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[Antmf]

I sent my miners way down and they broke through to a cavern. What is the best way to remove those up/down stairs and block it off? I tried D Z but it just removed the up portion up portion of stairs. Then I tried digging a channel on the down staors portion my miner fell through and is unconscious. What do i do?lol please help...

[Fleeting Frames]

Traditionally, you build an upstair on updown stair (it sometimes doesn't let me do it on the last updown for some reason though).

If your miner is injured badly, you could need another miner. Otherwise, have them dig a path up so they can get to hospital.

[Starver]

Traditionally, you build an upstair on updown stair (it sometimes doesn't let me do it on the last updown for some reason though).

Probably (unless it's something more obscure) you need an orthogonal neighbour digging out to build from. That can be a normal dig sideways or an up-stair to connect to a neighbouring (up-)down on Z+1. Or a ramp/etc, obviously, if that fits with what's above and you want it.

I tend to explore for caverns with up-down stacks (the first is often a crap-shoot, for each cavern except where I also find an inter-cavern revelatory connection after the first breakthrough) and might break through exactly in the cavern wall. Unless the stairwell is going to be wider than 1x1 and I'm going to continue the neighbouring (back in solid rock) stairwell column, I tend to treat that revelatory top-of-the-cavern-wall-side as not worth recognising (while not actually diving into cavern-life, at least) and after maybe taking steps to recover any spoil left from that dig, either designate-dump or specifically request a building of that lump, elsewhere) I will build an up'stair over the stack's penultimate depth.

As I do with mid-ceiling piercings. But I also tend to run connections between stacks at just-above-cavern-roof and just-below-cavern-floor levels (the latter awkwardly force-pausey under subterranean lakes), appropriate to my understanding of the void, so I have side-accesses built into the capping-tile's level.

Even if it isn't one of the grander (3x3 or more) stairwells which I'm expanding out from the exploratory core once I know where to limit that particular slice of vertical corridor. Those also give the building space (and maybe a partial-cross-section continuation of the footprint down beside the cavern, that I can keep insulated from the cavern until I'm happy.



OP: You've discovered exactly what up-stair/ramp removal and channelling-the spot-you-stand-on do. For future record, you should have not done the former but (whether or not you did) dig at least one tile (that seemed safe in other ways) to the side.

Assuming you don't need to dig more (or have dug itas an up/with a matching down on the level above) to get a building material item accessible, then Build-Construction-Upstair over the up-down should suffice (to replace the DZed up-stair, if need be, but to abstract away the down-stair opening on that tile.

Alternatives include building floors over (for solid closure whilst not needing the up-stair) or setting a bridge or hatch over the tile (handy for remote lever connection, which might appeal once you might want it switchably non-blocking). But the that's for more advanced planning than is necessary.

The miner, hopefully, will regain consciousness soon enough. If he's the only miner, then you (s)he may have to dig or otherwise engineer themselves out. I suggest a stair-down with a stair-up below (or channel for a ramp) to somewhere you can mine sideways, round a corner then into another stairwell you have/can dig to get back up around the cavern. You can set up a wall, strategically, in that escape-tunnel to block it (build it on the vertical access from the cave itself, if you'd like it to be 'floor' again, for now) or install a door/floodgate/1x1-raising-bridge if you want on-and-off accessibility control.

If you have a second miner, dig that towards the cavern, instead, if you think you can get the first recovered/recovering themselves quicker. Either way, though, watch out for other creatures wandering in from the cavern (maybe arrange for traps/suitable-doors to be built on the inside prior to breakthrough?) and reckless web-collectors (turn-offable!) or idle explorers going cavernward with reckless abandon.


But work out your own specific plan (or at least what you think you're going to do, then learn when it turns out that isn't what happened) out of the myriad of ways you might handle this. There's plenty of ways to play it, and most I haven't actually mentioned yet!

[Descan]

I generally build a staging grounds when I pierce a cavern - a five-by-five room surrounding the staircase, maybe with some rooms off to the side with storage for the materials I want to extract from the caverns, and which I wall off with a raised bridge. Just make sure you wall off each level up to the ceiling of the cavern, or put some floors in, since some cavern dwellers can fly, and since Toady added climbing a single wall wouldn't help against ground based units either.

