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[Aqizzar]

I'm making a big artificial natural cave in my fort (or will when I get some more miners), and I need ideas on how to make it cool.

I have a cave river.  It's not in an opportune spot, but it is complete, so with some rerouting I have effectively limitless water and a place to drain it.

I do not have magma.  Well, any to spare - it's just a finite magma pool, so I can't use any of it elsewhere.

I was planning to use ramps to strip mine huge rooms and add any irregularities I can.  Probably by following rock-types without digging them.  It'll have to span a few z-levels with some streams and bridges and such.  Should take me a while to build.

[Hyndis]

It would be ideal for an underground fishing setup. Have a big, meandering river in a cavern with decent sized banks on either side. Carved into the walls of the cavern could be houses or workshops, with frequent bridges over the river.


Think Ironforge, except water instead of magma. 


Also, I'm assuming you're going to "sanitize" the river first? You could leave ramps connecting the river bed to the dry river banks, such that any dwarf who falls in can easily escape, but this would also mean any hostiles in the river could also easily reach the shore to cause mayhem. While this could be highly amusing, there are only a finite number of hostiles in rivers, so that source of entertainment would rapidly dry up.

You could add in a few waterfalls as well.

[Hyndis]

Hmm...actually I think I might just go and try this myself. To help with the natural cave feel I'll build it centered along a natural underground river, extending off, say, 10 squares on either side of the river? That would keep the natural feel of the place and provide ample underground walkways.

The only trick is that most underground rivers are not level, so I couldn't follow one for more than a screen's space, which would suck. Sanitizing the river would be easy enough, as would be stopping up the river long enough to widen it sufficiently.

Or, perhaps I could experiment with aquatic miners. Since training swimming is extremely difficult to do in fortress mode, I could just start off with 5 points in swimming skills for my miners, so they could do all the work while the river is still running.


Do proficient swimmers freely enter water? Or do they still refuse to get wet?

[Aqizzar]

Even legendary swimmers will consider water to be Dangerous Terrain and try to escape as fast as possible.  I do know that dwarves with no other path except through water (remember that dwarves will never jump) will keep trying to walk through water, then bail out again.

For size, natural caves pay very little attention to walkability, and I'll do the same.  This thing is going to have quite a bit of vertical volume.

And "finite" cave creatures may be, I still got about five pages of them, though there's quite a few trapped in the separate pool.  Every once in a while one will fall down the shaft and die, but there's still an ass-load of frogmen and cave crocodiles trying to climb out of my well.

[Martin]

If the water is low enough they'll go in. I had some of my miners dig out rooms with 2/3 height water. 4 might be pushing it, though.

[Duke 2.0]

 Perhaps the lower levels should be splashed with water to produce vegetation? I'm sure caves have some form of mud if they have a water source, so that would make things seem a bit more thematic. But my greatest concern about a river is it changing z-levels, as the short waterfalls might overfill their intended ditches.

 So, how many z-levels of rock do you have available? Ho many are you going to hollow out?

[Hyndis]

I just made a new world,found a rather nice 5x5 spot. It has a magma pipe, brook, underground river 5 tiles long, chasm, and HFS, and even a natural cave inhabited by a named leopard.

I plan on diverting the underground river into the chasm while I work. Its several Z levels unfortunately, but I figure I can drop the river down to the same Z level by temporarily dumping it into the chasm.

[Warlord255]

A little while ago, I found a chasm that intersected an aquifer level.

Shame my embarkers got eaten by giant bats.

[Duke 2.0]

A little while ago, I found a chasm that intersected an aquifer level.

Shame my embarkers got eaten by giant bats.

Wait, what?

 So it was a ring of water constantly flowing into the chasm?

 There needs to be a fortress based upon this. Preferably a fortress like Speargrove.

[Onlyhestands]

And "finite" cave creatures may be, I still got about five pages of them, though there's quite a few trapped in the separate pool.  Every once in a while one will fall down the shaft and die, but there's still an ass-load of frogmen and cave crocodiles trying to climb out of my well.

I would recomend taking out the Cave creatures soon. Its painful having a Cave Crocodile explosion (as they reproduce).

[Aqizzar]

I would recomend taking out the Cave creatures soon. Its painful having a Cave Crocodile explosion (as they reproduce).

Or I can just leave them in the river, and make sure they can't get out.  Maybe leave a door somewhere, so I can occasionally challenge myself with a crocodile invasion.

 Perhaps the lower levels should be splashed with water to produce vegetation? I'm sure caves have some form of mud if they have a water source, so that would make things seem a bit more thematic. But my greatest concern about a river is it changing z-levels, as the short waterfalls might overfill their intended ditches.

 So, how many z-levels of rock do you have available? Ho many are you going to hollow out?

I was planning to muddy as much of the cavern as I can, for a nice underground forest effect.  And because I'm playing with goblins, who can't farm, so I need the shrubs for booze.

It's a pretty flat map, so about 15 z-levels of stone, maybe less in the area I plan to use.  That's still enough for a good 5-10 level cavern.

Speaking of plants, does anyone know if surface biome effects the rate of underground plant growth?  I'm in a savanna, and I'd hate to think that my tower-cap farm is cursed to be an underground scrubland.

[qwertilliopasd]

I need ideas on how to make it cool.

I would suggest lots of narrow winding corridors, a few large chambers (multiple z-levels large) and maybe a "natural" interesting formation or two (ie a rock that looks like a dwarf). Make it easy to get lost, but rewarding when you stumble on a gigantic room with huge stalactites and stalagmites (and gems?). A river running through a part of it would also be cool.
[/two cents]

[Hyndis]

It seems that the kind of underground plants you get are the exact same one dwarves can grow. Plump helmets, sweet pods, tower caps, etc. I haven't seen anything besides those grow, ever.

[Areyar]

I'm curious what will happen to natural caves and caverivers when cave-ins is reapaired?

AFAIK they are don't have enough support...unless the arched ceiling is self supporting.

Nice idea though, I've been wanting to do the same thing for a long time.

[Metalax]

You won't have seen anything else grow because there are no other subterranean plants that exist in the raws.

If you want there to be subterranean plants that are not available for farming you will have to mod in some new plants and ensure that they do not have seeds.