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[Yuu_Inohara]

So yeah, since this isn't really a community fort or story, and its left question territory, and it involves Dwarf Mode, I figured I'd start a topic here detailing my attempt to hollow out a mountain and construct a city inside of it. If theres a better place for to be, the moderators can feel free to move it there if they wish. I'll be marking down screenshots of anything interesting that happens and any significant progress I make.

[Jackrabbit]

Sounds great but that pretty much counts as a story. I suggest you move it. Have fun and good luck!

[Dwarf]

This is one of the most original ideas I've seen.

No, really, I'm always interested in such stuff. Keep it up.

[Noble Digger]

Making the mountain into a big rock dome will be a lot of work with all the channeling and whatnot. Designating Ramps can save you a lot of time. Go to 1 level below the highest level that needs to be dug out, and designate ramps. Ramping digs out the tile the ramp is on, and the tile above it, and channels the tile above it. In this way you can dig vertical shafts using the ramp tool without having to be so goddamn cautious about your use of the channeling tool.

Like if you wanted to make a dome of the mountain below shown from a side-view:

Code: [Select]

    ###
   #####
  #######
 #########
###########

You would dig ramps on all the tiles marked R, one z-level at a time, starting with the highest one, and not have to do any other digging.

    ###
   #####
  ###R###
 ###RRR###
###RRRRR###

Ending up with this, and all the stone on the bottom level.

    ###
   ## ##
  ##   ##
 ##     ##
##_______##



[Time Kitten]

Say, why not take it a bit further than putting a city inside the mountain, but putting a city around the mountain as well, having at least 1 space between it and any wall or floor, maybe just accessed by a bridge or two to let game wardens in, or use it as an arena to deal with ambushes and seiges, but for the most part completely preserved and shielded completely from flyers by walls and floors of the buildings above and around it. Bonus points if after the city inside has thrown out all their excess stone they seal themselves up so the mew imigrints start working on the outside never knowing there are other dwarves below.

[Heron TSG]

or even cooler- dwarves on the outside, with a massive biodome made out of the mountain! just make giant wooden trees, find a way to get grass underground, and release a majillion birds and animals into their new lair. your nobles can (forcibly) go hunting wild dragon for sport.

[Fossaman]

I'm curious; do you intend to hollow out the mountain completely, or just the bits you need to remove to shape buildings? Having a big central column of rock that's got a skyscraper carved into it supporting the top of the mountain would be dang cool.

[xpCynic]

I'm doing something similar to this (http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-4763-gearmanorsthecityofstone - I've been linking this a lot lately ). It's not particularly grandiose like what you might be going for, but I can offer some advice.
First of all, working level by level seems easiest, and carving the city out of the rock you dig (rather than building it up) is easier and allows for engraving. Don't worry about all the stone right away (I learned this the hard way - so much time wasted clearing it away!), but once you've got defenses and all the important stuff you can set up a really small dump zone to get it out of the way. Use it for practice catapults or something. And avoid trying to look at it all on the stocks menu.

[Martin]

I'm curious; do you intend to hollow out the mountain completely, or just the bits you need to remove to shape buildings? Having a big central column of rock that's got a skyscraper carved into it supporting the top of the mountain would be dang cool.

I'm doing something like this on a smaller scale. It's an outdoor fortress but all the buildings are carved out of the shoulder of the surrounding mountains - from 3-5 stories tall, but with a carved 30 story spire (yes, the mountain face is that tall). The advantage to this is that every building is underground since the interior spaces have never seen light. Requires a fair bit of planning since you really need to work from top down if you plan on smoothing the roofs and clearing them of stone.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-4553-westlash

I'm planning on uploading a map which shows more of the tower now that things are further along, but I can't seem to turn out a map small enough for DFMA to accept.

[Yuu_Inohara]

Alright small setback, after getting caught in the end of quarter rush in college and then spending most of spring break generating maps, I've yet to find a decent mountain with which to do this plan with... Now I've found suitable mountains don't get me wrong, they're just either smack dab in the middle of undead central or just have nothing in the line of the resources I need (mainly sand and wood). So, due to this rash of bad luck, unless someone has a generated map with a good mountain on it, I'll go to plan B, hollowing out a segment of a mountain range and working from there, work should start sometime wednesday or so. At this point I doubt this'll be as original as I hoped it would be, but damn it, I'm doing it anyway, come hell or high water (famous last words...).

As for how I'm working this, I plan to leave as much of the floors between layers intact as possibly to aid in city planning, and I'll probably carve buildings out as I go along, but I'll still be carving out most of the rock as I go along.

[BurnedToast]

I've tried this before

If you choose a small mountain, it's not really that impressive and dosn't have much space inside for anything but the basics.

If you choose a big mountain, it takes too damn long to dig out.

in my experience, anyway.

[inaluct]

Has anyone tried digging all of it out into up/down stairs and letting the dwarves move in three dimensions? You could build rooms suspended in the mountain of stairs.

[BurnedToast]

Has anyone tried digging all of it out into up/down stairs and letting the dwarves move in three dimensions? You could build rooms suspended in the mountain of stairs.

Yes, this DESTROYED my framerate - I went from ~300 fps to ~50 fps and it was only 2 z-levels half dug out of stairs.

Giving the pathfinder lots and lots more options = generally bad.

[Taritus]

The shear amount of rock this generates is staggering.  I tried it once.  Make it a long term project.  I suggest treating your dwarves like humans until you hollow out the mountain and build outside and aboveground.

[Alex Encandar]

Similar concept I used when I designed the center of my fortress in this map:

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-3922-fountaintomb