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[Frogwarrior]

So, I'm getting dorfs standing on top of walls they're constructing and then suspending the job because a creature, i.e. themselves, is blocking the site. I made a bug report here, but have any of y'all seen this and understood/solved this behavior? (I found that ordering larger wall segments than I need sometimes works, and making it impossible to stand on the site also works, but I'm hoping for something a little more consistent and practical.)

[Mythalinear]

I have this problem quite a bit and I have been able to work around it with only moderate success. Try the following things and see if they work.

1. Provide more places for your dorfs to work adjacent to where they are getting stuck
2. Have them build the corners of the construct first
3. Cancel the building and re-designate it
4. Demolish surrounding walls and re-build starting with offending tiles
5. Set the traffic level for that tile so that Dworfs will avoid it.

[Frogwarrior]

Haven't tried #5 yet; #1 might be related although it will be practically quite difficult as this is an elevated structure. Definitely gonna start with the corners from now on, hehe.
I'm guessing this is related to the fact that mining and deconstruction no longer have a "preferred side" to work from. Which, although useful, also means I have to be a bit more cautious - I didn't know the left-hand-rule was gone when I was channeling out a path for a waterway to get some power, and my miners got a few unwanted baths XD

[Niccolo]

Always do corners first, as dwarves are idiots and if you give them a choice will build the corners last. By sealing themselves into the corner.

If you're building a tower, wooden scaffolding can work too. Easy to put up and easy to take down!

[Uggh]

Cancel and try rebuilding with another material, e.g. wood instead of stone.

[Garath]

shame on you for immediately making a bug report, I'd expected better of you 

it's a well known issue, the only solution so far seems to be to cancel the construction and order it new untill it works

edit:
at least I thought it was well known, someone complains about it once a week or something

[Mythalinear]

Not all of us study the forums thoroughly before we begin playing Dwarf Fortress 

[Frogwarrior]

I've been off the forums for a while and I TRIED to search the bug tracker but didn't see anything in my searches T__T

[itg]

Dwarves always walk toward the build site until they are adjacent to it, then start building. This system works pretty well, until you take ramps into account. If the build site is next to a ramp, a dwarf may walk up the ramp, find himself directly on top of the build site, and then decide to start building while he's standing on the site. Try removing the ramp(s) or using pathing designations (d-o) to make the dwarf take a more sensible path.

[Garath]

Not all of us study the forums thoroughly before we begin playing Dwarf Fortress 

Frogwarrior is one of my heroes for making magma landmines/fountains, he isn't new!

The wiki page mentions possible problems when the cancelled wall has other walls already constructed nearby. I guess I'm just on this part of the forum too much, I actually remember a pretty big thread where people tried to find the cause and solution. Cause might have been found, but I forgot the details. It started right after some of the fixes for other construction issues, most importantly the one where walls were always constructed from a set of prefered directions (west of the construction being most prefered) which frequently led masons to wall themself in on dead ends and sheer cliffs. The new mechanism has the problem that occasionally a mason stands on top of the to be constructed wall. Unsuspending the wall (many times) made no change, the only solution found was to cancel it and re-order its construction.

[Frogwarrior]

I'm not new to Dwarf Fortress, but I am new to .34 - before this fort, the last time I'd booted up DF, wheelbarrows weren't a thing yet. Haven't gotten to do anything with magma yet... although I have plans to send minecarts through a lava pit to pit up magma and dump it on people...

itg, that might be related - there were ramps adjacent. However, this problem still occurred even when the dwarf hadn't just walked up the ramp - for example, one time the dwarf was clearing rocks off the construction site, which would have ended with him just adjacent to the wall and ready to build - but nope. Walked on top.

[Keldane]

This happens due to the "Build from first acceptable tile pathed through" adjustment Toady made a while back. In my experience, a few things can cause it, including pets or other dwarves causing the builder to repath when they step in the way. Most of the time, I've found cancelling and redesignating works, and if that doesn't do the trick, perhaps try using a stockpile to bring a piece of construction material to an acceptable side, then specifically use that one to get your dwarf coming in from a direction they can stand on.

[itg]

The ramp is still the cause of the problem. It doesn't matter if he moves off the spot to clear some rocks--he's chosen his spot and by god that's where he's gonna stand.

The intention of the new building behavior was to stop dwarves from walling themselves in, which is why the dwarves insist on going back to that first spot to finish the job. The logic is, if he stops at the nearest possible square to build the wall, he'll always have a clear path back home (unless someone else walls him in, but that can't be helped). If the dwarf decided to build from the opposite side because that's where he happened to be after moving the rocks out of the way, he might end up walling himself in, after all. So if the dwarf used a ramp to get to the site, he'll move back on top of the build square to attempt to finish the building, even though he stepped off of it earlier.