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[userpay]

I don't think anyone's figured out how to make carbon monowire long enough quite just yet.  The strands they've succeeded in making are more like fibers.  But yeah, 3 trillion dollars.

Carbon nanotube fibers are already being mass produced by the ton, and to turn fibers into a cable or ribbon just requires weaving. The fibers aren't quite strong enough yet, but thats an issue of manufacturing tech. The biggest hurdle is simply the money. It'd take a ton of R&D money to work out all the kinks, but the basic idea is sound. Its just that the Manhattan Project like drive to develop it is missing. However, it'd still be a pittance compared to all the money spend on blowing stuff up for no good reason.   

/rant

But blowing up stuff is fun, maybe we do it a bit to often but you can't deny its fun.

[ChocoHearts]

Carbon nanotube fibers are already being mass produced by the ton, and to turn fibers into a cable or ribbon just requires weaving. The fibers aren't quite strong enough yet, but thats an issue of manufacturing tech. The biggest hurdle is simply the money. It'd take a ton of R&D money to work out all the kinks, but the basic idea is sound. Its just that the Manhattan Project like drive to develop it is missing. However, it'd still be a pittance compared to all the money spend on blowing stuff up for no good reason.   

/rant

Yeah, but remember, the Manhattan Project used all that money to do what?

That's right, blow stuff up.

So all we need to do is convince the government that a good use of space elevators would be to blow stuff up, and we'd be in business!

[jp.mech]

I'd like to see something more advanced than the 7x7 limit. I still adhere to it (mostly) but I'd like to think that a multi-z-level cavern (say digging out a pyramid shape) would allow a larger base.

Though, I just had a construction cave-in while starting a roof for an outdoor barracks, the dwarfs had started on a section off a bridge that I had built from another roof, rather than on the supports below.  The piece and a dwarf fall through 4 floors! Had to place floors down to fix the hole and replace some stockpiles it went through.

So cave-ins are still in, but only when you your dwarfs build constructions carelessly.

[Wang Commander]

So all we need to do is convince the government that a good use of space elevators would be to blow stuff up, and we'd be in business!

Cheaply drop rocks on people... FROM SPACE!

[Soadreqm]

I can think of a few non-peaceful uses for a space elevator. A launch platform tall enough to just glide anywhere in the world is far from useless. Perhaps it would be a bit vulnerable. The mental image of a few ICBMs reducing to rubble the giant tower that it took three decades to build (and utterly destroying whatever it falls on) might deter investors.

Anyway, the materials are causing some trouble. I'm sure three trillion dollars would help with that, unless of course it turns out that carbon nanotubes just aren't strong enough.

[tp12]

7x7 cavein rule... never seen it... still want it... wird...

[betamax]

I can think of a few non-peaceful uses for a space elevator. A launch platform tall enough to just glide anywhere in the world is far from useless. Perhaps it would be a bit vulnerable. The mental image of a few ICBMs reducing to rubble the giant tower that it took three decades to build (and utterly destroying whatever it falls on) might deter investors.

Anyway, the materials are causing some trouble. I'm sure three trillion dollars would help with that, unless of course it turns out that carbon nanotubes just aren't strong enough.

It wouldn't fall on things, just to let you know. The top of the elevator is being thrust away from earth by centrifugal force, which is why it needs a cable to keep it held down (it's a bit more complex, but you get the idea). Also, something as grand as a space elevator would be an international effort, probably in the control of the UN or something, and thus unlikely to be attacked.

[WCG]

I'm a newbie, and I wasn't sure about the cave-in rules, so on my first fortress, I made sure the load-bearing walls were in the same location on each z-level. That didn't mean the designs were identical (especially since I used supports in large rooms like my dining hall), but the floors and walls matched up reasonably well. I liked it, since it seemed to make sense (although I'm ignoring all that in my second fortress).

And that said, I still managed a cave-in. I was trying to remove the ceiling in the kitchen, to try to minimize miasma, so I sent my legendary miner to the area above and ordered her to channel out the whole thing. Of course, she channeled out all the way AROUND the room, instead of starting in the middle! This is a legendary miner??

