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[Cloudless]

I've looked all over, trying to find the secret to digging a decent pit.  I decided to do a 10z pit with a door at the bottom that I would just lock or wall up later.  The problem is, the dwarves channel down a couple of levels, then they climb out and never go back!  I tried putting a door up top and locking them in to do their work, but then they just sit there after a couple levels until the door is unlocked.  I saw this: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=9408 so maybe this bug is still active?

Is there a better way?  I was thinking dug stairs on one tile, make the rest then channel those down last but I figure it will have the same problem.  I just want a pit to throw my captured enemies down!

[Fleeting Frames]

When you're handling the stairs last, make sure to channel them down from top to bottom.

Also, remember to smooth your pit walls if you're pitting invaders in.

[PatrikLundell]

I'd use one of two methods:
1. Designate channeling straight down and dig a staircase parallel to the pit, with a single tile wall in between. Dig a connection at the bottom and where ever the digger stops working either to sulk or climb out. Plug that connection with a wall when the continuation downwards is done. Plug the bottom with a wall (or drawbridge) as well.
2. Dig two set of stairs (the above, but replacing the the chute with a staircase) and connect at the bottom. Remove the staircase one step at a time from from the top down. Smoothing the walls before removing the stairs is probably a good idea. You wouldn't have the same problem as the next level of stairs can be removed by a dorf (even the same one) entering from below, even if the previous miner grabbed the wall and climbed out.

A 10 level pit won't kill the enemies, though. You need a much bigger fall than that.

[Cloudless]

Thanks, I ended up being able to channel dug stairs to the bottom, then seal up the opening on the last floor.  So far, 10z levels killed a goblin and mangled up another.

[Blazinganvil1]

The 10 z fall can work-- a few 2-3x max, then the corpses start acting as a cushion. You'll have to clean it out frequently. My preferred method (for short drop pits, anyway, on maps with extensive / in the way caverns) is to dig an 8-12 z pit with smoothed walls, with a 3x3 tile landing spot, where all 9 tiles are occupied by weapon traps loaded with 3+ spiked balls &/or serrated discs (I've found those to be the most effective trap components). A mixture of the 2 is always very effective, especially after the prisoner victim has been stunned by the fall.

[Starver]

(For digging a pit, I've found that the recent addition of job priorities helps the micromanagement if I let dwarves (suitably sated for food/drink/sleep prior to being sent off to the job) self-trap themselves in a pit as they dig, but I tend to have a temporary wallside ramp access to the top (and then to the bottom, and that exit, when completed) whilst slowly arranging a new level cut out (sans ramp) and its sides fully smoothed prior to arranging the next level, but you seem to have that bit sorted, so you don't need to take heed of my fuss.)

I usually make exits to pits be a central (single ramp-adjacented) undug rock pillar up a level that a drawbridge lowers over to from the internal access.  No reason, at least prior to climbing abilities mattering, but it just always seemed useful.

Whether or not you do that, at the next level above your bottom layer or such protuberances as just described, arange an all-covering retracting bridge as the nominal landing zone might help.  You lose one or more levels of fall (or need to dig one or more levels beneath the target one), but pulling a lever can deposit dead and dying and injured (and merely annoyed?) victims into the area below, then extend the bridge over again for more uncushioned falling-fun whilst the work safely goes on below to clean up the prior results. (I think making the bridge of dense material like platinum will do you more good than lthe less dense ones like featherwood.)

Add in judicious arrow-slit fortifications in the pit walls above and below such a barrier (to deal with the awkwardly robust, at one point or another in the process) and maybe some other little tricks of the trade (optional pumping of your choice of liquid into and out of various bits¹ of the pit-tube?) and a combinatorial killing (or not!) pit with many optional methods to its operation can be usefully engineered...



¹ Remember to make sure arrow-slits are shutterable, if you do this where they might interact...

[StagnantSoul]

Alright, so this is how you dig a pit:

1: Dig a 1x1 stairwell between 10-20 deep.
2: At ground level, one square between the stairwell and this, designate a 3x3 spot for channeling. Just one.
3: Once that's done, order up the next.
4: Then the next.
5: Then the next.
6: If the workers disobey your word, just have the wall beside where they have to channel next opened up and the channeling continue.
7: Once you reach the desired depth, smooth the walls, and place whatever you want at the bottom, whether this be an alligator breeding program, a wereiguana, lava, or spikes.