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[Headless]

I ll try the stack of X's again.   I stoped using that cause it seamed to get my dorfs stuck.

Thanks

[PatrikLundell]

Up/Down staircases, 'i', will work everywhere, but they have side effects at the top and bottom in that they sort of poke into the tile above/below (such as puncturing the aquifer and letting the water down, or letting creature diagonally below the staircase up [presumably diagonal access is an issue from above as well]). Therefore, making the staircases "properly", by having a 'j' down staircase at the top of the stairs and an 'u'p staircase at the bottom is recommended unless you intend to expand the staircase at a later stage.
Note that this builds on what karhell said:
j: top
i: continous staircase
i
i
:
u: bottom

[Naryar]

Just up/down staircases. 1x1 for exploration, 2x1 if you actually have some traffic, and you can go to 2x2 if you feel there will really be quite a lot of traffic. Anything more is unneeded.

Set several vertical flights of stairs.

Exploring the depths... if you want to do that you can put stairways in a grid, with each staircase being Tab+directional arrow (i don't remember how many tiles it is, 9 or 11 or something like that ?) tiles from each other.

Then you link the stairways between each other. You'll generally get the ore veins that way, not the small clusters but eh.

Or you can use dfhack reveal, and then unreveal when you are done.

[Loci]

I've never seen any dwarf fall down any stairs.

Haven't had that problem either. Except when I'm channeling out the staircase to let light through to the bottom.

They can, rarely.  Its more common when the stairs are slippery or wet (rain, blood, etc) and its more common on ramps than stairs.  Hatches above increase the risk of falling too, due to how they work.

Anyhow, hatches also stop them from falling.  By putting them in regular intervals, it breaks their fall.  doesnt work for 1x1 stairs, though.

As far as I know there is no modeling of "slippery" tiles in the game. Creatures that are *already falling* will continue to fall through up/down stairs, but creatures that aren't already falling won't tumble down a stairwell. It's possible that some freak chain of events might cause a creature to fall down a stairwell, but it's so vanishingly rare that I've never encountered it.

Opening a hatch removes the hatch-supplied walkable surface in its tile. Since downward ramp tiles are not inherently walkable, a creature on the hatch would fall. Up/down stairs are inherently walkable, so opening a hatch on a stairway has no effect at all. (Opening hatches does not "fling" or "toss" creatures.) 

Also, hatches work just fine on 1x1 stairs if you dig out a tile next to the stairway for a dwarf to stand on while installing the hatch.

[BoredVirulence]

As far as configuration, I like symmetry. Since all (with rare exceptions) of my hallways are 3 wide, my central staircase is a 3x3. However, I only put stairs on the corners like so:

Code: [Select]

X+X
+++
X+X

There may be some inefficiencies, such as dwarves preferring one side because its closer to their objective, thus operating like a 2x1 or 2 1x1's. Dwarves have to walk 2 tiles to get to another staircase since they aren't connected. But really, it makes more sense to me than:

Code: [Select]

XXX          +X+          +++          XX+
XXX          XXX          +X+          XX+
XXX          +X+          +++          +++

Of course, I also periodically put doors in my 3 wide hallways, and they are always 2 doors with a wall in the middle. Having that separation between stairs fits with that design.
Efficient for travel, probably not the best. Efficient for designation, not without macros (although its not bad, with vertical designations). Efficient for my sanity, yes.

[schlake]

I start by making a 3x3 set of downs adjacent to my wagon, then I make a 3x3 set of up/down below that for ten levels to figure out what the top of the map looks like.  I put my farms on the last soil layer, for simplicity, and start building meaningful things two levels below that.  For defense, I use a wall with a deep trench around it and bridges to get in to where my wagon is.  I only leave one bridge open, and I pen all my war dogs at the bridge.  I've had good luck as long as I don't hit the caverns.

I like the 3x3 because if I have 3x3 hallways I can line the middle with statues.  Having a line of statues down the middle seems to make both me and my dwarves happy.