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[mclarky96]

Is it possible to carve a fort out of the ground by, say, channeling? or would the walls created by channelling collapse depending on how tall they are? I'd like to do some sort of pit fort, or like a spire that goes downward rather than upward. Possible? I'm pretty new to fort mode, so lemme know if it's possible but would be too hard because of my skill level.

Also, if it is possible, is there like a certain environment I should try to do it in? I'd like if it was entirely made of stone but not sure if I could find a place that's like that's also economically viable.

[sketchesofpayne]

I suppose you could do a 'CNC router' fort.  No need to worry about walls collapsing, just unsupported floors (as in hangin in mid air attached to nothing).  Probably use a mountain biome with some altitude so you have a lot of z-levels of stone to work with.  Maybe go into advanced world generation and put more z-levels between the surface and the first cavern layer.

[mikekchar]

Yep.  I do it all the time.  If you only channel into the soil layers (leaving soil) it will even regrow grass and trees, allowing you to build authentic hillocks.  Or you can sculpt out fortress, either in a pit or on the side of a mountain.  Really just up to your imagination.  It takes some practice to do it without killing your miners though!

[Starver]

As already mentioned, it's perfectly doable. Soil layer, and even sand, does not slump, and is immutable (without actually triggering cave-ins by dis-attaching layers) to degrees an Earthly engineer would already have been hospitalised with heart palpitations, just getting to that stage.

A rock-hewn fortress, disconnected from most of the sides and underneath and attached to land by merely a length of natural-sand floor (not even a tile thick, just what remains if you don't channel between layers) is viable. Or build a floor of ice (if you have it in winter) and it'll survive the summer, though natural and uncut ice does not.

Back before the current "three cavern-layers, magma sea and semi-molten rock" era, I dug out a desert down to the then natural flat bottom of the world (almost, I left a couple of layers, IIRC, for access tunnels and room for water-features that I never got around to filling) leaving behind 'natural rock' pyramids and obelisks, within a large area sunk into the embark, with vertical sides (which I found needed walls built atop of, because enemies that arrived had 'overlook' advantage).

These days, I tend to dig wide deep ditches down almost breaking into the uppermost caverns, as part of my enclosing fortress design, leaving strategic pillars to act as bridge-supports that let me govern access to my 'internal plateau(s)' from the undiggable edge.


There are basically two rules I use for channelling out like this:
1) Clear trees (and harvestable plants) beforehand, channelling away that top layer in strips once that is accomplished for any given area)
2) From then on, switch to doing ramp-designations on the layer-below, everywhere I know that I'm now not undermining anything, and complete a whole layer (or a defined sector) before designating its next ramps on the layer below.

(Though, added to the second, do leave a ramp, per layer, for access/egress. For each subsequent layer from the second downwards do not ramp out at least one tile, at the edge, which supports a ramp out, and which gives access to the layer-above's designated exit. When you're finished and perhaps then have designed in an alternate exit* from the bottom (which you might or might not also want to mop up the spare, but mostly useless, ramps), or are calously happy to leave a sacrificial miner trapped, you can then chip away at your access ramps from the top down to leave the originally-intended verticality.


But you can develop your own style through practice, and discover some of the (sometimes literal!) pitfalls you can encounter.


* - I favour leaving an 'island' of one undug tile on the lowest layer, individual ramp(s) left to access its top, placed such that a lowered drawbridge out of a tunnel in the excavation wall at the given Z+1 gives controlled passage when lowered but keeps things sealed when raised. You can pre-plan this such that it is accessible at all times before losing the connection out of the top, but I rarely go quite that far.

[mclarky96]

These are some interesting ideas, I’m definitely going to be trying them out soon. I started a fort in a good natured area to see if I could find anything cool. I mostly just wanna try out forts with different style, and add some aesthetic to it. Channeling forts, making forts with symmetry of different shapes as possible, etc. Digging out a hole in the side of a hill like the first night of a Minecraft game isn’t doing it for me anymore lol.

I find it hard to plan these sorts of symmetrical forts ahead based on my current needs in a fort, if that makes any sense. So if anybody has tips on that that’d be much appreciated.

Just wanna cover some bases so I don’t have to start a bunch of threads

[Starver]

I find it hard to plan these sorts of symmetrical forts ahead based on my current needs in a fort, if that makes any sense. So if anybody has tips on that that’d be much appreciated.

Use the "Mark only" designation liberally. If you know (for example) that you want a central staircase (or ramp-spiral, or whatever floats your boat) with spoke corridors on each level embracing and doorway-linking to large rooms (11x11, or four 5x5 with further internal divides, or 3x3 rooms that are 3x3 or... Well, that's my design fetish, but you can use yours instead) that you may not be (fully) digging to start with, then Mark up the features in advance (only using actual designations for what you need to embed yourself into the ground) and then you'll find it easy to not designate ditches (or, better still, Mark them as a similar aide memoire for when you get round to it) into areas that would spoil your original plan.

And if you're worried about designing wrongly around the cavern voids, once you go that deep, just make sure that your real-not-Marked designations are used to puncture caverns (with any luck!), and once they're revealed you can examine each Z-level to see if you need to adjust your Marked areas. But that depends on how deep and how fast you want to go.

It's a variation on my playing style, but it probably needs more explaining if it's not the kind of thing you're already familiar with.

[Urist9876]

Legendary forst were built, their whole weight resting on a single bar of soap.

The rule is that things have to stay connected. It does not matter if it is a build thing or naturally occurring sand/stone/clay. There are a few things that work different when build. Grates being on of them. Best not to use those.

I never channeled a complete fort, but on occasion I have reduced a high mountain peak into a huge indestructible tower. Dwarfs are not smart. They complete their work in a quite unpredictable order. So if there is a chance they can collapse an area they often will end up doing that. Unplanned collapses are bad. The easiest way to avoid this is to only designate a few tiles.

If you need to remove a large area collapsing might be fastest. By building a floor hatch or something similar between the area that stays and the area you need to remove you can brace that area. After that you can dig the rest away. Connect the hatch to a lever and put all dwarfs in a burrow far from the area that is going to collapse. Pull the lever and profit.

Dwarfs under a collapse die or get serious wounded. Dwarfs near a collapse cough, get a lot of dust on them and their clothes finally start to look how miners should look. But the dwarves don't like it.