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[Quickpawmaud]

And I somewhat understand the concept of stairs but the construction and destroying things and all the menus make fixing mistakes impossible and I eventually make a mistake and I don’t want to have to restart every time I mess up some small thing

[Kromtec]

Maybe this video can help you better understand the concept behind stairs and constructions.

[PatrikLundell]

It's also useful to know that you can modify your posts, rather than creating half a dozen multi posts.

[Quickpawmaud]

Well I guess I will just have delete all my files and redownload them and never ever build stairs because they are total bs I wish there was just 1 type of stairs and once you dig out the area above or below it just worked instead of 3 types of stairs why can’t they all be up and down depending on if the area is cleared out around them and why isn’t there just a simple delete button for everything

[Shonai_Dweller]

Well I guess I will just have delete all my files and redownload them and never ever build stairs because they are total bs I wish there was just 1 type of stairs and once you dig out the area above or below it just worked instead of 3 types of stairs why can’t they all be up and down depending on if the area is cleared out around them and why isn’t there just a simple delete button for everything

Why not just download and play Dwarf Fortress? Any "beginners" guide which involves forcing you to download their (probably very outdated) version of the game several times just seems to defeat the point. Lets make the game more awkward and obtuse for "beginners". Yay.

The vanilla game is simple. Create a tiny world, embark hundreds of times until you get stairs right. Takes minutes. Who cares about what files some guide writer wants you to use? Dwarf Fortress is not an impossible game. It's only newbie pack/beginners guide/desperate for attention meme writers that want you to think it is. Read the wiki. Build stairs until you get them right.

[PatrikLundell]

Do you make a hole in the floor when building a stair upwards? Do you make a stair up to the ceiling when building stairs to the basement?
If you make a down stair component you're making a hole in the floor through which uninvited guests can make it into the fortress if there's open space on the level below.

[Quickpawmaud]

Well the reason I wanted to use the guide is just to learn what to do before playing for real and it isn’t some random guide it was linked in the lazy newb pack along with two YouTube playlists which conflicted with each other which was annoying

[Sutremaine]

why can’t they all be up and down depending on if the area is cleared out around them and why isn’t there just a simple delete button for everything

If you want all up/down stairs, designate or construct them that way. It's no problem to have a down stair that ends in solid rock or empty space. Your dwarves will use it as they deem appropriate. (So will any flying creatures beneath, but let's sort dwarf pathing out first.)

As for why there isn't a simple delete button... ...Well, that's an interesting question. I suppose the answer could be phrased as 'the game needs to know what was there before'. A construction overwrites a tile's original shape, and when you deconstruct it you get the original tile shape back. So, if you construct a stair over a tile of empty space, a tile of empty space is what you get when you deconstruct it. Construct a stair over a floor tile, and floor is what you get back. Deconstruction (press d, then x. The constructions should flash green or red) is the closest thing DF has to a delete button.

A designation is different. It changes the tile's original shape permanently. You can't delete it, because it is the 'what was there before' mentioned above. Trying to erase it would be like trying to erase a blank piece of paper.

[Loci]

Deconstruction (press d, then x. The constructions should flash green or red) is the closest thing DF has to a delete button.

d-x is "remove designation"; it only cancels incomplete designations, not buildings/constructions.

d-n is "remove construction"; it only deconstructs completed constructions.

Incomplete constructions need to be canceled in the q menu with x : remove building.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Well the reason I wanted to use the guide is just to learn what to do before playing for real and it isn’t some random guide it was linked in the lazy newb pack along with two YouTube playlists which conflicted with each other which was annoying

Newb pack isn't official it's just one person's opinion (albeit a very popular one) on what new people need to understand the game. Just play. Stairs are the same no matter where you embark or what version you're using.

Seriously there are enough frustrating aspects to learning dwarf fortress without being forced to endure more because someone you've never met thinks you need help. Watch youtube a couple of times, refer to the wiki whenever you need to learn something new.

[Madrigal]

Well the reason I wanted to use the guide is just to learn what to do before playing for real

Easy fix: decide that you're playing for real right now

Quickpawmaud, do the images in section 2.3 of the guide you posted look sort of like what you're looking at in your game right now? An upper level with rooms and a central hallway, and six "down" staircases coming off the hallway. Then a lower level that is supposed to have six "up-down" staircases in the middle, and dug-out rooms on all sides -- but your problem is that those "up-down" stairs don't exist anymore?

If this is close to what you're seeing, then you should be able to fix it the way you proposed (by digging out the outer edges of those lower rooms to get rocks, and using those rocks to construct up-down stairs in those six spots).

But note -- if you've been following the guide more or less, then you've been making stairs this whole time by digging them (by typing d-j for "down" stairs or d-i for "up-down" stairs). If you want to take rocks and turn them into stairs, you'll need to use the building menu instead of the designations menu (b-C-x for constructed "up-down" stairs; note that's a capital C).

On destroying stairs -- can dug stairs be destroyed with d-z ("Remove Up Stairs/Ramps")? It seems that way from the wiki. I can't check in game right now and I've actually never tried to destroy stairs before.

[Quickpawmaud]

Thanks yeah that is what I was trying to do and from yalls responses I was pressing the right buttons but I think it glitched out because it didn’t delete the construction and when I esced back to the game the yellow Xs are still there and there are 5 of them on 5 of the six stair cases and it won’t let me select anything it blinks and then disappears but doesn’t delete the stairs and now the Xs won’t go away

[Quickpawmaud]

I guess I will give up on the walkthrough thing since most of y’all are saying it’s not that difficult when I was doing research everything said that this was basically the most complicated game ever created and it is harder to learn than anything so I was planning to do hours of research and planing before playing normally I studied the world creation stuff in the game to figure out the best way to create a single world that works for both fortress and adventure and doesn’t take very long to create on my crappy laptop so I will just make a smaller world with short history low Savage and frequent minerals and look for shallow metals and deep metals with trees and clay or soil right? Although I think for adventure more sites and civilization is good not sure though

[Stormfeather]

One final bit of advice: Don't get discouraged and think you're failing when your fort(s) inevitably die horribly, quite possibly by you making a mistake. This is fine. This is normal. This is fun! This is Dwarf Fortress.

*ahem* More seriously, it is a complex game, and you're going to learn a lot about the game just by doing things over and over, having things happen to you, and often by watching your dwarfs crash and burn spectacularly. Just learn from each incident, and take another step forward.

[Quickpawmaud]

I’m looking forward to the so called “Murderous tantrums” it’s just annoying to have to start over because of stairs you know