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Author Topic: Sufrace engraving strategy options?  (Read 1488 times)

zwei

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Sufrace engraving strategy options?
« on: October 13, 2009, 02:19:57 am »

I embarked with plan on making surface 'town'. So far so good.

Except ... I would like engraved dining hall. Luckily, stone boulders are on surface and they can be smoothed, but found out another thing:

Some tiles also had stone pebbles, but those tiles got converted to normal, smoothable stone tile by constructing and deconstructing floor tile. I would consider this bug (althou it is nice as feature too ...)

Do i have some other, non obvious, ways, to get more smoothable/smoothed tiles on surface area? My hall has for enough tiles for about ten quality engravings, but they are fairly randomly placed and thus severelly lack in symmetry department.

(ps: it is incredible that you can have legendary engraver without ever having to dig ...)

AlienChickenPie

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Re: Sufrace engraving strategy options?
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2009, 05:02:53 am »

You could use obsidian casting with a simple form. Build a walled rectangle large enough to contain the entire dining hall. Pour magma into the rectagnge. Pour water. Remove one tile of the walled rectangle where the entrance should be. Carve the entrance out of the obsidian. Carve the interior and engrave it. Remove the walled rectangle completely. The hardest part is the magma and water pipelines, but most of the work can be reused later to build other structures.
A simpler method that does not require magma would be to create a sunken building. Build an above-ground structure where you want the dining hall to be, possibly with skylights for effect. Designate ramps or stairs all over the interior, and then remove all but the ones you'd like to keep for later. Repeat that until you've reached bedrock. Engrave and furnish the room in the bedrock layer. The end result will be a dining hall a few z-levels tall, ending in an above-ground structure. It won't make a difference for your dwarves, but you could line the soil walls of the upper levels with stone, or possibly put in niches for statues or something like that.
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Jim Groovester

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Re: Sufrace engraving strategy options?
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2009, 06:19:07 pm »

Constructions can't be engraved, as you may or may not know.

So the only way to get an engraved dining room above ground is to use cast obsidian, as outlined above.

There's no other way, I think, to get more smoothable tiles above ground than the ones already available.
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Razoric480

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Re: Sufrace engraving strategy options?
« Reply #3 on: October 13, 2009, 08:34:12 pm »

The alternative is to make chains, then use a Clothier to sew in some stuff on them, then put them up so they'll act like tapestries.

GildedBear

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Re: Sufrace engraving strategy options?
« Reply #4 on: October 14, 2009, 01:07:18 pm »

You could also carve your surface town (or just the buildings you want engraved) out of a hill(side). I don't mean digging into the hill, I mean taking a hill and removing everything but what you want to be walls in the final town.

Or, as a varient of the above idea, you could make it an open pit town where you've dug down to bedrock to make the houses, probably with terraced farms around the edge if you've got soil.

The important thing in both of these cases is to remove all of the overburden so that the buildings of your town stand in the open air and everything counts as above ground.
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zwei

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Re: Sufrace engraving strategy options?
« Reply #5 on: October 15, 2009, 02:51:51 am »

The alternative is to make chains, then use a Clothier to sew in some stuff on them, then put them up so they'll act like tapestries.

Now, This is awesome idea! This gives me good excuse to start clothing industry :) as bonus.

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use cast obsidian

Sadly, I have no magma access.

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dig

There is no hillside to dig into and since map is supposed to have aquifier in soil layer, it is not really feasible.

Truean

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Re: Sufrace engraving strategy options?
« Reply #6 on: October 15, 2009, 06:11:17 pm »

Obsidian casing or modding/hacking will get you engraving surfaces.

High value items work as well as or better than engraving.

Additionally, leather decorated cloth items are very valuable if done by a legendary.

Metal furniture with metal studs and perhaps gems will boost value like crazy.


Otherwise, it seems true that the engraving problem is a hinderrance to all who would build above ground.
i wish there were a more complete answer to give you.
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