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[NCommander]

So I recently read through Towersoared, and to say the least, I feel inspired to build my own megafort dedicated to stunning architecture just sheer dwarfiness. Call it an ode to Dwarf Fortress and the awesomeness it can create. I however have never built a fort like this before, so I'd like to socialite some advice from the local building gods.

My current idea is to have one dwarf be a prophet, and his six followers building a temple to Armok itself. Hem from the earth itself (i.e., entirely created via channelling/digging/very careful designation). In the blueprint I'm designing, the temple itself is open to the air, and exists as a 94x84 (the temple itself is smaller) spot in the ground (roughly). With four pillars and the surrounding walls engraved with the history of the world, and a magmafall illuminating the cavern in which it sits.

(I'm not sure if I want it exposed to open air or not yet, input welcome).

Here's my biggest concerns:

* When channelling downward, what's the best way to prevent dwarven stupidity. I've found doing one level at a time helps, but I've still had a few accidents this way.

* What's the best way to go up? (I need to hollow out the pyrmaid to Armok, and the four surrounding pillars will be hollow. My first idea was to build stairs in the pillar itself, engraving both the inside and outside, but I'm not sure how to remove the stairs afterwards ...

* I think I'm going to use a 5x5 embark for building, as I have other ideas I want to implement (a watchtower, perhaps built over the temple), but I'm worried about FPS issues and lag. I'd debating removing a cavern level in worldgen, which might help gain speed back, but I'm not sure what I loose by removing level 3 of the caverns ...)

* While I'm normally an ASCII player, I've switched to using a graphics pack to get 16x16 graphics (so a square looks like a square; one of the largest issues I've had with me

In addition, I'm a little stumped on the best way to do things like designs and such; I understand the how part, but I guess I've never been great at the drawing part (and I have issues visually which stone is which.)

Any ideas/advice/thoughts that this is insane welcome.

(as a note, my current scratch forts with fastdwarf to test my quickfort blueprints have come along somewhat nicely; I may post a screenshot when the current test one is done)

[NCommander]

For an idea of the scale, here's a screenshot from my scratch fort

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Broken]

Don't use channels in megaproyects, ever. Use ramps, and use a cave in to destroy the remaining floors.

[Geldrin]

Recently I've made a ~20 level pitfall by designating the outlines of the tube to be carved into up/down stairs, then ordering the miners to remove the inner section layer by layer.

I've had a hard time to learn some basic principles about dwarven logic habit and the aspects of vertical mining.
So, lets start with channeling: @Broken's hint is absolutely true. Miners will _always_ mine the blocks beneath their fellows, causing them serious injuries. In some unfortunate situations, this can be led to the death of your legendary miners. It's relatively safe if you have only one miner in the designated area.

Ramping: It's a really good choice, if you use it the right way, you can remove two blocks at once with it. No falling rocks to the head.

Up/Down stairs: They act like a solid surface as long as your workers are keep their feet on the ground. Once they get hit (by falling rocks or socks*), they will fall to the very end of the pit like there were no obstacles in their way. So better not making tall mineshafts consisting stairs only. Use some kind of vertical zig-zag pattern: falling one Z-level is not a big deal, falling 20 could lead to serius..., you know, the F word...

Regarding the socks:
If you want to remove multi-level vertical stairs, you better dump _everything_ from there, to avoid accidents related to falling stuff. Don't forget to lock out all civilians useless scum from that area, to prevent laundry "spawning", because even a falling +pig tail sock+ in the face will cause your workers to fall to the bottom. Dwarves don't care if there's 500 tons of rock on the floor that they are removing from above...

Removing the stairs:
When removing stairs (by channeling(r), or removing upstairs(z)), dwarves will usually stand on the neighboring blocks (both horizontally and vertically). However, if you have many dwarves working in the area, they will often remove the stairs below each other, resulting... guess what? . So in my opinion you'd better lock one worker in the area to do the job, that's the most safe method for accomplishing such job.

I've learned this the hard way, so I hope I can help my fellow dunkards to carve large holes in the mountains more safely.

EDIT: Oh, good luck with your project, NCommander!

*socks rocks!

[ORCACommander]

cavern layers only start to eat at fps once they have been discovered iirc.

[NCommander]

cavern layers only start to eat at fps once they have been discovered iirc.

I'm thinking of modifying the worldgen settings to smooth out and mark relatively large open caverns, then disable the third one removing several z layers from the map. I looked at mods like the acceleration mod, but they seem to be buggy or have their own set of issues ...

[Russell.s]

cavern layers only start to eat at fps once they have been discovered iirc.

I'm thinking of modifying the worldgen settings to smooth out and mark relatively large open caverns, then disable the third one removing several z layers from the map. I looked at mods like the acceleration mod, but they seem to be buggy or have their own set of issues ...

When you remove a cavern layer the usual cavern 'features' e.g. the trees etc. all just get squished into the remaining levels. I almost always run my fort with just 2 cavern levels because I don't see the need for all 3. I also think that ORCACommander may be right: caverns only drop FPS once opened.

Personally for my mega(ish) projects I always try to use channeling, and just do one level at a time. I've never had any problems when I stick to this method. Be extra careful not to have any spaces designated for mining in the level below the one you're channeling though, otherwise you end up with dwarves channeling into open space, which can cause cave ins.

Otherwise I recommend having a "test" fort, where you have a lot of disposable dwarves and area just to try to look of various features before you implement them in your main fort. I tend to use dfhack to set the dwarves of my test fort to super speeds so I can smooth/mine features quickly and see what I think.
Good luck, and show us when you're done!

[Sutremaine]

To get to the cave-in stage you have to separate your chunk of intended empty air from the rock around it, which means channelling.

I've had pretty good luck with turning the whole area into stairs, and then channelling out in columns, with each column being placed so that it's not adjacent to any other of the columns to be channelled. Dwarves prefer to stand on the same level as what they're channelling, though if there's no option or they're using the 'stand where you are, dig a tile adjacent to the one you just dug' pathfinding' they might stand on top of the tile to be channelled. You might also be unlucky enough to have a miner walking through a tile just as it's dug away...

It might be safer to use just one miner, since stair removal is so fast. You could also set up non-overlapping burrows and put a miner in each of them, to get the same effect.

[Lord_Phoenix]

I'd use stairs.  Down stairs on the top level, up stairs on the bottom, up/down stairs in between.  Like scaffolding.  You can dig them from the bottom up or from the top down.

Then when you want to remove the stairs, you start at the top and channel out the down stairs, then on the next level, you designate remove up stairs/ramps, and then once the up part of the up/down stairs are removed, you channel out the new down stairs.  Rinse and repeat, level by level, all the way to the bottom, where you just remove up stairs/ramps.

Impossible to have any collapses or anything using this method, because the up/down stairs on each level supports the stairs above it.  Occasionally, a dwarf will get bonked on the head and fall to the bottom if you don't clear the scaffolding of materials before taking them down though.

[Brilliand]

It might be safer to use just one miner, since stair removal is so fast. You could also set up non-overlapping burrows and put a miner in each of them, to get the same effect.

They'll need food and drink in their burrows, or they might walk through other miners' burrows to get a drink.