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[Muz]

Lol, I feel like such a noob. I designed a complicated floodgate system which were activated from the broker's office. The purpose? Drowning nobles. It worked brilliantly too (except for drainage)! Since my current fortress is "ethical", I'm planning to build a huge prison complex for prisoners so I have somewhere to keep them so I don't have to kill them. It runs similar to the Fort Geneva challenge

[Mohreb el Yasim]

what is ethical about drowing nobles in your fortress? i mean how you make an ethical fortress and killing nobles in the same time?

[Muz]

No, no, I mean that I'm planning a massive high-security prison compound for POWs for this new fort  The killing nobles thing was for my previous fort, which I decided to flood because I got bored of it.

[andrea]

haven't done anything "mega" at the moment.only bg thing is a 4 tiles wide channel that almost drains a cave river(it start just behind the waterfall, and is 1 zlevel under the river) and make a huge waterfall in the chasm, where nobody can see it.

but reading this i got an idea: dwarven hammers: a very long corridor where there are many rock hammers. rock hammers aren't meant as modded war hamers in traps, but HUGE hammers made by contructed walls. that stay in air only because of a grate (or, if that isn't possible, i'll use pillars.).
1)enemy comes.
2)i press a lever/enemy step on a pressure plate
3)hundreds of stone walls fall on the enemyes
4)kill all the enemyes who managed to get only stunned
5)rebuild everything
6)repeat

it won't work well like traps or a well trained army. it needs an huge work. it is very dangerous.

but what is more dwarfy than a huge hammerfall trap made of rock that is so big that it can crush a whole army?

but i still don't know if i should make 2 very huge hammers (using all z levels  can, decorated with gems, glass, steel) or many smaller hamemrs? (smaller hammers are still quite big. and they works better, since there is a long corridor under them.)

maybe i should do both.

[Shurikane]

Try building a glass tomb:



Make it as big and beautiful as your skills can muster.  Once it's complete, lure everyone in, seal the entrance and wait for death and mayhem to ensue.  For bonus points, submerge the structure underwater.

When I did it, fighting broke out and the lever controlling the floodgates diverting the river actually broke apart, thereby irrevocably sealing everyone's doom. 

[Kidiri]

A domed grave for your original expedition noble. A radius of 15 'blocks' of ground will be enough, I think. And post a movie of it when it's done. I'm dying to know how a dome works out. I want to construct one myself at my current map. Actually, four (I'm a bit OCD when it comes to symmetry). Each one will be accessed by exactly the same maze, except it will be mirrored as necessary. Big, big plans... but seriously, I'd like to see a dome appear somewhere. Preferably with a video.

[Paul]

In regards to uploading a map of my described glass air fortress, I never made one

I've never been a big map uploader... I may eventually build another such glass tower fortress, and when I do I'll be sure to make a map before I kill everyone. I did upload a map at a later date of an example windmill tower (first time I even used the DF map archive), the same kind of thing I used on my glass fortress, but that was way after I wiped out my glass air fort.

It wasn't anything extra special, though. Just a basic setup - a big square with a multi story wing of rooms with all the dwarves living in them, a crafts area, magma forges/furnaces area, dining room, etc. If I ever do it again I'll probably make it in some kind of special design instead of a big box. The only thing making it a 'mega project' was the sheer size of the thing, and that it was all glass.

[John Johnston]

I have some long term plans, I'm not sure whether any of them will work but it'll be fun to try:

1)  Refuse mass spectrometer.  Goblins (or other refuse) goes in at the top and disintegrates on landing.  Water is released which pushes the various items on their corpses around; the lighter objects get moved further.  Ideally it should end with the various objects from the dead goblins deposited right next to appropriate stockpiles.

(I'm building a device at the moment which uses the first part of the design, but is planned just to flush away the lighter stuff into the chasm.  Depending on how well it works, I may try the more complicated full spectrometer.)

2)  Automatic bone generator.  Somehow pen off animals in such a manner that offspring are produced, automatically die, rot and leave their bones somewhere dwarf-accessible.  Ideally it should require no dwarf input whatsoever once running.

3)  (Topical!)  Goblin linac.  Goblins enter at one end and are flung down a tunnel on a series of raising drawbridges before smashing into a target at the far end.  Getting the timing right and making the goblins fly straight will be the challenge.

The project I've spent the most time on was a large curtain wall around one of my old fortresses, but that was before we could mass-designate constructions.

[A_Fey_Dwarf]

At the moment I am planning to build a my fortress completly out of blocks in a dug out pit. After that is complete I will probably fill the pit surrounding the built tower with magma and water to create obsidian. Here is a map of my work in progress: http://www.mkv25.net/dfma/map-3530

[LordBucket]

My only noteworthy megaproject was a fortress built completely of glass on a map without magma, and no digging of any kind allowed. No stone, no metal, and wood only allowed for things that can't be made of glass, like beds.

It was fun for a while, but it did eventually get tedious. It takes a lot of glass to make 23x47 ceilings and floors. (The size of the default display window.) Plus, the inability to engrave floors and the low value of glass made it painfully difficult to keep nobles happy.

Not really recommended, but if anyone wants to try it I'd suggest a map with magma, and skip the "no digging" rule. Keeping even an early noble happy without engraving or statues is pretty much hopeless.

[Paul]

I had the same kind of thing with my glass tower fort. I kept the nobles happy by importing precious metals and gems and making valuable furniture for them. One caravan load of all the precious gems from the dwarves plus a load of precious metals from the humans made some ridiculously valuable furniture for the noble's rooms.

I started with a metalsmith and gem setter.

Even green glass studded with gems can make some very valuable furniture.

[Theusje]

Right now I'm busy with a huge aquaduct, 25 z-levels above ground. It was supposed to hold magma, since it was near a volcano but then I found some damp stones. I don't know if they hold unlimited water, it's a bit unrealistic. Anyway I'm already prepared to pump water that high ...

Edit: looks like I'm lucky, I found some sort of aquifer on high grounds, near my volcano.

[Dareon Clearwater]

I'm currently working on a large temple complex, made entirely out of marble blocks, brass (First I brought copper to forge equipment.  Then I ordered copper and wondered why.  Then I hit sphalerite.  Then I hit malachite.), black bronze, and wood blocks.  And I'm doing it with a hermit.  Well, a hermit, an immigrant peasant designated "Husband", and a metalworker that came over all queer and refused to starve before he'd made his black bronze cabinet.  The roomfull of spikes in the meeting hall zone should keep any more people like that from happening.

Naturally I'm doing it in an area with marble strata, I'm not TOTALLY insane.  Given that my hermit nearly hit Legendary Miner while digging out the tunnels in the arable layers, and given that I've dug down into four marble layers (With inconvenient microcline, mica, and orthoclase pockets), I think I'll be able to do it.

[RebelZhouYuWu]

The key to making nobles happy with inexpensive building materials is size.  I have done this with my nobles before by building masive wooden rooms.

[Sareth]

Try building a glass tomb:



Make it as big and beautiful as your skills can muster.  Once it's complete, lure everyone in, seal the entrance and wait for death and mayhem to ensue.  For bonus points, submerge the structure underwater.

When I did it, fighting broke out and the lever controlling the floodgates diverting the river actually broke apart, thereby irrevocably sealing everyone's doom. 

It would be epic to build it out of clear or even crystal glass and submerge it in magma.