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[Wicked]

So, I dug down a shaft (a set of stairs actually), went a couple of squares horizontally, and broke through into a cavern. So far so good. But when I tried to place a wall grate, for security, I got a message that there was no access to the grate. And the miner not only refuses to leave (I made a burrow for her) but also does not do anything when I try to get her to dig her way out. I have k-looked around and can't see any reason she does not just go back up the stairs she came down (though there are two rocks - it is a double stair set - at the bottom of the stairs where she is)
Any thoughts on what is going on, and how to rescue her?

[Wicked]

One other thing, the breakthrough was not at ground level, was into the side of a cliff a few zlevels above ground (I was trying to make a waterfall for dwarves to admire later), the shaft she is stuck in is going to be used to take run off from river water after I have used it for various useful things

[anewaname]

"No access to grate" means only one thing, you have a grate but there is no "walk" path between the grate and the build location. Take another look at the stairs, the connection is broken somewhere.

[indyofcomo]

Did she get injured breaking into cavern?

[PatrikLundell]

If the miner is burrowed she may not dig her way out because the tile to be dug out AND the tile she "randomly" selects to stand on when digging are not both included in the burrow. Also, burrowing may leave the grate outside of the burrow.

Two rocks at the bottom of the stairs may mean you've actually channeled away the stair, rather than digging an Up stair. If you've got two rocks there and nowhere to move the second rock to she'll be unable to build a stair.

[Starver]

I concur.
a) Burrows do not compel behaviour, it restricts it (though that, also, not as you always might initially assume). De-Burrow the miner (all burrows... don't leave in the "food and drink" one, if you've done that) to give them fred reign.
b) Check access. Choose a 'unique' material in the general bit of fort and not near the miner (e.g. a lump of olivine, but it could be any rock and colour isn't important) and attempt to build a floor across each level of stairs (or up-stair to overwrite the presumed dug up/down stair, if you can't be sure to cancel immediately) and see where it becomes not an available item.

You can only place the grate to be announced not available if the break in access is made afterwards. Or purely conceptually, for burrow issues.


Also check the miner still holds their pick (if messing about, you might have forced its dropping?) and do you have other miners you can get to tap through a (temporary, to be resealed, or optionally double the water-feed to the outlet tunnel) side access if you can't otherwise solve this?

[Wicked]

Thanks folk, problem solved. I had accidentally made an open space instead of a ramp on the way down. As soon as I designated a passage around it the trapped one dug herself out.
But other than finishing the original designation, which included the open space, she wouldn't do anything else once she finished that. Is that normal for trapped dwarfs, that they won't do anything other than directly rescue themselves?

[Starver]

I'm not entirely sure what your circumstances are. 'Trapped' dwarves can be compelled to actions that you know are not untrapping ones (e.g. digging ramps under themselves, for further and even more 'inescapable' pits) and they will do that just as willingly - whether or not you know that it will lead them to a pre-dug 'escape' tunnel you've already dug down and across, to which their shaft will intercept, or alternately that they'll find themselves falling into cavern or even magma sea by continuing.

A dwarf might be sleeping for some of the time (if you've kept them from their/any bed for long enough) and possibly some with a workshy psychology element may procrastinate at awkward times with no apparent reason, but imminent self-rescue wouldn't stop that either. I don't think there's any 'awareness' beyond "can currently route to a job/neex location" and "cannot currently route...", even if you've set up one 'obvious' digging designation that (when dug) leads to safety/fulfilment amongst others that do the opposite.


I think you just found yourself trying to herd a cat, figuratively speaking. Once you get a bit more personal experience, you'll doubtless understand more about how to herd all your cats (i.e. dwarves) without triggering such a stalemate position. Unless that's your immediately intended outcome, of course.


Something that occured to me, after the last reply: while trying to get your miner 'unstuck' from what turns out to be a trivially non-unstickable position, did you try to recruit them to a military squad to then 'station' them where you wanted them to go (but they couldn't reach, as you later found)? It's possible you did so and clashed the 'uniform' with the pick, so forcing them to drop it, which could make them behave (even more) uselessly while all those conditions persist.

Now rescued, and perhaps having rushed off to eat/drink and properly bed-sleep after the enforced isolation she had, I don't yet know if you have her back at the coalface (or any other -face, for that matter) or if she's just acting like a Little Lost Dwarfbot and refusing to dig (though maybe more analogous to twiddling its fingers, in certain ways) only you can't see itvas obviously now she isn't clearly held within a cell of her own making).


But any more info you have might help us to help you more quickly understand where your expectations and 'reality' diverges. Dwarves can be seen as just semi-autonomous enough to surprise, but not quite so in order to be 'rational' about how they do that. . I still get caught out, occasionally, even though I think I know most of the little things I need to look out for and many of the workarounds to avoid even getting into such a situation!

[anewaname]

They will only do jobs in the area they are trapped in, and will only attempt to rescue themselves by climbing when they are very hungry or thirsty. If they cannot climb out and are starving, they will take the "Hunt Vermin" job.

Sometimes players lock doors to intentionally trap a dwarf in a room, because the player wants several jobs completed in that room as soon as possible.

