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[alway]

For a megaproject I am working on, I want to cut a 100 by 100 square hole in the ground through 15 z levels. What is the best/fastest way to do this? One thing to note: when I am done the lowest layer will likely be filled with magma (thus getting rid of the need to haul 150k stones to an atom smasher)

Would channeling and mining it like this work?

R  RRRRR  R                  R=rock, empty space = mined/channeled out
R  RRRRR  R
R  RRRRR  R
R            R
RRRRRRRRRR

Or will it just result in
R            R
R  RRRRR  R
R  RRRRR  R
R  RRRRR  R
RRRRRRRRRR

Thanks in advance for any tips.

[gtmattz]

Yes you will end up with the result in your 2nd diagram.  Natural walls will not dissapear upon collapse.

The safest method I can think of would be to carve ramps.  Designate the first 100x100 area and when its all carved out do the next one down etc. until you have your 15 z levels carved out.

You could also mine out all 15 'floors' then collapse the top floor and it will punch through all the mined out levels leaving a huge pit, however you end up with a 'lip' around the top level from channeling out the edges and run the risk of your dwarves being sucked into the deadly dust cloud and falling to their death.

[Skorpion]

Dig out the levels, channel them off, and hold them up with constructed walls, apart from the bottom one.
Hold the bottom level up with a wooden support.
Flood the bottom with magma.
Wait for the support to collapse.

[Shiv]

Would that not just result in his second diagram as well?  Or would running into the lava interfere with the collapsing process some how and make it all destroy?

[Slogo]

I'd say ramps would be the best bet.

[Peewee]

Ramps are the safest, but Skorpion's post contains the most dwarvenly plan.

If you dig out each level (make each level not walls, just floor... leaving a support on each level) it won't leave blocks behind after a collapse.

[Albedo]

What is the best/fastest way to do this?

Ramps.  They feed down onto each other as you descend level by level, and rarely cause cave-ins that kill miners.  Just do it one level at a time, or be very careful not to dig out under more than 1 level (which would cause a problem in then removing that area).

I, personally, would also dig one or more shafts of up/down staircases that are immediately adjacent to your planned excavation on all levels, so hungry/thirsty/lost/trapped/confused miners can always get out.  Also their exit when they reach the bottom.

Any connection will support any size, but it has to be an orthogonal connection, on the same z-level.  Miners will channel stuff away from the left (digging to their right), so keep one tile of stone at any level on the left side, with access to the left of that, and that will be the last thing you cut.

 R      R
 @ RRRR R
 RRRRRR R
 R RRRR R
 R RRRR R
 R RRRR R
 R      R
 RRRRRRR

@ = access - the miner will stand here, and channel out that one R to his right, freeing the whole.

One thing to note: when I am done the lowest layer will likely be filled with magma (thus getting rid of the need to haul 150k stones to an atom smasher)

If you're doing this for visual effect, fine - but if you're doing it for FPS it won't work - the stones will still be there.

(edit - format quotes)

[Slogo]

The thing is digging the ramps is gonna be the same amount of time as digging out all the rock into floors. Actually less since you don't have to worry about supports.

[alway]

Aw... I was hoping my poor miners wouldn't have to mine out all 150k tiles... Oh, and on the topic of the magma: yes, it will get rid of them. As long as they are not magma-safe and temp is turned on, the molten version will be removed at season change (the same time blood/vomit/ect is cleaned up. I have some experience with it on another map, where I carved out a 40k stone area and filled the bottom with magma. At the next season change, the game froze for a few seconds, and when it started again, no more stone (except for the melting temp-modified orthoclase and microcline, which I gave a use to), and quite a decent FPS boost.

I will likely use a method similar to skorpion's suggestion, although I may end up dropping layers about 5 at a time rather than all 15 to prevent 150k stone from being dropped all at once causing possibly long freeze and extremely low fps til they melt and to keep overall stone levels relatively low while mining is going on.

At this time, I have about 80% of the bottom most layer mined out. Its going to be a LONG time before this all gets mined

[RandomNumberGenerator]

Note that when I have dug out large areas with ramps, it took a large tollon my FPS, dropping from 70(were it is capped) to 15-20 until it was all dug out. Channeling went much faster for me.

[Skorpion]

Would that not just result in his second diagram as well?  Or would running into the lava interfere with the collapsing process some how and make it all destroy?

Nope, no natural walls to be left behind. It'll collapse like a tower block.

[alway]

Note that when I have dug out large areas with ramps, it took a large tollon my FPS, dropping from 70(were it is capped) to 15-20 until it was all dug out. Channeling went much faster for me.

That is likely from the pathfinding, which now has multi z levels and large areas on which it must perform calculations. I would guess DF pathfinding is a relatively simple heuristic, which means large open areas, especially with access to other large open areas on other z levels, will use a lot of CPU cycles to compute.

[MrFake]

I have some experience with it on another map, where I carved out a 40k stone area and filled the bottom with magma. At the next season change, the game froze for a few seconds, and when it started again, no more stone (except for the melting temp-modified orthoclase and microcline, which I gave a use to), and quite a decent FPS boost.

Some questions:
1) Were the molten stones still under the magma at the season change?
2) Were the molten stones accessible?  As in, if the magma weren't there, could the dwarfs path to it?
3) You are talking about molten stones, right?

I've had multiple molten stones sitting under a channel of magma ever since I initially breached the magma vent, 25 something years ago (they lasted over 5 years before I had to reclaim, too).  They have yet to vanish, although other molten rocks in my magma shower have disappeared in the meantime.

So, I'm trying to figure out just what it takes to make those molten stones go away.