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Author Topic: Protecting my magical pit farms  (Read 493 times)

Parhelion

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Protecting my magical pit farms
« on: December 16, 2011, 10:33:34 pm »

I went and embarked on a glacier, bound and determined to have myself a magnificent above-ground ice fortress the likes of which even Jack Frost would be jealous of.  However, a long ways away, there is some heavily forested taiga and I've discovered that if I create a pit, I can grow above-ground crops because it will never snow inside the pit.  (Maybe it melts before hitting the ground?  Who knows -- on the side note, my hoards of animals can survive indefinitely on snow, whereas they would have starved themselves to death on grass.)

But this creates a troublesome defense problem.  I don't want my dwarves trekking miles in the snow, up hill, both ways, to get between "home" and the toiling fields.  So I'll give them an underground tunnel.  And underground tunnels mean holes in my defense. 

Is there a way to put a "roof" over an area (pit or otherwise) that will not mark it as "inside"?  I considered glass or floor gratings, but these still need solid floor supports.  Hmm.  The point is to preserve my ability to farm outdoor-only plants.
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Sphalerite

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Re: Protecting my magical pit farms
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2011, 10:44:09 pm »

Being marked 'Inside' doesn't stop surface plants from growing.  Surface plants require a tile to be Aboveground, and once a tile has been touched by the foul rays of the sun it will permanently be Light Aboveground.  So go ahead and cover the farms with a stone roof, they won't mind.
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

Parhelion

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Re: Protecting my magical pit farms
« Reply #2 on: December 17, 2011, 12:16:00 am »

Awesome. ;)   Thanks!
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