[Wicked]

Thanks for your time in replying, Starver.
I hadn't put her into a squad, all I did when I found she was stuck was try to put her in a burrow (which it turned out she couldn't reach) and designate some digging right next to her, which she ignored. Maybe those two set up a conflict. As I said, she only got motivated when ordered to dig herself out. If that is not standard, I'll just put it down to one of those things the reason for which I know not. I guess she could have been sleeping until I designated the escape route, I don't think so but I didn't check.
Cheers

[Starver]

Yes, the burrow does not say "go to this space" (even if you can get there from where you are, as you later discovered she could not) but "potentially go and do some job activity[1] in this space". (Travelling via whatever route they feel like. Which didn't apply anyway.) Starvation overrides all this, I think[2], but still can't quantum-tunnel through an unroutable bit.

Leaving the ineffectual burrow on as a controlling factor and then putting a dig-designation in the right place (but not covered by that burrow) would not help, certainly.

It's not complicated, or totally counter-intuitive, but it is at an angle of intuition that sometimes takes a little getting used to. As with other things.


[1] Taking into account various things about "picking up material from one spot to work on in a workshop in another spot", and when mining you have to stand in a neighbouring tile.

[2] Since I named myself for my most common error, I got better at avoiding this. Long before burrows came in as a thing.

[muldrake]

Thanks for your time in replying, Starver.
I hadn't put her into a squad, all I did when I found she was stuck was try to put her in a burrow (which it turned out she couldn't reach) and designate some digging right next to her, which she ignored. Maybe those two set up a conflict. As I said, she only got motivated when ordered to dig herself out. If that is not standard, I'll just put it down to one of those things the reason for which I know not. I guess she could have been sleeping until I designated the escape route, I don't think so but I didn't check.
Cheers

It's fairly common to have dwarves dig themselves into things they can't dig their way out of, and when they do, they'll just stand there until they starve to death or die of thirst.  This is really common when you hit cavern layers and decide you'd rather keep them closed off for now, and do something like build a floor over the stairs.  Dig a down staircase on the level above them, then an up staircase on the level they're on, then wall that off.

Also burrows are nearly useless.  They certainly aren't useful for getting dwarves to do specific things.  Unless you know exactly why you're using a burrow and what you want to achieve by it, and know burrows and their buggy mechanics, don't.

The general rule if you have a single dwarf and they're somehow trapped or not moving out of somewhere they should be able to leave, have another dwarf help.  There are a number of ways dwarves can put themselves or others into inescapable situations (like one dwarf climbing up a tree on a ladder and then another steals the ladder), but it's usually possible to have someone else fix that situation.

[nickbii]

I've never actually had much use for burrows. Most of the time what I actually need is the opposite of a burrow, so the little dorks will stop insisting on going outside to personally fight gobbo sieges/avoid the third cavern area/etc.

In theory you could use them to ensure somebody does a job immediately, but there's a "do this immediately" option that works pretty well. If my fortresses ever progress to the planned point where there's a super-luxurious section just for the nobility I might use a burrow to keep them there.

So I generally end up with a defensive burrow that includes the inside of the fort (or at least that part of it that existed when I first declared the burrow), but since that isn;t an issue in my current fort (only me and the 'bolds on this island) I have one burrow I used to contain a dude who was about to transform into a Wereass, and a second I used in a failed attempt at a honeymoon suite.

[Starver]

If you know how to use burrows (which is the problem... you have to learn what they can and can't do, which is not immediately obvious at the moment) they are incredibly useful. As a counterpoint, I never use Civilian Alert burrow stuff because they do nothing for me (possibly because I don't fully understand them, yet?) and happily stick to the 'pure' burrow behaviour to do more or less everything I want.

"Do this now!" was not a thing when burrows arrived, so I found out how to "Do this ASAP, if you would be so kind..." in Burrow-speak. Before digging-designation priorities (and "mark for later"), I was using burrows to prioritise fingers of excavation in huge swathes of pre-designated future-fort that can sagely remain untouched until I needed them to. Before the whole Workshop Manager addition, burrows over specific workshop and specific material (stock)piles gave me full control to generate only marble blocks, olivine levers, featherwood bed and the like.

(I rarely use "Do this now!", but I have folded designation-priority (and a bit of -marking) into co-existence with burrowing (I can still have one miner doing Exploration, another organising Drainage, another setting out the skeleton layout of bedroom/workshop corridors - slightly less micromanaged than without the new feature) and now no longer use burrows to micromanage workshop orders.)


But those things aren't for everyone, I know. And not obviously hyperintuitive to start upon your future career of possibly using, I know. All I can say is that I can tell you how I use them, maybe well enough to let you copy my methods. Which probably isn't the way you'd ever like to spend your time doing it.

[Leonidas]

If you know how to use burrows (which is the problem... you have to learn what they can and can't do, which is not immediately obvious at the moment) they are incredibly useful. As a counterpoint, I never use Civilian Alert burrow stuff because they do nothing for me (possibly because I don't fully understand them, yet?) and happily stick to the 'pure' burrow behaviour to do more or less everything I want.

The only burrows that I use are for civilian alerts. They're great for forcing dwarves underground, or for keeping them off a battlefield. The key is realizing that you can designate burrows in three dimensions. So you can easily create a burrow that covers the entire map, from the surface all the way down to the magma. Then carve out the areas where you don't want the civilians to go. When the invaders show up, set that burrow on alert to keep your civilians from trying to reset traps or clean up blood during the battle.