I have been a casual DF player for about a year, now, ever since .40d was released. I quit for a while, and have recently come back. All of my fortresses have failed in the first two years of their groundbreaking, due to me neglecting some part of my needs, but I have recently made several fortresses that were sustainable. This made me sad, because part most of my fun had come from fighting off impending doom in my fortress. So I have decided to begin a construction of some sort. After some thought, I'd decided on having my entire fortress be held up by one support, attatched to a lever, at the bottom of a large (12 by 12 or so, and as far down as I can dig) hole that I will dig throughout the construction of the fort. In addition to this, I will expand my fortress as high as it can go, and build outwards from the core tower, nothing but the support, and a single drawbridge, touching the ground. To make things Extra Dwarfy, I will make the 'arms' of the fort in compartments, separated from each other by a single floor tile, so that I can drop a compartment off of the tower at a moment's discretion.
I am going to have water pumped throughout the fortress, channel it down the fortress core, and recieve all power from within the fortress, no water-wheels outside of the fortress proper.
Is there some way to connect the compartments in such a way that they will not fall, but I do not have to use the 'remove construction' order to make them fall? Like, through a grate, or something? I would like the detaching process to be as quick as dwarvenly possible.
Any additional suggestions, for extra dwarfyness?
Also, I am new to the forums, this being my first post. Don't murder me!