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[Locus]

We are all excited about the possibilities of construction in the new depth-enabled Fortress Mode, as it will incredibly expand the possibilities of strategical and aesthetic construction, giving even more personalization to our fortresses.

From my understanding, the process in the upcoming version involves mining out a floor/main tile above or below a dwarf, then placing stairs or a ramp that allows access to the new level, and continuing the process. This enables very easy construction of multiple floors, plumbing, basements, water reservoirs, etc.

For a grand dining hall, as opposed to ant-hill style apartments, the player might mine one side of the ceiling out in a line along the wall, build stairs, and repeat until they reached a height of six tiles. Then, each layer starting with the top would be removed, including the stairs. The end result would be a huge square open space.

   

However, this process could get very difficult for complicated structures, or simply impossible when you don't have any mountain space to build from.

   
   

The obvious and historically accurate solution seems to be scaffolding. Scaffolds could be built like bridges, or possibly produced in workshops like furniture and then uilt somewhere. Wood and metal would be the only options really, as I don't think stone would work at all.

The scaffolds would serve as both temporary stairs, and a working platform for miners and engravers, allowing you to build a huge tower of scaffolds to build a Dwarven Mount Rushmore, or to smooth and engrave the entire front of your fortress. The main benefits would be ease of use, and not requiring destroyable tiles to build.

Rewalling may remove some of the usefulness of scaffoldings, but ease, speed of construction, and no material loss could still be a bonus.

[ May 14, 2007: Message edited by: Locus ]

[Mechanoid]

Scaffolding will eventually have to be put in anyways, but in the mean time, most things could probably be dug out by working from the top and moving your way down.
In the last image you've given, it could be done in two ways:

1. Build a scaffold along the face equal to the height of the work to be done, and dig from the scaffolding
or
2. Get your miner dwarves to the top of the rock wall, and order them to dig downwards level by level until the sculpture is completed.

But in any case that can be thought up, scaffolding is a good thing to have on hand,

[Sharpshot]

A deep Explaination of option 2 (I dont think you can mine straight down at this time...)

1. Build stairs to top of room
2. Mine out wanted area
3. move to floor below and mine out stairs to floor above
4. repeat steps 2 and 3 until finished.
5. You now have a multi level room with any decorations you want.

Downside: Any decorations you want(statues, gems, smoothing, ect) must be put in before you work on the next floor below you.

[Keiseth]

I heartily approve of this idea, myself. Toady mentioned being able to fill in dug out areas again, so maybe it wouldn't be that much time or effort to implement.

Sadly though, I sense some major cheesy problems with AI coming up. Destroy your scaffolds and laugh at the siege-attackers from the high ground while dropping rocks and bolts on them. Maybe the AI could use these too, to scale your defenses?

Man. I am happy I don't have to program all this: It's giving me nightmares to imagine! But the possible end result is so incredible...

[Jothki]

Of course, you could easily 'abuse' bridges in the same way, and all you would need to do is rig them up to a lever instead of actually disassembling them.

[Locus]

Yeah, building wells as permanent barricades or just locking a door works for being cheap too. That would be pretty intense if the invading armies started using siege equipment and scaling walls though.

The main thing about buildable/removable vertical access is that it's the only solution if you don't have any extra walls to spare for the process. Of course it's a convenience for perfectionists, rather than any sort of urgent issue.

I just like to do a lot of engravings over a long period of time in a dining hall for example, and it would be cool to be able to do it without leaving the room unfinished.

[ May 17, 2007: Message edited by: Locus ]