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[praguepride]

I too do the "mine shaft" method. It takes the least amount of dwarf work but I swear it takes the most amount of work me-wise.

Considering my dwarves are running at ~25 FPS, I figure I can spare more time then they can

[arcane]

When I'm looking for ore/magma/pools I carve my Z layers up into 15x15 squares, then I mine out the inside of those squares to create 13x13 rooms.  Smooth and Engrave for noble quality cells quarters.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I Prefer this method
D=dug
X=Stone

DXXDDXXDD
DXXXDXXXD
DDXXDDXXD
DXXXDXXXD
DXXDDXXDD

It gives a larger space in the middle, which means less work, but cutting out the small bits means you See EVERY bit of stone.

[Zorgn]

I Prefer this method
D=dug
X=Stone

DXXDDXXDD
DXXXDXXXD
DDXXDDXXD
DXXXDXXXD
DXXDDXXDD

It gives a larger space in the middle, which means less work, but cutting out the small bits means you See EVERY bit of stone.

I don't understand why you're using this method instead of the one Barbarossa showed. I'm not seeing the advantage in this, and the other one is quicker to designate.

[Hyndis]

I shift+arrow to designate single width tunnels on a 10x10 grid. I'll later widen these to 3 wide corridors, and I can use the blocks of rock as rooms later on.

In the case of above ground rock, I'll simply dig up/down stairs through the entire mountain, haul out all the gems and ore, and then rig the mountain to collapse, leaving only a gigantic pile of rocks.

[Mephansteras]

I'm pretty lazy. I'll do a very long 2-wide cross starting at my main mining staircase (usually a 2x2 up/down). Once those arms are done, and I've mined out any veins/gems discovered, I'll start doing 2-wide tunnels forming a square about 10-20 squares out from the staircase. When that's done, I'll do a larger square a bit farther out, and keep up that pattern until I've explored enough to be satisfied that I've gotten a decent amount of material out of that layer.

I mod so much that I rarely keep a fortress around more then a few years, so this method saves me time, finds lots of minerals, and has the bonus of finding underground features fairly consistently. If I really want to look for something (say, rubies/sapphires in bauxite) I'll do the single-wide tunnel every 3 squares approach so I don't miss anything. But I reserve that for gem exploration, since metals don't usually need that level of detail.

[Omnidum]

[Snip]

Is there a reason why you're doing more work than you need to? Other than tormenting the dwarves I mean...

There is. I found three types of gemstones and pitchblende on that mining. Thus I deduct it is easy to designate AND covers an area that is huge. Though I should make two spaces instead a single one.

[Zaranthan]

Though I should make two spaces instead a single one.

That's what we're saying.

For the benefit of other readers, picture this:

Code: [Select]

OOOOO
OXXXO
OX XO
OXXXO
OOOOO
The space in the center is mined out. The Xs are revealed. If you mine out any of the Os, you're wasting effort, because some of the tiles the Os reveal are already revealed.

Now, there's no helping some amount of wastage. Dropping single-tile shafts like this takes forever to designate and requires an empty layer above, so it really comes down to framerate. If you're getting 100+ FPS, then ribcage layouts that are easy to designate give you much more productivity for your gaming time. Only as the game slows to a crawl does spending player effort to save dwarf effort become worthwhile.

[Aldaris]

I make my fort in using a single main staricase and some staricases in multi level workshop areas, I extend the main one ~5 leves underneath my estimated fort bottom, and then designate a box pattern of d-d-enter-shift DIRECTION - shift SAME DIRECTION - enter, make box, repeat. I hit nearly all veins with this, and it quickly finds underground features, and enough gems to make up for those I miss. If I can't find what I'm looking for I split up each box into four equal sized boxes.

[Shades]

I too do the "mine shaft" method. It takes the least amount of dwarf work but I swear it takes the most amount of work me-wise.

Considering my dwarves are running at ~25 FPS, I figure I can spare more time then they can

I have a script to do a sendkeys type thing to the game that sets up the mine shaft method so it's pretty much minimal of anyone's time

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I randomly dig out in no specific pattern.

[Skorpion]

Depends.
If I want to USE the area, I mine it out so I get 5*5 blocks.
If I don't want to use it and I'm prospecting the area for stone types and veins, I dig a long single-wide tunnel, then right-angle single-wide tunnels off of it, with a gap of two tiles between them.
If I've discovered a vein of something, I strip-mine where I think it's going, then carve out an easier access route. Size of the strip-mine is usually two vein-widths on each side, to catch exotic metals and so forth.

[GetAssista]

Code: [Select]

......
.X..X.
......
......
.X..X.
...... for me, with designating script

[Finalfish]

I hollow out the map and rewall when I want contained rooms. I engraved one of my first forts, and got sick of it when I couldn't tell my live dwarfs from the engraved faces.

Seriously, who thought that was a good idea?

One of the designation options is to toggle engravings so they look like normal smoothed walls again. You can also edit the init file so this is the default state.

[Duke 2.0]

Code: [Select]

#####
#####
#####
#####
###### = Up/down stairs. Whereupon I remove the stairs level by level 'till I have massive caves.

 Sure it takes forever and most of the stone is forbidden, but I always embark with a sedimentary layer for ores and such rocks are always somewhat valuable.