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[idgarad]

Planning on a new fortress and decided to make a command and control center. The idea is a small burrow with my switching controls with a full time staff of 7 (keeping tradition) dwarves to live in it. The concept is simple but I am thinking of what i need for this.

A: A burrow Marked CommandCenter with 7 dwarves assigned to it with NO jobs assigned to those 7 dwarves.
B: 7 living spaces for said dwarves.
C: a Food storage area accessable to both the main burrow and the command center so the rest of the colony can provide supplies.


I was thinking of a meeting area for when they are idle.

Any other ideas that I should put in there? I am thinking of a master Lockdown control to seal it and obliterate the contents of the fortress outside the room (Planning on a floating foundation for the entire fortress on supports save the command center with a flood topoff.. What else should be in there to ensure the 7 can stay sane?

[Girlinhat]

Namely, less than seven.  Dwarves make friends, which means when friends die, they go insane and that ruins the whole point.  The idea behind the command bunker is to have one dwarf with no friends, who won't care when the fort is slaughtered, and have this dwarf persist here so that even if everything dies, he'll be able to stay until the next migrant wave.

To best achieve this, you need
1) A small farm plot, 1x2 is probably enough growing plump helmets year-round, or other plants if you have available farm space and want to provide some variety for them.
2) A still, to brew these grown plants into booze.
3) A few good barrels, too many is better than too few.

Optionally
4) A kitchen, you're going to have leftover seeds that can be cooked into tasty tasty roasts.
5) Some fantastic furniture, like masterwork steel tables.  Having legendary arrangements will ensure that he's pretty much always ecstatic and less likely to tantrum ever.  This may (read "will") make nobles jealous of his lavish decorations.

Things you do not need
1) A door, they should be walled in entirely.  Either build the north wall last to ensure your mason is outside, or have the lever-puller himself build the last south wall.  You can un-burrow them at this point, since they're locked in.  Building destroyers can knock down doors, hatches, and sometimes bridges.  Also windows, those aren't safe.  Walls only.
2) Other Dwarves, on the off chance that one of them dies, the other will be very sad.
3) Pets, see above.  Non-pet animals, like a cow for milk, is ok but not ideal.

[Brandstone]

The walls should be two tiles thick to prevent the talking through walls trick. For paranoia's sake, make sure the levels below and above are walls.

[Girlinhat]

Excellent point.  The ceiling at least should be made of walls, on the off chance that a cave in occurs, it would smash through regular floor, but not a wall.

Bonus points if you build the panic room on he top of your fort, a few dozen Z above the surface on a tower.

[JacenHanLovesLegos]

You should put two levers. One opens all doors, and the other releases the MAGMA into your fortress.

[Girlinhat]

If you're doing it right, these should be the SAME lever!

[Minnakht]

You can add a well to ensure some horrible accident with your planning and booze doesn't make him die of thirst. Paranoia above all! Letting vermin spawn in would sour his mood a bit, but with a royal personal bedroom and dining room in there he shouldn't complain.

As an emergency measure, a several z-level vertical chute leading inside could be used. This way, you can dump food in to have the dwarf always be ready instead of having him be unavailable at the most critical moment due to farming/brewing. The smaller the room, the better, too... and you can dump mechanisms in, too, in case the system ever needs extending. An isolated room in the back for locking the dwarf in during maintenance is a way to keep him from meeting anyone.

[Girlinhat]

You can't drop mechanisms to expand the system.  To link anything, you need to attach the object, then attach the lever.  This requires someone opening the door.  To ensure closure, make a 1x1 room with a lever in it, attached to the door, with workshop profile to only allow your bunker warmer to use it.  Order him to pull, and he locks himself in the closet.  Just make sure you get the work done before he dehydrates.

[Minnakht]

Sounds fine. Such worker entry could be a hatch in the floor. As far as I know, no hostile can destroy one from under it, not even a clown, so it's a safe way, and it can be after a corridor with forbidden doors just to make sure dwarves don't go anywhere either.

[Girlinhat]

Of course, the commonly accepted method of stocking a panic room is with a quantum stockpile atop a food stockpile,  The food will not rot, or at least rot slower, because it's on a stockpile, so you can store a lot of fresh meat and fruit on a quantum stockpile and keep it good nigh-forever.

[Minnakht]

Don't barrels extend shelf life of food into all eternity?

[Girlinhat]

This is debatable.  I've never observed food to rot on a stockpile, but then again most of my forts die within 15 years, from violence or "I got an idea that needs regen".  People have said that food rots eventually no matter what, but I've never heard an actual report of rotten food in a barrel.

[gtmattz]

Namely, less than seven.  Dwarves make friends, which means when friends die, they go insane and that ruins the whole point. 

A real simple solution to the death problem is to construct a conveniently placed 10 Z level shaft in the ceiling of your command center (over the meeting area would be a good place), then drop kittens(or any other animal of your choice) down it until the dwarves in the command center are desensitized to death...

[Jake]

A method that's less disturbing to read about for anyone with even the mildest form of claustrophobia would be to have the command centre double as a panic room in the event of an invasion or accident. If they can't break into it the goblins will eventually get bored and go away, and if you're sufficiently timely in ordering them to pull back when the gates are about to fall then you shouldn't lose too many people.

[Urist Da Vinci]

A quantum stockpile of slabs, a craftsdwarf shop, and enough floor space to slab any hostile ghosts.