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[TC]

I am trying to dig a 1×1 chute for dumping refuse into magma. I want to remove stairs so nothing can climb out of the magma into my fort. How do I do that? I tried channeling out the stairs from the top down, but my miner fell and died. Then I tried channeling out the stairs from the bottom up, but again my miner fell and died.

I suppose I could put a hatch every level so that when my miner falls, they don't die. However, that would double the micromanagement and vastly increase the time required: Add hatch below, remove hatch above, channel stairs, add hatch below, remove hatch above, channel stairs, etc. Is there a better way?

Can I avoid falls if I make my chute bigger? Say 1×2?

Also, when digging a chute, it is important to mine the tiles in the correct order (top to bottom or bottom to top). Dwarves don't like to do that, so it requires tedious micromanagement. This applies to chutes, but I find that it applies to many other situations in Dwarf Fortress as well. Has anyone developed a general solution to the "mine tiles in order" problem? Is there a DFHack command that helps in any way?

[Leonidas]

Dig a column of U/D stairs. Dig a column of one-tile hallways next to the stairs. Then dig your chute. Then fill the one-tile hallways with constructed walls.

[PatrikLundell]

It ought to be possible to dig two sets of stairs with one tile separation, then dig a corridor to the second one. Channel away one level of the chute stair at a time, starting from the top (with a single miner priority designations should work, but with more than one you have to do it the tedious way, because at times second miner will be faster than the first one). leave the last stair (at the bottom), and make sure to designate it when the miner has left the chute (there's a bug that causes dorfs removing stairs when reaching the site from above to stand on the stair removed, even when there's a perfectly good place to stand safely to the side, and I would guess that stupidity is also encountered when mining). Once the last stair has been removed, plug the hole in the wall.
You can improve the safety by having the last stair being up only, so you breach the magma sea only when channeling out the bottom).

Note that flying critters can fly up a chute, as can natural climbers. Personally I wouldn't drop it directly into the magma sea, but into a bit of magma either dropped or closed off from the sea with a drawbridge, which prevents critters from getting in except during the brief period when you channel out the tile connecting the magma sea to your magma tunnel (before you brick it up again).

[anewaname]

That last paragraph Patrik posted about flying creatures flying up the chute, is very important. Get some magma at the bottom of the chute and then block access to the magma source.

It is also possible to channel straight down in a 1x1 pit, without making adjacent stairs, but there are complications if the miner does not get to the bottom without becoming interrupted by a personal need (hunger, etc). If interrupted, you just need to tunnel in from the side to get another miner to finish it.