Than I have a nice idea for a "sunshine room".
Going to channel out as big of a square as I can, as deep as I can, and have it be my pasture and meeting hall. The surface will be floored over with glass, and if anything actually gets past the glass (if they can) they fall many many layers down to their death.
You can't do that easily, because:
1) Creatures trample grass down to the base soil: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Grass
2) Many creatures require a huge pasture for each individual: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Pasture
I can do stuff like this easily, I just modify it a little bit.
Doesn't have to be deep, in fact keeping it shallow allows you to use DIRT instead of STONE floors - the surface plants especially want dirt to grow on.
Doesn't have to be roofed with glass - once a tile has been exposed to LIGHT that will never again change. I commonly clear out trees and boulders from a section of flat surface near my fortress then make a big square of ramp designation (note, have NO trees, boulders, or constructions in this rampy area, or you will cause grevious bodily harm to your workers). Once the work is done I clear away the ramps that remain, including those that allow access into the square from the surface edges (an underground route connecting to my fortress proper will be dug at any point I deem needed/ready) and then I 'floor' the whole area from the surface level. You can farm above ground plants down there now (that's my primary use for this area) but you can use it for anything else too.
Floors cannot be gotten past, unless you make a path through them with stairs, ramps, or whatever - or cause a cave in or something. So don't worry about something getting through your floors - and if you want stuff to fall and die that's a different engineering project, but one that can be very effective and fun too.
Creatures can and do trample grass, including your dwarf-creatures, so control how large that meeting area is. I greatly prefer to use a 1x1 meeting area - I keep my guys running unless I want them to socialize (that's great therapy if you need that) so bunching them is useful to me. That meeting area and the 8 squares that touch it will be trampled to nothing - but the rest of the area will be fine. Designate a pasture over the whole (or most of the) area and use N to place all your grazers in this pasture - be sure to continue to designate infants and other new arrivals. Grazers that can be kept alive in pastures usually have fairly low trampling chances. Make your pasture area larger/cull difficult species from it as needed.
Do NOT allow animals to roam free if you have a small meeting area - every beast must be pastured (or caged/chained/walled off/dead) especially if it is a stray.
Some animals simply cannot ever be effectively pastured. Elephants and a few others, the problem isn't an underground area, it's that they cant eat enough to keep up the metabolism. Occasionally glance over your pasture area and slaughter whatever adult beasts you see that are getting hungry anyway, or if you notice any other problems try to figure out which beasts are trampling to much/eating to much and do away with them.
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Topic: Poultry/egg farm/birds underground (Read 7680 times)