughest was an noseless giant llama composed of vomit that spat webs) but Id like to seal the borders to ensure my safe survival for future fun.

Does anyone have advice on the least tedious way to do this? If i build one tall staircase at the end of each border, im afraid ill end up with masons sealing themselves or each other in constantly unless i construct it one brick at a time. The safe alternative would be to construct full staircase scaffolding for each x/y border on every z level next to the border but thats almost double the construction time. My other thought was to use burrows to only allow one mason per wall and hope they build the wall in the correct order so as not to seal themselves in.

The good (and bad) news is that at least there is no water on this cavern level, so at least there arent any ponds to seal off.

[Azated]

You could try casting the walls out of obsidian. I've never tried it before, but once you get the system setup, it should be relatively easy to wall of your cavern.

[Werdna]

I personally like to drop big walls down from the ceiling.  Find a chokepoint in the cavern.  Measure the width and height carefully (particularly the surface it will fall on, if it isn't flat.  Way above it, start digging.  I start at the top of the wall and place a support connecting the eventual wall to the ceiling.  Connect this support to a lever, its how you will drop it.  Then I start channeling down around the wall, until it is simply hanging there over the cavern.  Drop it, admire the pretty cave-in.  Now build floors over the top of it, sealing the cavern from your dig cavity.  If you sized the wall wrong and there is a gap, fix it with a construction.

It sounds like a lot of work, but it actually uses a lot less micro-management compared to designating a multi-z-level wall.  Its also great for sealing sections with cavern lakes, where it is otherwise difficult to seal the underwater portion from nasties.

[Triaxx2]

Particularly because the bottom can be shaped to the contour of the lake.

[donald]

I really liked the cave-in idea until I did some hard looking and realized some of the cavern borders are close to 70 z levels high, and the room between them and the surface is only between 10 and 20 z levels, so not nearly enough to actually seal the place in.  I'm guessing that perhaps cavern levels 1 and 2 are more or less merged on this map, accounting for the abnormally high cavern ceilings.

At this point, I'm planning to just put a 1 z level wall around the place and deal with flyers as they come.  At least non flyers will just get stuck on top of the wall and give my marksdwarves some easy practice.

My alternate idea is to see if there are a couple points in the cavern where the ceiling is lower and I can wall in the fort from there, instead of at the map edges.

Thanks for all the help!

[miauw62]

Dont forget to put some extra protection so non-flyers wont give you a FB dust epidemic.

[LoSboccacc]

wall from top to bottom, because if you start walling from floor level monster will spawn on top of walls

to reduce designation times, build first stairs everywhere 1 tile off the border. then you can queue up all the floors at maximum extension 10x1 centered on the stair. keep up building all the floor scaffolds and then designate the walls, be sure that the top wall layer is completed before starting the wall under it

wall all open space this way. to wall lakes, plan to wall 1 tile away from border: make floor 1 and 2 tile from border, make wall on border, remove floor 1 tile away from border, make wall 3 tiles away from border
final side view:
EX _X

X = wall _ = floor E map end

now pump magma. the wall will pop 1 tile from border, but it will use a lot less magma than the competing solution:

E _X

this will cause the wall to pop at border, but most magma will flow out of the map and you'll need a lot more pumps and channels

[Urist McDwarfFortress]

Personally, I would just floor over any water that connects with the side of the map. 

If its your only source of fresh water, you could leave a few holes in it covered with grates or bars.  Building destroyers apparently can't raise their arms over their heads.  However, if you're unlucky, you could have a FB that shoots deadly dust spawn in your lake and its dust could get through the grates and infect your fort.