Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[parlor_tricks]

I have lost several dwarves to attempted underground aesthitifications.
Stalactites and Stalagmites offend my senses by their vulgar gracelessness.  Unfortunately they are protected by massive cave in issues, and the extremely inexact nature of the job.

I'd have to designate each single piece of the map to ensure that there is no issue of overlaps or something or the other - I've had a massive tantrum spiral because of it already.

Has anyone undertaken similar projects with success? Any suggestions or advice?

[kefkakrazy]

Hmmmmm...

I wonder if it might help you out to just drop the damn thing a z-level. Cut away a section of the roof of the cavern so that the rock spire in question is disconnected from the roof, then undermine it, put in a support, disconnect it completely from the floor, and trigger the lever from safety.

It won't destroy it but it will cause all the stone tiles to "settle" into a rough cone...

I wonder. If you had miners carve the entire bloody thing into up/down staircases, caving it in might obliterate it, and staircases offer support so you shouldn't cause any caveins. Help a lot with getting to the cavern roof in question too. Someone correct me if I'm wrong and staircases dug into natural tiles persist when dropped through cavein.

[Cabbagetroll]

I cannot help with the cave-in question, but I offer an alternative: hollow out these stalactites and have your dorfs live there. Secure and tame flying monsters to be released into the caves when threats appear. TAME THE CAVERNS FOR ARMOK. Should that not work, magma. Lots of magma.

[silverskull39]

I generally avoid this by setting cavern openness to max and low passage density in worldgen, but that won't solve the problem on your current fort and ymmv anyway.

[Loud Whispers]

I have lost several dwarves to attempted underground aesthitifications.
Stalactites and Stalagmites offend my senses by their vulgar gracelessness.  Unfortunately they are protected by massive cave in issues, and the extremely inexact nature of the job.

Dig all but one wall in each hanging spire, add a support and finish digging. When you're ready, pull the lever. Seems simple enough, if time consuming.

[parlor_tricks]

I've tried the single stalactite system, but it's hideously time consuming, especially for some stalactites which may have support orthogonally.

On top of it the risk is still pretty high - one incorrect or random channel and you've got a cave in with a legendary miner casualty.

That's basically how I lost most of my dwarves.

I was wounding if someone's figured out how to handle it efficiently.

[rhesusmacabre]

Designate all the tiles you want removed as up/down stairs before you collapse them.

[MasterShizzle]

For added dwarfiness you'll want to mine out all the stalagmites/actites and hook all the supports to one lever, then pull it to collapse the whole thing at once.

Bonus points for placing the lever inside the cavern and having a noble pull it.

[parlor_tricks]

Trying the up down ladder system.
yeah that went well ><. ability to move lost for several dwarves and had to resort to df hack to stop them from getting drowned ,

Save scumming.

The issue really is with the crazy level of intricacy.

Many stalactites are tiny, but in between them is will be a pillar that connects to the floor. So even the collapse from top system wont work. because of that irritating pillar. Multiply this by a thousand different idiosyncrasies - across the entire map .... and its painful to imagine.

On top of it, the walls of the collapse/terraform region are also irregular.

If its a 6 z level dome I am trying to work on - the first empty area will be on level 6, with 1 stalactite sticking there.

On level 5 it opens up, and then on level 4 there are new stalactites which show up, growing from overhang of level 5 (if you are confused I apologise).

So it becomes quite difficult to manage this without ending up decapitating one tiny stalactite, which then sucks your workers down.

Or the other case - where you end up thinking you have an effective set up, but pull the lever and have no results.

Heck my first disaster was from something that should have been perfect - a hanging series of platforms connected by a pillar.

Pulled the lever and - floating platforms.

tried again - dug larger channels to make sure nothing was connected and - magical cave in, 3 dwarves on the floor of the cavern - 5 forgotten beasts which were walled out collectively move in for dinner.

 

[kefkakrazy]

Digging the entire thing into up/down staircases caused caveins? That shouldn't be; staircases should offer support...

[greatesthits]

I've been dealing with the same issues.


Carve ramps up to the tops of stalagmites, then channel them down to the floor; or

Designate ramps.  That will clear 2 levels.  Beware cave-ins!

[Reelya]

I would think designate all the stalactites as stairs, then once they're carved, designate "remove stairs" level by level from top to bottom. This is assuming they're all connected to the floor.

for ones connected to the ceiling only (if such exist) make a support / lever holding it up, mine out the natural connection to the ceiling completely, then release the support so that it settles in the cavern. Then, do it as in the first version.