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[Gantolandon]

Description could be confusing, so I'll paste some images.




It seems that I managed somehow dig under the up/down staircase another set of stairs... leading down. As there is no connection between both staircases, I can do nothing with it (for example, construct another set of steirs, leading up).

[Jay]

That's not a bug... You just hit the down staircase designation rather then the up/down.
Your dwarves can reach down from the bottom of the up/down stairs to dig out the stairs below it, but as there is no connection, they cannot go down to get to that level properly and finish digging out what you have designated there or anything below it.

[Gantolandon]

Yes, but as there is no connection, he shouldn't be able to dig those stairs down in first place.

[Untelligent]

Actually, I'm pretty sure my dwarves have been able to go down up/down stairs to a spot where there was no connection. They just weren't able to go back up.

[Neoskel]

Just put in constructed up/down stairs to fix that.

[pushy]

Yes, but as there is no connection, he shouldn't be able to dig those stairs down in first place.

There is no connection at the end of the job, but there was when the job was started. It's not a bug with the programming, it's human error, simple as.

[MMad]

There is no connection at the end of the job, but there was when the job was started. It's not a bug with the programming, it's human error, simple as.

If the end result doesn't make sense it's probably something one would want to address, regardless of whether it's technically a bug or not. I agree this seems more of a design flaw than an actual bug, but honestly I think both are important to report.

I've never felt the creation of staircases made much sense in general. IMO, digging out downward staircases kind of *necessitates* upward staircases being created below, since stairs by their very nature are inter-level constructions. I mean, assuming that a level ends with the floor (which may not be technically true in DF but seems intuitive IRL), a downward staircase is just a hole in the flooring. The actual stairs would be carved out of the level below.

By the same (possibly clumsy) reasoning, I think you should be able to designate downward stairs on top of an upward staircase to create up/down stairs. I imagine the dwarves could just leave the upward stairs alone and just dig downward from floor level. But now I've definately strayed into suggestion territory.

[Nazush Ebsas]

well, when you're doing building work involving any kind of height you'll normally setup scaffolding so that work can be done in the immediate area, which is fine for workmen, but there are good reasons why we don't leave our houses or workplaces with scaffolding up, or make scaffolded villages except in prince of thieves and adventure playdeathtrapgrounds. That made sense before i started typing, honest.

[ein Syndication]

Maybe Toady should some day try to change it to just "stairs" that decide on their own whether they should be up, down, or both based on other "stairs" above or below? *shrugs* Sounds cool enough in my head. Though I agree, it's awfully easy to fudge up stairs. Or maybe a way to force a dwarf to fall down the down stairs with no up stairs. Or force them down any hole at all.

[MMad]

Maybe Toady should some day try to change it to just "stairs" that decide on their own whether they should be up, down, or both based on other "stairs" above or below? *shrugs* Sounds cool enough in my head.

That's pretty much exactly what I imagined, only sensibly formulated.

An "up/down" stair would turn into an "up" stair if you deconstructed the stair below it - since you can no longer go down, it's not an "up/down" stair, is it?

A "down" stair would turn into a "up/down" stair if you built a "stair" above it. Takes a bit more suspension of disbelief to accept, since it kind of requires the dwarf constructing a staircase from above. But it works if you imagine that the original "down" stair was always an "up/down" stair, only not with anything above it. Or you could go with the scaffold handwaving I think Nazush Ebsas hinted at.

Anyway, this would make stairs so much easier to handle. Right now they're not user-friendly at all.