Ever since the .40 update, climbing has made things somewhat more difficult for those of us who like to dig straight holes from Point A on z-1 to Point B on z-50. Aqueducts and deadfalls of various kinds pretty much require these kinds of holes sooner or later, and nowadays dwarf miners won't just channel straight down like they used to. Instead, they dig down 2-3 levels and then cancel the job and climb out of the hole.
I've discovered a solution, which I
posted in the
Trivial findings thread.
TheFlame52 mentioned that this was
not really that trivial so I decided to make a thread about it (with some adaptations).
Multiple SolutionsAll of them start with stairs. Dwarves will dig vertical stairs in place just fine, and this grants access to every point along the downward route as a side benefit.
Step 1: Dig A Vertical StaircaseSimple as that. In the slot where you'd dig the first channeled square before, instead designate a down stair, then designate up/down stairs below as far down as you need to go. On the last one, it's best to designate an up stair.
Step 2: Channel It OutThis is where it starts becoming optional.
Step 2a: From The TopFind a good way to restrict only one miner to work on the staircase. Locked doors would help; burrow restrictions are ideal but a tad more messy. Designate channeling on the top downstair at priority 1; on the next level down at priority 2; then the rest at 3 or lower. The dwarf will dig the top few levels in order and then just keep going on downwards because he has nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. If you want to make absolutely certain he doesn't get himself stuck by channeling things in the wrong order, use the priority system to designate channeling seven squares at a time (priority 1-7, top to bottom). Designate the last tile (the upstair at the bottom) as stair-remove, let the dwarf out at the bottom end, and you've got an empty shaft just like mother used to make.
Step 2b: From The BottomIn some cases you may not have/want access to the bottom layer. Things get annoying here, since you have to manually channel one square at a time from the bottom up. The upstair at the bottom level needs to be stair-remove-designated first; then channel each step up successively. The only reason this works is because dwarves can dig squares above and below them if they have proper access to each. It's a pain in the beard to get every single tile done this way, and the priority system doesn't work very well because dwarves might end up channeling out a square they're standing in, which leads to deadly falls. All the same, do it right and you'll have a lovely empty shaft.
Step 2c: Don'tA staircase will, in fact, carry liquid just as well as an empty shaft, and you also get the benefit of maintaining access. However, sometimes it can make a lot more sense to keep your dwarves out of the shaft; or maybe you're flinging captured invaders down the hole and you don't want any stairs in the way for them to grab hold of. In that case, use 2a or 2b above, as necessary. Otherwise, consider leaving the stairs there. You might thank me later.
Step 3: ??(Open the floodgates.)
Step 4: Profit!!!Enjoy your shaft and the lovely liquid/soon-to-be-corpses flowing through it.
If you already knew all this, that's fine. Sorry for wasting your time. If you didn't, hey, great. Leave a comment saying it helped or something. Thanks for reading.
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Topic: Digging Holes (Read 5039 times)