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[SeiggrainHart]

So, I'm just curious, but has anyone attempted to do an Open Pit mine from the surface down in Dwarf Fortress before?
I know in reality they're feasible for things like rock salt and coal, but what about in Dwarf Fortress? How many units wide/tall would you suggest such a thing be in order to be viable in Dwarf Fortress? Would it need to be classified as a Mega Project, taking up most of the dwarves or would it be something that can be started off right away?

[smakemupagus]

Sure.  23x20x20 is a good size to quarry stone and get a bit of ore.  One or two miners can do it no problem. I leave the extra "3" squares in the X direction to leave room for a wide ramp. 

Then it's easy to add more similar pits nearby, and/or put a switchback of some kind into the ramp so you can go deeper.

Not a megaproject at all.  Now, if you delve those pits twice as big and in such a way that you leave a giant sculpture in the middle, we might be getting somewhere
 

[SeiggrainHart]

that sounds like a viable plan there. I played around a bit with the idea of leaving a giant core of an empty pit inside my fortress once, with a central spire going down to the bottom of the pit so that dwarves could reach the bottom. The pit was 11 squared with a z height of 35 before my game got to 2~3 fps though that might have been because of the massive tree-hugger invasion...

[Aranador]

Once, in a fortress long long ago, I basically dug a pit in the middle of the map, about 40x40, that went down and down and down.  Rooms were built off the side, with glass blocks looking in, like some sort of  inverse skyscraper.  Eventually, I filled it with water.

The whole thing served basically no purpose what so ever.

Another fortress, and the pit had a central spire untouched while a spiral ramp wound down the whole way on the outside, wide enough for the caravan.  The central spire was then ringed with walkways and fortifications so archers could shoot at anything on the amp.

The whole thing served minimal purpose.

Or in other words, digging massive holes is totally awesome.

[Fearless Son]

I always thought it would be a cool idea to try.  Maybe with constructed bridges and hanging rooms in the middle and other rooms around the sides, like concepts I have seen of underground cities. 

Other times I have thought of simply making a big open pit that descends to the cavern layer, exposing a large area of it to the surface.

[Madman198237]

The truly amazing accomplishment would be digging a huge citadel *out* of the rock (i.e., tower surrounded by huge empty space) and digging rooms and a staircase around the outside, and then forcing invaders to go to the bottom (Getting shot by crossbowdwarves all the way), them back up THROUGH the citadel (to its top) while being destroyed by (not actual weapon traps) traps of various Rube Goldberg kinds, following by a descent into the Killing Room, where they fight your armored dwarves in hand-to-hand combat on a gilded battlefield.

[Pirate Santa]

Ages ago did a quarry for a human challenge fort, its pretty easy to setup, but not very efficient at tracking down all the valuable ores that aren't in the area you chose to mine. Still have some pics.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just leave one tile unchanneled, and move that tile over one each time you go down a layer. Leaves you with a nice little switchback ramp.
They also make great places to dump your garbage if you ever decide you're done with them.

[Jimmy]

I almost always build my fortresses with a massive open shaft in the centre with burrow branches coming off the main well every 2 z-levels. Here's an example. For efficiency it's far poorer than stairs, but aesthetically it's quite pleasing for my tastes.

[EPM]

For a well, it'd depend on map topography. The ideal would be to have it built under murky pools on the surface, and then channeling downwards to fill a cistern that can be tapped by a well. An extra screw pump, manually operated, may be needed to clean the water, but that's not much overhead considering it'd only be needed when the well ran dry.  A diagram:

▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮
▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮
▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮
▮▮▮X▮▮▮▮▮▮
▮▮▮▮▮▮%▮o▮
▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮
▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

X = Floodgate
% = Manual pump
o = Well

Could also be done with any supply of surface water. If you really want a very fun time, an aquifer could also be used, but involving one THOSE in this project is an absolutely horrible/dwarven idea unless you had a lucky embark that only included a small patch of aquifer stone you'd be able to dig under. Or I suppose once you got under the water table, you'd be able to dig the artificial cavern into safe stone. But all it'd take is one "Something has collapsed on the surface!" announcement for you to know that the end had come...

[Jimmy]

I usually build a self-contained screw pump tower that fills from the underground caverns and pumps to the surface. Green glass pumps and two water reactors for power mean you can pump up to 34 z-levels, minus power cost of linkages. Just make sure you've got a lever set to power it off and drain it in case you need to perform maintenance.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

If it's so hard, just use buckets.

[SeiggrainHart]

I'm surprised the thread got as many replies as it has so far... It seems the idea is a relatively interesting one at the least. On subject, I've begun another fort where I'll be testing out a 20x20 unit open pit mine.

Off subject a bit, but I've now come up with the idea of doing a succession fort that uses an Open Pit Mine as the only allowed source of stone/metals. Granted, they'd be allowed to use the stone and ores mined out for the actual fort, as what sort of Dwarf lives on the surface? But beyond that, they'd need the open pit mine for everything else.

[Saiko Kila]

I don't do the open pit mines, except the main tower, which is a training grounds for military (it prevents cave adaptation), but it's relatively small, closed when needed with a single or double bridge. But I do big tree farms in artificial caves, which are like open pit mines, except they are underground. And you know what? It takes years, especially to collect the stones. I do a single floor at the time, with mining (no channelling), once all floors are done (like five or six), then I use cave-in to destroy all floors at the same time, and I got a big chamber, which later I flood temporarily. I like it, but I wouldn't recommend in most cases. Too much time, too much FPS drain. On the other hand, it allows to us turtle tactics effectively.

I haven't seen a good method to clear the stones quickly.

[askovdk]

Blowing my own trumpet, but Kindletours in my signature had some major excavations.

My main method for digging out large volumens (and not layers) was to designate it as 3d areas of 'up/down' stairs. I would then support such a section of up/down stairs with a single column (linked to a lever far away), cut the section completely free, and let it collapse into nothing.

[SeiggrainHart]

I haven't seen a good method to clear the stones quickly.

What I've found to be an effected way of clearing the stones out quickly is to undesignate your miner dwarves on hauling. That is, hauling anything. All they're allowed to do is dig, eat, sleep, and socialize. This keeps them mining out the layers while designated hauler dwarves (Peasants who have no other jobs other then hauling.) move the stones into stock piles.

Though I don't start designating Hauler Dwarves until my fort has >100 dwarves in it, as anything before that is a waste of 'resources.'