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[irontide]

Past bad experiences have lead me to making digging a cistern a high priority with setting up a new fort (before the first winter). I've always done this through channelling one level at a time from the top, but I'm wondering whether instead I can use controlled cave-ins? Since I need to do a bit of micro-management anyway to stop my idiot miners making a (bloody) hash of it, I might as well go the full dwarf and do it in a marginally faster, but over-engineered and dangerous way. It's time I add controlled cave-ins to my arsenal of tricks anyway, but I haven't managed to do it just yet and was wondering if any of you can give me some advice. For instance, whether the system I describe below should work (if it does, I'm screwing up somehow), how many z-levels at a time I can collapse this way, how many layers below it will take out, to what extent this makes something simple be dangerous and counter-productive, etc.

As I understand the wiki, what I'd need to do to is have alternate layers like this (h=channel, . = untouched rock):
z = n

Code: [Select]

hhhhh
h...h
h.... <- arm holding up plug
h...h
hhhhhand z=n-1 channelled out entirely. If I then have a miner channel out the arm (not standing on the plug), the plug should drop, and after the dust settles, I'll have a 5x5x2 pit, right? Since I find channelling out areas larger than say 7x7 across multiple z-levels to be slow and frustrating, this could be a real time-saver. And, of course, help for cutting through aquifers, cave-in traps, magma pistons, etc.

Am I missing something? Also, is there something stopping me from making the plug two or more z-levels deep?

When I tried this I had a staircase in one corner to allow the miners access to the various z-levels. The plug didn't collapse, even though staircases aren't supposed to support terrain diagonally. I was going to investigate further but then real-life intervened and I haven't touched save in a couple of weeks.

[Starver]

I might be wrong about this, but I think that cave-ins would only 'dig' through floors, and not plough through undug rock at all.

So what I'd be doing (if I didn't enjoy the micromanagement method) is digging in from the side from every level below that 'cave-in plug' that you want it to fall through (plus one?), but you could set that up without micromanagement as each level is normal digging out.  Once you've got no solid walls there (only the floors above, acting as ceilings), dropping the plug would destroy all the floors.  If it was a native-rock (or case obsidian) plug, then it would settle on the lowest level, filling it again.  You could dig into it again to remove it.  Make sure your cistern bottom has solid rock, though, and is not itself "merely floored", with tunnels or other open space beneath it.

I don't think that having a multi-level 'plug' would help much.  But this is the bit I'm not sure about.  I do know that with no empty space beneath the landing zone of uneven floor-surface (i.e. across Z-levels), the plug will separately land and stack itself up, so a moulded 'plug' with some bits of 1Z, others not (the excess being either at its base or its top, or even due to internally-mined bits), could fill a lower surface that is undulating with a new 'mass' of rock that is flat, if that's any use to you.

But, for your purposes, I would eschew a 'dug around' plug, which would either need additional space to fall into or time to remove, and make your plug a constructed one.  Constructed masses that fall always (AFAIK) decompose into their building materials, on hitting their final resting place, which you can then either ignore or get hauled out away immediately.

(And, if you're digging in from the side for every level, obviously that means more places where you need to keep your dwarves away from or (ideally) build walls to prevent access by innocents and egress by the cave-in dust.)

[Sutremaine]

Make the cistern out of stairs and, once that's done and the stone removed, channel out shafts wherever you want the wells to go. For the last part, it'll probably be safer to put the dig area behind a door so that you can lock in the first miner to respond and not have dwarves channelling out from underneath each others' feet.

[irontide]

Make the cistern out of stairs and, once that's done and the stone removed, channel out shafts wherever you want the wells to go. For the last part, it'll probably be safer to put the dig area behind a door so that you can lock in the first miner to respond and not have dwarves channelling out from underneath each others' feet.

Is there a reason I'd channel out the stairs? To stop FPS trouble, I can just change the pathing priority of the cistern to 'restricted' (which I was going to do anyway, as well as the maintenance tunnel leading to it).

[Starver]

I think (if I read it correctly) the channelling where the wells will be will allow the buckets to go down far enough, if the water-level ever falls beneath the top-level of the cistern.  While the water will flow down stairs (and fill up through them), buckets won't pass them.

That should work quite nicely.  Doesn't meet my own exacting aesthetics, but it sounds (again, if I understood it) like just about the safest and speediest method available.

[orius]

Here's the approach I use:

1: Dig stairs out on the perimeter of every level you want to dig. 
2: Dig a single 1x1 tile out on every level.
3: Build a support in each 1x1 tile.
4: Dig out the remainer of each level, and connect the pillar on the bottom level to a lever.
5: Channel out the stairs one level at a time, starting at the top.
6: Pull the lever.  This will deconstruct the pillar, leaving nothing supporting the floors from below or sides.  They will then all collapse, and the other pillars will deconstruct during the collapse.

[wuphonsreach]

Cisterns, I usually do a bunch of 3x3 or 5x5 rooms over top of each other with a stairway running up/down in one of the corners (which leads to the surface and the pump that pushes water down the stairs).

Center tile on each level gets channeled out to make a hole for the bucket to reach top to bottom.  If I'm feeling "neat" then after the center tile is channeled out in the 5x5 levels, I go back and channel out a 3x3 area in the middle to widen the opening (which lets water drain down to lower levels faster and with less waste).

[irontide]

Here's the approach I use:

1: Dig stairs out on the perimeter of every level you want to dig. 
2: Dig a single 1x1 tile out on every level.
3: Build a support in each 1x1 tile.
4: Dig out the remainer of each level, and connect the pillar on the bottom level to a lever.
5: Channel out the stairs one level at a time, starting at the top.
6: Pull the lever.  This will deconstruct the pillar, leaving nothing supporting the floors from below or sides.  They will then all collapse, and the other pillars will deconstruct during the collapse.

OK, this is the type of thing I had in mind, thanks.

[Sutremaine]

I think (if I read it correctly) the channelling where the wells will be will allow the buckets to go down far enough, if the water-level ever falls beneath the top-level of the cistern.  While the water will flow down stairs (and fill up through them), buckets won't pass them.

Yes, water will pass stairs but buckets won't, so you need to make some Open Space tiles in your stair cistern. If I'm making cisterns I dig the stairs and then channel out those stairs level by level to stop the tile flashing once water gets in it, but selectively channelling out the stairs requires far less supervision.

[orius]

Here's the approach I use:

1: Dig stairs out on the perimeter of every level you want to dig. 
2: Dig a single 1x1 tile out on every level.
3: Build a support in each 1x1 tile.
4: Dig out the remainer of each level, and connect the pillar on the bottom level to a lever.
5: Channel out the stairs one level at a time, starting at the top.
6: Pull the lever.  This will deconstruct the pillar, leaving nothing supporting the floors from below or sides.  They will then all collapse, and the other pillars will deconstruct during the collapse.

OK, this is the type of thing I had in mind, thanks.

A few things to keep in mind:

This approach is what I use to completely excavate a hollow cuboid within my fort.  You want to make sure you have nothing mined out underneath what you're caving in or the cave in will smash through those floors too.  If you're caving in something from the surface, channel out all soil tiles first, or the floor at the bottom of whatever you're digging out will start growing grass and you'll have to floor it over (unless you want that).  This is also not a good approach for when you want to drop a solid plug of rock either, for that only put a support on the bottom level and dig tht out, leaving the upper levels intact.