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[MuseOD]

In my last four abandoned fortesses, there was a four story high 80y-axis 20x-axis great hall/dining room/dorm with around 200 little rooms off to the side. My question is. how can i get this not to screw up? There've been cave-ins (i changed that by editing the init), insanity, and simple stupidness and I was wondering: can you tell me how to make this work. Also: anecdotes on bedroom design (hi-density, quick, multifloor) and just plain advice would be welcome 

much love

[khearn]

Cave-in can be avoided by digging from the top down. Designate the entire top level to be channeled out (d-h). Once it's done, designate the next level down to be channeled, and so forth until you've reached the bottom level, then remove upward ramps (d-z).

Insanity and stupidity I'm not so sure about. Who is insane/stupid, you or the dwarves?

[Girlinhat]

Cave-ins are a part of dwarven life.  Embrace.  Also yes, one layer at a time is fairly safe.

[Haekel]

Your bedroom design depends on four things, basically:   The number of dwarfs you want to house, the size of each room, the total area you want to use, and, finally, your personal taste.  Some guidelines can be found here:

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Bedroom_design

I myself use a version of what's displayed under "fractal design", with 4x9 rooms, each 3x3 in size.  Stairway in the middle, easily stackable.   Add a multi-story waterfall in the center and you can drown entertain all of your dwarfs at once.

[imperium3]

Don't channel it all, it takes longer to mine. Instead dig out each floor, then build supports to connect them, linking one of them to a lever that isn't in the future hall. Channel out the tiles around the edge and around any pillars you may have, so that now the only thing holding up the floor is the bottom support. Get all your dwarves and any valuable minerals out, then PULL THE LEVER! and watch all those floors disappear leaving you with a lovely great hall. Added bonus is that this destroys most of the junk stone left behind, as well.

This is going swimmingly for my current project, a recreation of the Theed Generator Complex from the Phantom Menace. Only trouble is it's taking quite a lot of time since I'm running at a grand total of 6 FPS...

[Loud Whispers]

-snip-

...That would actually take a lot more time than simply channeling everything out.

That said, it makes an explosion, that's always a plus.

[imperium3]

That would explain why everything takes SO DAMN LONG... But I thought channelling was much slower than digging?

[jhxmt]

Also, if you're wanting four-storey-high smoothed walls instead of rough ones, digging one layer at a time allows you to smooth the walls from the top down as you go, rather than digging it all out and then having to build scaffolding/floors to allow smoothers to do their work.

[Edges]

Is there an in-game benefit of high ceilings or it it just for the dwarfness?

[nightwhips]

Is there an in-game benefit of high ceilings or it it just for the dwarfness?

It will allow fliers to fly?

[thegoatgod_pan]

Cave-in can be avoided by digging from the top down. Designate the entire top level to be channeled out (d-h). Once it's done, designate the next level down to be channeled, and so forth until you've reached the bottom level, then remove upward ramps (d-z).

Insanity and stupidity I'm not so sure about. Who is insane/stupid, you or the dwarves?

This is what causes cave-ins, Never, EVER channel from the top down in whole layers--only row by row, and careful rows then.

Now ramping whole layers is usually quite safe and functional

[Girlinhat]

I can 100% safely channel whole layers - as long as there's no empty space under them.  If you have an existing dining hall, and want to make it higher, then your best bet is probably to take all the furniture out, cover the floor in up-stairways, and then dig the whole to-be-empty area in up+down stairways.  Once that's done, start at the top and channel one layer at a time.  At the bottom, mass designate to remove constructions.

[acetech09]

Added bonus is that this destroys most of the junk stone left behind, as well.

Actually it just stacks all the stuff on the lowest level. No destruction.

Don't channel it all, it takes longer to mine.

Actually, channeling takes less. Mining requires each level to be mined and then the edges to be channeled, while simple channeling doesn't need the edges done.

Only trouble is it's taking quite a lot of time since I'm running at a grand total of 6 FPS...

If you've already done it once, that's the problem. First, huge caveins like that freeze your computer for an hour or so. Then dust covers every tile, generating lots of contaminants to track, therefore major lag.

[JoshBrickstien]

Best way is to designate it all as stairways, then remove the stairs one layer at a time, top to bottom.

[Flying Dice]

Cave-in can be avoided by digging from the top down. Designate the entire top level to be channeled out (d-h). Once it's done, designate the next level down to be channeled, and so forth until you've reached the bottom level, then remove upward ramps (d-z).

Insanity and stupidity I'm not so sure about. Who is insane/stupid, you or the dwarves?

This is what causes cave-ins, Never, EVER channel from the top down in whole layers--only row by row, and careful rows then.

Now ramping whole layers is usually quite safe and functional

Channeling a multistory room one layer at a time will rarely if ever cause a cave-in; dwarves work methodically on channels, from one corner down a whole row, then to the next row, and so on. I've channeled 5k+ tiles before in cliff-creation projects a whole layer at a time without a single cavein.