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[G-Flex]

Negative-temperature systems in the real world are honestly something entirely different, though. Well, mostly different. They don't represent very cold things, and hardly even represent very hot things, although they sort of do. It's used in exotic circumstances that fall outside the range of normal temperature considerations.

[HLBeta]

Do the edges of the map provide support in the current version? If not, are there any protections against the cave-in of the entire surface on small maps with the new cavern systems? While funny, I can see this being a major problem for players, especially if encountered in adventure mode.

[Sean Mirrsen]

My suggestion for a "ladder" would be a single 2x1 building placed on the highest point. Both tiles are passable, but one must be over empty space. Depending on the amount of rope added to the ladder's construction, it can reach down a different amount of Z-levels. Upon construction, the lower portions of the building are automatically created. Per se, there would be no building spanning multiple Z-levels - instead it would be like a vertical axle attached to a gearbox above. Destroy one segment, the rest plummet. The actual building may even be linked up to some mechanisms, for raising/lowering. For this, the lower segments would need to be declared as children of the top building, and work like a really large floodgate - IIRC, floodgates already span multiple Z-levels, in that they rise to the upper level when open. I might be wrong though. I'm pretty sure drawbridges to that, too. Or do they simply make a "floor"?

[nil]

Neither floodgates nor grawbridges do anything to the z-level above... but otherwise I think you're right, in that something similar to vertical axles is probably the way to go.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Either way, the floodgate code is the way to handle retractable ladder segments. They still exist as a building, but can be neither seen nor broken as long as they're raised.

[PermanentInk]

Stairs (both dug and constructed) are just tile types.  A building is something you can examine with 'q'.  Conceptually though, a rope ladder would be kind of an odd mix of the two, since it would be built like a restraint (chain/rope) building, but used like a set of stairs.

Built like a restraint?  I'm not sure what you base that assumption on.  The analogue I have in mind is constructed stairs.  The differences between rope ladders and stairs would be the materials (rope (or chain?) instead of stone) and the connection/support rules (so you can build downward into open space).

As a totally different alternative, create it as a building that sits on the top level next to/on top of a channeled-out square, and lower the rope dynamically like a well does.  Basically, a winch.  Then you just need to be able to path along the lowered rope.

All that said, I think this should probably be cut for now; we can probably find slightly more circuitous ways to get down there and be just fine.

[Footkerchief]

Stairs (both dug and constructed) are just tile types.  A building is something you can examine with 'q'.  Conceptually though, a rope ladder would be kind of an odd mix of the two, since it would be built like a restraint (chain/rope) building, but used like a set of stairs.

Built like a restraint?  I'm not sure what you base that assumption on.  The analogue I have in mind is constructed stairs.  The differences between rope ladders and stairs would be the materials (rope (or chain?) instead of stone) and the connection/support rules (so you can build downward into open space).

Toady referred to specifically to it as a building that spans multiple z-levels, which would be meaningless for constructions since they're implemented as a tile type and so a single construction cannot span multiple tiles in any direction.

Other bases for assumption: a) it would probably require you to select a restraint item to be used in the building, b) that item would probably show up when you 't' over the building, c) it's intuitively more similar to a rope attached to a surface than to a pile of stones or logs, d) constructions are built by material specialists (masons for stone walls, etc.), which doesn't seem to make sense for a rope ladder, e) constructions don't allow q-options like retracting the ladder, which is basically mandatory.

[Sean Mirrsen]

It doesn't have to physically span multiple Z-levels. It can simply auto-create a series of consecutively attached stair-like meta-floodgates on lower Z-levels, internally linked to the building so that they "raise" and disappear when the building's trigger is pulled. It'll make more sense for each individual segment to show what it's made of, because then you can destroy a ladder's segment and the rest will fall to the ground, leaving appropriate amounts of source materials.

[CobaltKobold]

Hang on. If cubic centimeters are entering DF for creature size, and it's related to weight, how does this translate to the rest of the game? Working backward from creature weights in-game, would it be possible to gauge the RL weight of objects measured in Dwarfpounds?

It's just the first cute, innocent-looking little worm poking its head out of the can.

piffle. Material densities are in 40d in a g/cc form. If you really need a metric to start a translation, check weight of a human corpse.

[Neruz]

A short-term fix would be modifying the construction code slightly to allow you to build stairs hanging beneath other stairs (instead of only on top of other stairs).

So i build a down stairs over the abyss, then build up\down stairs below it until i go down to the level i want to be on.

[CobaltKobold]

Since you can build hanging stairtowers if you take the time to scaffold from beneath, I like that idea. I suspect the reason it is not possible is something odd with pathcode- a downstair implying a down path, or some such, so it would cause one-way stair pathway?

Oh, and you can have hanging down/mixstairs- they don't fall after the fact, if you remove the lower stair and support them otherwise

[Neruz]

Yeah, i know you can make hanging stairs, but you have to build up, for some reason you can't build them down.

I found this incredibly vexing when i went to build a fort that was suspended as a tower in the middle of a bottomless pit, only to discover that i couldn't build down without digging through teh walls of the pit, which sucked.

We can dig downwards with stairs, but not build downwards with stairs

[CobaltKobold]

Yeah. IT's annoying. About all you could o would be obsidian-cast and drop the sucker whole onto some ledge in the pit, if dug stairs survive...I don't know.

Interesting Tidbit: digging (or building, I forget) an upstair below an upstair turns the upper one into an up-downstair automatically.

[Warlord255]

Yeah. IT's annoying. About all you could o would be obsidian-cast and drop the sucker whole onto some ledge in the pit, if dug stairs survive...I don't know.

Interesting Tidbit: digging (or building, I forget) an upstair below an upstair turns the upper one into an up-downstair automatically.

Similarly, using the Remove Ramps/Upstairs designation on an Up/Down stair turns it into a down stair.

I think the axle logic thing with ropeladders works pretty handily.

[CobaltKobold]

Ha'e you seen how horribly things can turn out with build orders on Hanging mechanical stuff?

On the flip side, I guess it is guaranteed to be supported since you need to (normally, I know how to break dwarf-logic on this) be able to orthogonally-access to construct, which would support. So maybe it'd All Work Out with Magical Happiness.