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[Bumber]

I tried the old trick of building stairs over an up/down stair to try to remove a down stair into the caverns, but it just built up/down stairs over the existing ones. What's worse, removing these resulted in two down stairs. I built a floor over the bottom down stair, but now I can't reconnect to the stairs above.

Side view:
█X███
█>███
█_☺>█
  █X█

█ = Wall
X = Up/down stair
> = Down stair (red needs to be up/down and there's a boulder on it)
_ = Constructed floor (needs to be an up stair)
☺ = Miner stranded on cavern side of staircase

Stairs have to be designated at least 2 z-levels at a time. Attempting to build stairs over the red tiles results in the message "blocked." I'm pretty sure you can build constructions over constructed floors now, so hopefully that's not the issue. (I'm pretty sure up/down stairs will be built if the floor isn't there.)

Edit: Can't even build with the floor removed (which reveals the original down stair.) The up/down stair above the down stair is also considered blocked, but the one above that isn't for some unknown reason. Feels like there's a bug at work here.

[Metruption]

I haven't needed to do this yet, but maybe building a floor over the down stair will allow you to build an up stair atop it.

[Magmacube_tr]

No idea how this managed to happen. But the stranded dwarf is a miner, right? And he has a pickaxe? Digging a new path up zeems to be the solution here.

[Metruption]

Just did this ingame. The way to convert an updown stair to an up stair is to build a floor over it and then build an upward stair on top of the floor. Hopefully we'll get the same features we had before to avoid needing this workaround.

[Salmeuk]

yeah this seems like a big oversight, since you can no longer build constructed items from above, at least it seems overly convoluted to designate and requires a bunch of extra steps. its a nice feature to designate all parts of a staircase at once, but we really need the ability to just plop down an "Up stair" or a "up/down stair" at will.

trust me I know what I'm doing. a lot of the GUI feels like it was designed for the completely new player while making things difficult for experienced players - and I'm not just complaining about learning new hotkeys here. needing the mouse to be involved is overall regrettable. my poor tendons

[brewer bob]

needing the mouse to be involved is overall regrettable. my poor tendons

Yup. I'm going to have to skip Premium until the game is 100% keyboard playable.

[Bumber]

Just did this ingame. The way to convert an updown stair to an up stair is to build a floor over it and then build an upward stair on top of the floor. Hopefully we'll get the same features we had before to avoid needing this workaround.

So, hypothetically, I should be able to construct stairs over the tiles I marked in red and that would work. Unfortunately some bug is causing those tiles (and the one directly above) to be considered blocked, despite the existence of stone and dwarves on both sides.

Save is here: https://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=16188

Edit: Digging stairs adjacent to the desired spots stops them from being blocked and lets you build the stairs.

[Alyfox]

yeah this seems like a big oversight, since you can no longer build constructed items from above, at least it seems overly convoluted to designate and requires a bunch of extra steps. its a nice feature to designate all parts of a staircase at once, but we really need the ability to just plop down an "Up stair" or a "up/down stair" at will.

trust me I know what I'm doing. a lot of the GUI feels like it was designed for the completely new player while making things difficult for experienced players - and I'm not just complaining about learning new hotkeys here. needing the mouse to be involved is overall regrettable. my poor tendons

I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling like things are *more* difficult in some ways. Some other things I noticed: its more troublesome to assign just a single labor item, since it seems like many need to have a 'custom labour' or 'custom job' or whatever set up for it. Like, I want a dwarf doing *just* stonecrafting, not all stoneworking. Etc.
I couldnt figure out how to see a dwarfs physical attribute variations/modifiers/whatever you want to call it, during embark - in regular play its under health tab then (something tab), but  that was blank during embark.
The stairs thing was another thing I immediately noticed. Then, during embark, having to click every single time on the + to increase a stack, rather than just being able to push.. uh..  whatever key it was (brain malfunctioning today due to lack of sleep). I am sure there will be many more things like this I will stumble over in the coming days @_@

However, I will add that I *love* the new world map. I can actually comprehend it now. And the tile set used during gameplay is real nice as well. I *would* like to be able to see extensive Legends Viewer-level detail on my worlds background and stuff though

[milo christiansen]

The new stair mechanics are not fit for purpose. In short, they are total shit.

