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[Huggz]

I am making a fort on the surface as part of my current project. I have no idea how to make it, so does ane know of any DFMA surface forts or anything?

[Argembarger]

Are you letting yourself go underground for farming and mining, or are you restricting yourself to stay strictly on the surface forever?

[Huggz]

My entire fort is ~100 z-levels down just above the magma sea, but I am making a self-sustaining fort for my military over the entrance.

[Argembarger]

There's many ways to do this kind of thing, but for me, if I want my military to stay on the surface, I typically put walls around my fortress entrance to make an above-ground courtyard, with a main entrance. Above the main gates I usually put some kind of archer tower barracks with fortifications for my marksdwarves, and in the courtyard behind the gate I have a barracks for my melee fighters. Then you just set that entire area as a burrow that your military dwarves cannot leave, and you make sub-burrows for patrolling and guarding and training and whatnot. Set your armor and weapon and food stockpiles up there too; your civilians will keep your military well-stocked.

It's not technically "self-sufficient", but your military dwarves will never need to leave their post.

[Gnauga]

Note that above-ground soil will always be farmable for above-ground crops, even if covered by a ceiling. In this fashion you can turn an enclosed above ground section of a fort into farmland, and add a second story to the fort to handle processing and whatnot.

As for how to construct such a thing, construct staircases to act as scaffolding.

[Untelligent]

Do these count?


http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=43679.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=51916.0

[darkrider2]

Well you'll need materials and wood won't cut it (pun not intended), so you will have to go underground and mass mine for stone at least. Its entirely possible to survive on only surface crops and beer.

But a good thing to take advantage of is multiple levels, build up instead of building down.

[Argembarger]

Well you'll need materials and wood won't cut it (pun not intended), so you will have to go underground and mass mine for stone at least. Its entirely possible to survive on only surface crops and beer.

But a good thing to take advantage of is multiple levels, build up instead of building down.

Hm... Could you use nothing but wood if you grabbed a large-enough embark (say, 10x10 or bigger) on a heavily-forested biome? It seems plausible to me, and lag from a large embark isn't as much of an issue if you never dig down at all.

OP just wants a military outpost on the surface, but to be honest, the idea of a fortress that never strikes the earth for any reason, while very undwarflike, sounds like enough of a challenge to make me want to attempt it.

[darkrider2]

I planned to build my entire pier city megaproject out of wood, but I only had about 6 map tiles of dense forest and no caverns. If you had 10 x 10 embark of dense forest and 3 cavern layers, yes, you would have all the wood you could ever need and I would actually like to see this done. =D

[ghosteh]

When I make Surface forts I usually build a large palisade with a single entrance, then each building has a 1 tile wide alleyway between them. For the layouts, I usually make the buildings square or at least quadrilateral, and each building that borders another building has entrance, with the alleyways set on high traffic to encourage the dwarves to move between them on the outside, I usually have specific buildings for workshops, and add subsequent levels for stockpiles and related buildings e.g. A loom and a clothiers shop would be in the same building on separate levels.

For Farming I usually Channel out 1 layer into the soil to get a full farm plot, if its inside the pallisade, I dont bother walling it over, an 11x11 square is good because it allows a 10x10 farm and a ramp all around for ease of access, if its outside the pallisade, I usually floor over it and dig a tunnel to a grain silo inside the walls, which contains nothing but bags of seeds.

In the centre of the stockade I like to build a taller, square keep to house my trade depot, anything to do with my military, finished goods and noble apartments

[JAFANZ]

Hm... Could you use nothing but wood if you grabbed a large-enough embark (say, 10x10 or bigger) on a heavily-forested biome? It seems plausible to me, and lag from a large embark isn't as much of an issue if you never dig down at all.

Rather than a Large Embark Area, I'd be more inclined to grab the Sawmill Mod off the DFFD (I forget who wrote it), adjust the "Stalk Plant" to grow above ground, & maybe take longer (12-24mo?), adjust the plant-to-log reaction to require multiple plants, & adjust the logs to weigh more (AIUI as written they should currently come in at 72% of Featherwood).

[Huggz]

But... If you were going to mod, why not just mod how common normal trees are? Why go to the trouble of modding a mod with custom reactions and wood weights and stuff? 

[Scruga]

I made plenty a wooden fort on the surface with the starting seven. I basicly wall off an area to farm/store/brew and from there make a wall in a circle. All buildings are attached to this wall making the center of the fort open. If I need more room i can go into the sky or just put half a circle onto the original wall, creating some medieval system that looks real cool imho.

But if your area is heavily forested you can easily do it with just wood and 2 woodcutters.

[JAFANZ]

But... If you were going to mod, why not just mod how common normal trees are? Why go to the trouble of modding a mod with custom reactions and wood weights and stuff? 

Because it adds Tree Farming?

& I didn't realise you could adjust the frequency of occurrence of normal trees.