[Fleeting Frames]

It does let it do that directly above in the same 1x1 shaft, so it's not same z-level orthogonality.

[anewaname]

If you do not have a hospital zone, make one using one of your free beds, then make sure a dwarf has medical labors enabled.

[Starver]

It does let it do that directly above in the same 1x1 shaft, so it's not same z-level orthogonality.

If it does, it's changed sometime over the last few major versions. Which is a possibility. (Away from the desktops at the moment, can't test.

I just habitually ignore the (possible) "Cannot build, no access!" messages automatically, but it always used to be that the only trans-Z building I'd care to try to do was to construct an (up-)down stair over an existing up(-down) base, from the bottom. I think you can now build up-and-across ramps too, these days (if not then), but I've honestly never cared to, so if that has extended to build down stairways¹ then this isn't your problem.


But then might it be that the problem is material access. If perhaps you 'sign off' on using a rock rubble item sitting in the lower tile, but by the time the worker gets to the necessary Z+1, thinking of hauling that rock up to itself to start work on the low-Z from the high-Z, the pathability of the stairs between the two has been rethought (preemptively) and the rock can't be accessed to fulfil the renewed solidification of its own existence. It shouldn't go wrong like that, but there have been far stranger buggy dependencies arise. 


¹ It comes to mind that, alongside the talk from Toady of "hanging ropes into holes to climb down/be let down with" possible functionality, 40d-ish era or thereabouts, that the building of free-hanging Z-1 stairwells beneath a suitable top access might be allowed, eventually, to mirror the upward-building of a stack. But never recall either rope or staircase option come to fruition.

[Loci]

Traditionally, you build an upstair on updown stair (it sometimes doesn't let me do it on the last updown for some reason though).

Probably (unless it's something more obscure) you need an orthogonal neighbour digging out to build from.

It does let it do that directly above in the same 1x1 shaft, so it's not same z-level orthogonality.

Digging out an orthogonal tile does work. You *should* be able to build there without doing so just like you can further up the stairway or hanging down into the cavern itself, but there is apparently some minor bug at play. There's also the potential problem of an item blocking the construction site; dwarves will not move an item unless they have an orthogonal tile to move it to, instead suspending construction with an unhelpfully-incorrect "cannot reach site" message.

[Fleeting Frames]

Yes, but I prefer building it 1 tile higher over digging out an extra tile.

[Mort Stroodle]

How I do it:

X: Up/Down stairs
^: Designate up stairs
v : Designate down stairs
D: Designate for digging
_ : Build floor here
R : Rock
C : Cavern


Before:

Code: [Select]

RRRRXRRRRRRR
RRRRXRRRRRRR
RRRRXRRRRRRR
RRRRXRRRRRRR
CCCCCCCCCCCC
CCCCCCCCCCCC
CCCCCCCCCCCC
After:

Code: [Select]

RRRRXRRRRRRR
RRRRXRRRRRRR
RRRRXDDDDvRR
RRRR_DDDD^RR
CCCCCCCCCCCC
CCCCCCCCCCCC
CCCCCCCCCCCC


Basically, build small two small tunnels over each other with a staircase at the end so your dwarves can climb up, then remove the original stairwell and cover the floor. Make sure to use an up stair and not an up/down stair on the staircase back up or else you'll have the same problem.

[Saiko Kila]

The fastest way to block passage is to build a hatch and lock it, assuming the caverns are below the stairs, and not above.

[indika_tates]

If you don't want to get nasty surprises just build upstairs/walls in tiles that are horizontal or diagonally connected to your fort as soon as you get the notification of the cavern discovery. Beware of a misplaced well! Forgotten beasts can enter your fort through it and it's quite funny what happens after Pump to a reservoir from above and build floor on the open tiles.

With this two tips a cavern layer can never ruin your fort because there is no direct access to it.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

You don't need to floor off the pump opening. A grate will suffice to block even building destroyers (they cannot destroy buildings from below) and still allow pumping.