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[strainer]

TWBT multilevel works beautifully. I have a little balcony looking over the tavern, the extra ventilation helps miasma outbreaks.
 
To remove a natural floor I disable all but the quickest miner and designate 7 lines at a time on descending priority levels. For a bigger area I will make separate burrows for individual miners, very carefully, and still probably end up training the medics.

[Starver]

(I thought I'd replied to this thread two days ago and gone on to mention various ways of ceilinging some walls. Looks like I misposted/cancelled or something. Here's a quick and shortened version.)

From outside the walls you want to roof, any (temporary) stair access works for me. Then build floors over the gap and the walls, to avoid diagonal-Z ingress/egress that you might not want. Or bridge(s), perhaps.


But to roof over from the inside, perhaps because you fear too much unturtling and exposing your dorfs to the outside environment, I need to plan the roof to consist of at least two bridges in part (if not the whole roof).

First of all, apart from the internal (temporary) stairwell to the height of the top wall-layer, I do without temporary scaffolding by building walls (per level) starting at the far side from the sole stairway, or at the point between any pair/multiple access stairs. Once that wall-column tile (or a pair of adjacent walls, accessed from each difection at once) is built, set to build the next-neighbouring two walls. Continue until you only need to build the wall adjacent to the stairway access(es).

But, for the final height of wall, don't seal up the last gap at first (and possibly do this when the "wall ends" are still away from the last access point. Put two ramps up, adjacent to the wall you are building in place of the wall you will (later) build there. This gives two accesses to the ultimate wall-tops upon which you want to build your roofing.

Whatever else you do, in flooring or bridging, the aim now is to build a bridge that forms a roof that lays over one of the ramp accesses, using the second ramp for access to build it. Also link it (and any other bridge-rooves you have been able to build, if you wish) to a lever down wherever you would normally put such a lever. Once linked, pull lever to open this first-ramp bridge cover, and now use the first-ramp access to send your work-dorfs up to build the bridge that will now obscure the second ramp (or you can deconstruct the second-ramp and reconstruct wall-tiles back as far as you can, straight away).

You now also have the option to lever-link the second-bridge. Same lever, if you want (a handy full-roof skylight-opener/closer, later on, should that be somethinfg you can make use of, such as where the building you're constructing contains a potential source of miasma unless you keep it open whenever there's no threat of enemies topping the walls by flight or athleticism). When the bridge is finished and (if you're doing it this way) the first of the linking mechanisms has been installed, make sure everybody is off of the finished roof, down the first ramp, then pull the lever, closing bridge-1 over the ramp-1 position, before or after you remove ramp-1 and start to complete the wall's full circuit at the highest wall level.

You end up with a wall, covered to the edge (or further, if you're adding overhanging eaves for additional anti-climber duty) with a roof, all constructed from the inside without a troublesome stairwell poking up through the roof (the final down-stair at roof level could be disconnected from below/blocked by a replacement wall-column or topped by a hatch that you lock, but there are different problems with each of these).


You can, of course, combine a couple of separate 'ledge' ramp-stopping/wall-topping bridges with (from the access you can grant by closing and reopening both ramp-cover bridges) a further sloping-roof design. Depends on the look you want to give it. Though if you're arching the roof higher, with outside ramps, a 'dorma' extension with a doorway (1x1 raising drawbridge being a switchable destroyer-proof doorway blocker, filling the gap with wall or (for the look of the thing) a window being other options) that leads from the permanent/temporary internal stairway access to the lowest lip of the roof, the rest of the access being up the slopes you build as part of the roof.


Depends on what look you're going for, and what practical functionality you need. It's easy to plan, when you know what you're doing, but I'm wondering whether I should have provided example plans/diagrams, just to clarify my wordy verbal descriptions.

[Telgin]

I have this nagging suspicion (not properly scienced, but based on occasional experiences) that multilevel rooms are not very FPS friendly.

I can't think of any reasons for them to be particularly bad for FPS.  I don't think they would affect path finding very much, since the open air should behave like open air outside.  I wouldn't expect them to be as bad as caverns at least, since caverns have lots of slopes that expose more tiles to path finding than they otherwise might appear to.

[strainer]

I think every time a unit moves it has to check all the spaces and walls it can see for objects, and whether they are of interest and that could take up more than routine path finding. But with air being mostly empty it probably checks out relatively quickly... granted, its more an argument for the pathfinding thread.

[Montieth]

Safest way is to dig out each layer, top first, engrave the upper layer wall first then have the miners channel out to the next layer. Then detail the next set of walls. Rinse repeat until you have your desired rooms.

[sokmund]

my way of building multi-layer buildings is as follows:

If its an underground room then i use the "up-down" stairs first and then channel everything, it ensures that my dwarves wont get stuck and im able to smooth/engrave walls without pausing every floor in order for me to designate stuff (its still safer to channel one layer at the time just in case dwarves will leave some loose stairs that have no connection to anything and crush your stuff).

If its above ground all i say is that bridges make for exelent and eaisly removable scaffoldings.

[pamelrabo]

My temples are always outoors, and nowadays I try to make them a tower, one level for each god.

Usually I build an outer circle (diameter 7) and the staircase shaft runs upwards from there, as I get fancy metals and stone for each temple. Hatches to access the ceiling (the cailing will be the next level floor).

Undergrond multi-z are a headache for me, I'll go back there eventually.

[Miuramir]

I think every time a unit moves it has to check all the spaces and walls it can see for objects, and whether they are of interest and that could take up more than routine path finding. But with air being mostly empty it probably checks out relatively quickly... granted, its more an argument for the pathfinding thread.

There is more optimization and caching than you think, but there's an interesting point lurking in this discussion I'd not previously thought about... it is at least possible that setting the "air" spaces of your multi-level room as Restricted Traffic might cause a bit more pathing efficiency, especially if you have balconies and such that theoretically offer path options at other levels.  Worth some Science! to check.