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[astrosteve]

I'm very, very new to this game. New to the point where I haven't even needed to expand a fortress past one Z level yet. However, this Z level is made entirely of silt loam and I could really use some stone. So, we dig down, then. I used b, C, d to build some down stairs in the middle of a room. Googling about says this should open up the tiles directly below the stairs so I can do whatever I need. However, it doesn't seem to have. I can't mine it out, can't do anything. The stairs are there and have definitely been built, but the tiles directly below the stairs aren't accessible.

What am I doing wrong here?

[Garath]

what you made shows the level below, you need to make an up, or up/down stairs on the level below. It's one of the few things that works in this way

[vjek]

Try the following

On the surface/top/embark level:

d
j
enter
enter

to designate a single downard stairway.

Then move down one Z-Level with:
>
then:
d
i
enter
>
>
>
>
enter

that will create an up/down stairway 4 Z-levels high.
Then move down one Z-Level with:
>
and finally

d
u
enter
enter

to create the up stair to finish off the central staircase running from the surface down to where your cursor at the bottom.

What will then happen;
On the embark level, the down stair will be dug, exposing the lower level.
Then the up/down stairs will be dug successively downwards until the lowest level
finally, the up stair will be dug, providing complete up/down stair access to all those Z-levels.

From the lowest level (the final up-stair designated) you can horizontally dig whatever you want to get/discover stone/ore/gems.

If that's not clear, reply here.

[astrosteve]

Yes, that seemed to work very well. Thanks!

[zooeyglass]

Should add for clarity's sake here (in case you are still watching this thread):

designating stairs and building stairs are two different things. The former, with d, is performed by miners who dig out the stairs (be they up, down or up/down stairs). The latter, with b-C, is performed by masons/carpenters/metalsmiths, who build a construction. Constructions are currently indestructible. But also, they don't behave in quite the same fashion as a designated stair - as you noted, they do *not* currently reveal tiles below or such like. They must be removed with d-n.