Support (in terms of 'will this cave in?') is binary - either it's there, or it's not. Currently, there are no cave-ins based on how far apart support is.
So a single support made of cork can support the entirety of solid stone on the entire map, even on a 10x10 embark with 500 zlevels.
What does provide support: Floors, Walls, and stairs - but only from cardinal positions. constructed supports provide Support to anything directly above it. Walls provide support directly above, as well as the cardinal positions above it (since it provides a floor on the zlevel above)
But if you build on a diagonal without a support under it, it will collapse. If you build on a cardinal from something which doesn't provide support (i.e. just about everything, like floor grates, floor hatches, ect), it will collapse.
S
.|doesn't work because a) you can't build a statue on empty space, you'd have to build a floor there, and b) if you tried to build a floor there without first building a floor directly above the support, the newly constructed floor would collapse immediately upon completion (with potentially disastrous fun results).
Similarly, if you want to build a very tall column of supports, you would have to build a floor on each zlevel, simply because you cannot build a support over open air (which the top of a support is - it doesn't provide the floor above like a wall does)
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Topic: Vertical bars question (Read 928 times)