I have run into several issues trying to build perfectly logical stairs and the game just not allowing it because one end or another would have to intersect a solid, blocked, or otherwise "unreachable" area. For example, building down to a floor, you cannot end with an up/down stair so that you can continue digging from there. Same with building up to a roof.

It has become very clear to me that someone doesn't play their game enough.

[Salmeuk]

meh don't be too harsh. as is often the case with DF releases, a series of post-update updates tend to smooth over these rough edges. it is important we outline exactly what is rough so those with power know what to fix. so compile a list of your own gripes or frustrations and hopefully we can find recourse.

I mean... has there ever been a completely playable update of DF? often bugs will halt that sweet, sweet feeling of a new DF version. I'm so far impressed at the lack of crashes and whatnot.

The stairs then appears to be a bug, since you simply cannot designate downward despite previously having access from above.

[Buttery_Mess]

It's certainly streamlined the stair building process, but not being able to build an up stair over the cavern breach really messes up the whole fortress design. I just basically had to throw away *yet another* starting fort because I have broken staircase at ten levels down I don't seem to be able to fix.

I'm getting really frustrated with the new version.

[Erk]

meh don't be too harsh. as is often the case with DF releases, a series of post-update updates tend to smooth over these rough edges.

The current state of steam reminds me a lot of the immediate followup of the 2014 update. I think it's slightly rockier now, but only slightly.

The flip is that my children are playing, on their own, with only advice from me rather than me needing to explain everything and them getting bored. I'll take that in exchange for a bumpy start any day. The new release is playable if flawed as is, and I think soon enough it will be the best DF yet. Until then we still have the old release for the people who are frustrated, nothing has been taken away.

[Buttery_Mess]

Yeah so far I'm having a blast after a slightly rocky start. The number 1 issue is with not being able to build staircases properly any more. Without the ability to build staircases properly, you can't even deploy workarounds to not being able to build staircases properly! It's bothersome to me as I usually build very vertically dependent cube forts. What's that, want to build up from a staircase you've already built? Impossible now without carving out ramps, which might well mess up your fortress design. Very big fly in otherwise a very nice ointment.

[anewaname]

There are a couple of ways to fix up/down stairs without ramps or adjacent stairs...

First example:
You dug straight down into the cavern roof, and you want to construct stairs downwards to the cavern floor. You have
X            <-- z 2, the up/down stairs that opened up the cavern roof
              <-- z 1, empty cavern
_             <-- z 0, cavern floor
and you want
X            <-- z 2
X            <-- z 1
<            <-- z 0, cavern floor
You need to dig out an orthogonal floor tile at z=2, then construct the stairs over those three tiles. But you also want the stairs to go straight down from there, so you channel an orthogonal tile at z=0, then 'm'ine s't'airs from z=0 downwards, and when z=-1 is dug into up/down stairs, the stairs at z=0 will convert from a constructed up-stairs to up/down stairs.

Second example:
If you were digging up/downs and but you have
X            <-- z 2
>            <-- z 1
X            <-- z 0
and you want
X            <-- z 2
X            <-- z 1
X            <-- z 0
You need an orthogonal floor tile at z-levels 0, 1, and 2 (natural or constructed floor), then you will be able to construct the stairs over those three tiles.

Third example:
You built stairs on the surface and you want them to go up to z=6, so you have
>            <-- z 2
X            <-- z 1
<            <-- z 0
Construct stairs from z=1 to z=6 and z=2 will be replaced with an up/down.

It costs extra building material when you build over older stairs and you may want to build walls in each orthogonal tile you dug out, so it is not ideal. It is easy.

[Lexyvil]

That is one of my main issues right now, where you can't build 1-elevation stairs of a certain type to be more flexible for situations like this. It's having me to build at minimum two stairs when that 2nd one is often needless for me and I have to take an extra step and remove the 2nd construction.

I really want to be able to build an upstairs on top of a carved up/down stairs to block entry from the elevation below without that workaround with ease like we used to.

There are many changes that have been done that I do hope gets fixed or improved. I'm sure they will be, with time.