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Total Members Voted: 25

[ThatAussieGuy]

I finally have a fortress that isn't likely to drive itself extinct, and as the topic suggests, I got bored. 

So I've set myself a new task;  Digging out the entire map.  All of it.

The only rule is that everything I have tunneled out must be mined around, essentially leaving the tunnels of my fort standing in a massive open hole in the ground all the way down to the SMR.

 As I reach the cavern layers, I intend to wall off the perimeter of each one before excavating them to make it each one a sealed chamber.

And yes, after it's done, I'm going to fill it with magma.  It wouldn't be dwarven otherwise.

So far I've mined out 4 of the 120-odd levels on the map of Hamebalanced and I remembered to save a copy before I started so I could do before/after pics to share

Before

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Now

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For the record; I'm excavating each level by channeling down from the one above it.  I originally started by mining and caving in the floor above, but I realised this was a bad idea (in terms of maintaining dwarfpower) by the 30-odd dwarves I killed doing the first two levels of the map.

[darkflagrance]

I think a user named Shurikane attempted to do something like this a long time ago. The result lagged his fort to hell and back. I wish you, and your soon-to-be-suffering computer, immense luck.

[NinjaDude]

See, I'd think work-related accidents would just be an added bonus...

[wierd]

In the fortress prior to this current megaproject, I decided that I wanted a perfectly level, and flat foundation to start from.

This ncessitated removal of almost 30 zlevels of "mountain", because all my attempts to generate a less mountainous world with custom gen options resulted in worlds without dwarves...

It took about 30 dwarf years to dig it out, and the raw stones menu in the stocks screen would sometimes crash df to desktop.

Realizing that it would take even longer to dump all the stone in an atomsmasher to destroy it, I abandoned and deleted the world.

[Vehudur]

In the fortress prior to this current megaproject, I decided that I wanted a perfectly level, and flat foundation to start from.

This ncessitated removal of almost 30 zlevels of "mountain", because all my attempts to generate a less mountainous world with custom gen options resulted in worlds without dwarves...

It took about 30 dwarf years to dig it out, and the raw stones menu in the stocks screen would sometimes crash df to desktop.

Realizing that it would take even longer to dump all the stone in an atomsmasher to destroy it, I abandoned and deleted the world.

Oh I've done this.  The trick is to have a large number of unskilled miners instead of a few really good ones.  They'll all probably be legendary by the time they're done digging out the mountain, but hey, that's a bonus.

It really cuts down on the amount of stone.  Also, DFhack's autodump is awesome for things like that.  Build your atomsmasher, dump it all under it, pull the lever, save before hand in case the game crashes.  Save some of the stone for the construction of your fortress.   Alternatively, dump it all in one quantum dump and then unforbid it and use it to build your fortress.

[krenshala]

Try using up ramps instead of channels if you are concerned about Occupational Safety Hazards Involving Terrible Miners (OSHITMiners).  They work a little more haphazardly, however, you have a much lower chance of someone channeling out the tile they are (or someone is) standing on.

[wierd]

In the fortress prior to this current megaproject, I decided that I wanted a perfectly level, and flat foundation to start from.

This ncessitated removal of almost 30 zlevels of "mountain", because all my attempts to generate a less mountainous world with custom gen options resulted in worlds without dwarves...

It took about 30 dwarf years to dig it out, and the raw stones menu in the stocks screen would sometimes crash df to desktop.

Realizing that it would take even longer to dump all the stone in an atomsmasher to destroy it, I abandoned and deleted the world.

Oh I've done this.  The trick is to have a large number of unskilled miners instead of a few really good ones.  They'll all probably be legendary by the time they're done digging out the mountain, but hey, that's a bonus.

It really cuts down on the amount of stone.  Also, DFhack's autodump is awesome for things like that.  Build your atomsmasher, dump it all under it, pull the lever, save before hand in case the game crashes.  Save some of the stone for the construction of your fortress.   Alternatively, dump it all in one quantum dump and then unforbid it and use it to build your fortress.

I don't usually use cheating tools. After 30 dwarf years of "just a plump helmet farm, a barracks, and a midget military while ignoring the caravans, and 90% of my population was born on site", I was already bored to bloody tears.  The idea of wating another 30 to 50 dwarf years to remove 30zlevels worth of rubble with 50 or so dwarves was more than I could bear.

[Vehudur]

In the fortress prior to this current megaproject, I decided that I wanted a perfectly level, and flat foundation to start from.

This ncessitated removal of almost 30 zlevels of "mountain", because all my attempts to generate a less mountainous world with custom gen options resulted in worlds without dwarves...

It took about 30 dwarf years to dig it out, and the raw stones menu in the stocks screen would sometimes crash df to desktop.

Realizing that it would take even longer to dump all the stone in an atomsmasher to destroy it, I abandoned and deleted the world.

Oh I've done this.  The trick is to have a large number of unskilled miners instead of a few really good ones.  They'll all probably be legendary by the time they're done digging out the mountain, but hey, that's a bonus.

It really cuts down on the amount of stone.  Also, DFhack's autodump is awesome for things like that.  Build your atomsmasher, dump it all under it, pull the lever, save before hand in case the game crashes.  Save some of the stone for the construction of your fortress.   Alternatively, dump it all in one quantum dump and then unforbid it and use it to build your fortress.

I don't usually use cheating tools. After 30 dwarf years of "just a plump helmet farm, a barracks, and a midget military while ignoring the caravans, and 90% of my population was born on site", I was already bored to bloody tears.  The idea of wating another 30 to 50 dwarf years to remove 30zlevels worth of rubble with 50 or so dwarves was more than I could bear.

Fair enough.

Try using up ramps instead of channels if you are concerned about Occupational Safety Hazards Involving Terrible Miners (OSHITMiners).  They work a little more haphazardly, however, you have a much lower chance of someone channeling out the tile they are (or someone is) standing on.

You can also dig it out with up/down stairs first, and then channel those out from the top down.  Be sure to only designate 1 z-level at a time, however, or you still may get nasty cave-in surprises.

[NinjaBoot]

I demand that you dig out the entire spectrum of the map, all the way down to the circus, in a way that you may link up all of it to a single support.  That is, while leaving your fort perfectly intact. 

Then, video-tape the ensuing explosion of your computer as the game implodes.

[ThatAussieGuy]

I demand that you dig out the entire spectrum of the map, all the way down to the circus, in a way that you may link up all of it to a single support.  That is, while leaving your fort perfectly intact. 

Then, video-tape the ensuing explosion of your computer as the game implodes.

...I like your thinking.  Also, I think I might actually use Autodumping and atomsmashing just to make this less of a headache.  I hadn't considered the sheer amount of stone I'll be excavating after I pass the clay/sand layers.  A pretty basic mistake on my part, considering I've actually mined out an entire single layer for stone before.

[Hotaru]

Could you maybe, like, give it a magma wash every 5 z-levels or so to destroy much of the stone that's been piling up?

That way you could also keep the ore, magma-safe stone and gems for... I don't know, building 100 z-level towers out of native copper. Or Rapture except with gem window domes, made of metal ores and under the newly-created magma sea.

[ThatAussieGuy]

Well, I'm down five levels now and just reached stone.  Hmm... Do you think engraving the perimeter walls would affect the FPS at all?

[Di]

You could build atom smashers at the lowest level in advance to avoid the need of dumping. You'd just need to dig final levels without cave-ins.

[Nyxalinth]

(Insert "Dig ALL the Things!" Dwarf meme here)

[darkflagrance]

One thing you might consider is evaporating the stone by setting its (vaporization point?) to 10000, just below room temperature ;P