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[Vanguard Warden]

I was thinking about building a tall tower-fortress that's suspended entirely within a bottomless pit using magma-farmed obsidian, without marring the surface of the stone by digging in it. Unfortunately, in all my tests, there appears to be no way to build down. While walls can be supported by a floor or wall above it, you can't build down-stairs unless there are up-stairs below them already, leaving me no way to build my fortress lower into the pit from ground level without digging out a staircase off to the side and build from the bottom up. Am I missing anything here, or is it just impossible?

[Aggiedog]

This is correct. You'll have to engineer a way to plug out the staircase with magma if you want it to look like to built downwards.

[Vampire Penguin]

Do up/down staircases work?

Anyway, you might have to build constructed floor scaffolding on ever level, then later remove them. Tedious, but worth it for a megaproject,

[TettyNullus]

Do up/down staircases work?

Anyway, you might have to build constructed floor scaffolding on ever level, then later remove them. Tedious, but worth it for a megaproject,

Nope, up/down don't works, I've tried to build down more times than I can count, forgetting I've already established to myself I can't short of mining a shaft down and building up from bottom. Could just build up a column of stair from bottom, branch out at proper level, then deconstruct the extra structure on bottom and put a hatch over the extra stairs.

[Duke 2.0]

 Idea: Set a dump area over the lip of the shaft, with a floor one or two levels down. Dump a bunch of building materials down there then build a drawbridge over the lip. Station dwarves there as recruits and retract the bridge. The dwarves will fall and be able to build up from there.

 Another possibility for higher falls is to drop some creature that you have too much of down there. Hopefully some will survive, and it has been show high heights can be survived as long as the creature in question falls onto another creature, no matter the size of either.

[Atlas]

Another possibility for higher falls is to drop some creature that you have too much of down there. Hopefully some will survive, and it has been show high heights can be survived as long as the creature in question falls onto another creature, no matter the size of either.

Sounds absolutely dwarfish.


You could build a ladderon the other side of the map, then tunnel over from there. When you are done, you can easily plug it back up.

[Duke 2.0]

 Actually, that idea was taken from a thread about draining a magma pipe in order to farm crops inside it, while not being able to mine anything.

 Wrap your head around THAT one.

[Atlas]

O_O

How would that help? The food would be left inside the pit...

Also, how do you possible drain the pipe without mining?

[Duke 2.0]

 I must specify: It was a challenge to play DF without mining. So the person wanted subterranean crops. Some parts of a magma pipe are considered subterranean. Thus they formed a plan.

 I must find this thread again. It outlines a brainstorm on the very subject of building downwards.

[RAM]

I figure that they would build a pump, to lower it by one level, then build an obsidian floor, using water, then build another pump on that floor...

[Aldaris]

Since you're already working with obsidian, you could make an obsidian stalactite with some creative pumping, maybe...

Code: [Select]

Top down
WATER%%#%%MAGMAThe # is the bit you want to go down into, the pumps need mechanical power, and if it works at all it'll cause a shitload of collapse messages, but it might just work...
EDIT: You could at least do this in order to stairway down to one of the platforms, and then construct the obsidian mould to cast the next section of your fort in. And then repeat to a lower platform. It would take quite a bit of time though. I wich you good luck.