She crashed through the kitchen, then through the farm below that (note that the open spaces all matched up) and landed in the hard rock on the following level. Luckily, no one was directly under her, though several dwarves were knocked out by the dust. And my miner lay in the rubble, bleeding and vomiting, for the longest time. None of the other dwarves seemed to care at all.

Surprisingly, she healed after about a year or so in a hospital bed. That was one tough dwarf!

Bill

[Osmosis Jones]

On topic; I heartily endorse the collapse rule. Never played 2D, but I find myself building buttressed, pillared rooms anyway. Adds character and realism


Off topic;

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Uhhh carbon nanotubes (CNTs), while individually very strong, have no real way of binding together and maintaing the strength. The very best methods lose orders of magnitude in tensile strength when bound together, whether by fibre spinning, cross-polymerisation or embedding in a external matrix (such as plastic or resin).

However, recently, research has produced carbon microtubes; much longer, much wider, and amazingly, much stronger. These may hold promise, but even so, they are many years away from development, and CNTs are further still.

That being said, space elevator rocks would be the ultimate dwarven superweapon

[Tormy]

I build according to the 7x7 rule, also. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Ahaha, me also! I thought that I am the only one, but it seems like that no...

[erendor]

<3 space elevators.  If anyone has read 'Red Mars' (and it's sequels), then you know about the space elevator in that book.  It connected Mars to an asteroid (and was easier than it would be on Earth, thanks to Mars' low gravity) and served as a very profitable launching point for trade.  And then, in the coolest real-life possible thing I think I've ever read in a book, someone blew up the connectors on the asteroid, sending it spinning into space.  The entire 40,000+ kilometre long cable scorches through the atmosphere, wrapping around the entire planet 1.5 times, leaving everything within a huge distance of the impact area vaporised.

Soo cool.

And then they built another one 

[Gnomechomsky]

I think the problem with reintroducing cave-ins is that the rule needs to be complex enough to encompass all the new 3D possibilities, while remaining simple enough that cave-ins can be 100% avoided by someone who's paying attention.

[Kogan Loloklam]

<3 space elevators.  If anyone has read 'Red Mars' (and it's sequels), then you know about the space elevator in that book.  It connected Mars to an asteroid (and was easier than it would be on Earth, thanks to Mars' low gravity) and served as a very profitable launching point for trade.  And then, in the coolest real-life possible thing I think I've ever read in a book, someone blew up the connectors on the asteroid, sending it spinning into space.  The entire 40,000+ kilometre long cable scorches through the atmosphere, wrapping around the entire planet 1.5 times, leaving everything within a huge distance of the impact area vaporised.

Soo cool.

And then they built another one 

Ben Bova's Venus...

"And still the tower fell."

It didn't quite wrap around the planet, nor would one. That book was the best description I have ever seen of what the collapse of a space elevator would truly be like. What kind of a target would THAT make? You don't need nukes, all you have to do is collapse a single tower and gravity will handle the rest.

What good would a space elevator do anyway? Our civilization wouldn't use one yet to the capacity that would justify 3 trillion dollars. At least the war gets back the gain. The money goes to build weapons, which improves the economy of the areas where the weapons manufactures are at. Then there is the gain of the plundered resources...

If war was so pointless, humanity would have stopped warring long ago. Unfortunately, there are real and tangible gains from wars, and hence lives are lost.

[Pilsu]

I leave pillars too, problem is 7x7 is nothing when you start building something decent. A simple throne room design can have a hallway that wide. Hmm, I suppose I should put the chairs next to eachother, cuts it down to 6 tiles wide. Shame there's only 2 colors of glass, I'd make a giant mosaic roof of a dragon or something. Hard to come up with filler for a room that grand though, maybe just make it the lobby and stripmine everything but a smallish bridge down to the lowest level. Shame chasms can't be made

Question, can you build supports on top of each other for those 2z level rooms or do you have to use natural stone pillars?

[hexrei]

What's funny is that didn't start playing this game until Z-levels were already implemented, but I read about 7x7 rule and assumed it was still in effect, so I've been digging and building supports according to that rule the whole time now. I was kinda wondering why the promised cave-in never occurred when I build a 10x10 room with only 1 support and then used an attached lever to activate it... good thing i tested it before trying to use it for a trap. One question answered.

So cave-ins don't happen now at all?