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[Opirian]

I had a miner on a mission to get to magma, I notice he's dehydrated, the only thing standing between him and delicious alcohol is a couple ramps. He refused to go up the ramps to go get his needed drink, so I had to carve out stairs for him to climb. Now he's drinking happily but why did he not go up the ramps?

[bombcar]

Could he not path to the ramps? Were they facing the wrong way? disconnected? Do you have a previous save with an example?

[Opirian]

He walked down the ramps to do his job so I assume they are connected to a path he could use, but when he became thirsty he refused to use them.

[Zangi]

I've done some experiments with ramps, trying to dig downward to the bottom level using only ramps...  Doesn't work well after a point... it goes fubar and my diggers are stuck in the bottom level and starve/dehydrate.  Even with walking space inbetween ramps in each floor... and so I don't connect more then 2-3 levels of ramps...

Could be it gets too steep for the dwarves to climb up...  1 way trip....     actually....   hmm...  this has some possible uses....  *goes off to plot*

[Lear]

It has to do with the way the ramps are facing, if there isn't a space to walk up into your miners will remained trapped. Use stairwells or another miner to clear the area around the ramp to allow exit.

It took me awhile to realize this when my miners were mysteriously refusing my orders..

[Smew]

Look up ramps on the wiki, it will help immensely.

[AncientEnemy]

yeah ramps are hard to use properly until you see what's what with them. and there is (or was at least) a bug where an improperly placed ramp will work anyway for a short period of time after you dig it, and then the game catches on. the direction that dwarves enter and exit a ramp matters, for example

Code: (side view) [Select]


| ___
|\___


will work briefly when first dug, but then abruptly stop.

[Opirian]

Huh, guess I didn't ever notice that ramps can only face one direction... well you learn new dwarven knowledge every day.

[AncientEnemy]

it's based on the wall they lean against (i would assume), but i think dwarves can enter/exit from an angle, just not more than 90* (i haven't tested this extensively but from what use i have had of ramps this seemed to work:
like if the lower ramp looked like this:

Code: [Select]


WALLWALL
WAL/\WAL
WAL  WAL

then you could enter it like this:

Code: (ramp with surrounding squares) [Select]


OK OK OK
OK \/ OK
NO NO NO

[code]

[Albedo]

Huh, guess I didn't ever notice that ramps can only face one direction...

Don't be confused - it's not that they ~can~ only face one direction, like workshops and their inaccessible tiles - ramps ~do~ only face one direction, depending how you build them.  They go from a tile on a lower level thru the ramp to a tile on an upper level - and it can't "double back", it has to go thru.
          ->   
----  /-----
->__/

The above ramp goes from left to right - you can't go "up" from lower left then back to the upper left above that.  If you built a wall where the ramp wants to "exit", then you're screwed.

 <-     |       
----  /
->__/

This one won't work.  It's not a stairwell straight up, it's a slope that delivers the path to landing at the top of that slope, not back in mid-air behind it.

If you want a ramp up against a wall it has to parallel the wall, so it has somewhere to deliver the path up.  In these diagrams, one tile "toward" or "away" from us would work fine, but then the path would not be from left to right, it would be "toward" or "away" from us.

Is that clear as pig-tail ale?

[Untelligent]

Albedo, I had a hard time understanding all of that, but maybe that's because you're overcomplicating it. I believe there's two fundamental laws regarding walking up ramps:

1) To move up a ramp in a direction, the ramp must have a wall behind it in that direction.
2) The top of a ramp must be unobstructed.

While it appears the second ramp wouldn't work because the ramp "doubles back," it's actually because rule#1 is in effect here. If you put a wall there to fix rule#1, you would have to put it on top of the first ramp, thus violating rule#2.

Thus, it's not really possible to build a ramp that "doubles back" like this (unless my spacial reasoning is failing me at the moment), but not because this is a rule in itself, but because the two fundemental laws of ramps forbid it.

[Albedo]

Albedo, I had a hard time understanding all of that,

Yeah, ascii isn't helping with the diagrams.

1) To move up a ramp in a direction, the ramp must have a wall behind it in that direction.

On the lower level, the "wall" defines the ramp, yes.  It's below the "landing" on the upper level.

2) The top of a ramp must be unobstructed.

While it appears the second ramp wouldn't work because the ramp "doubles back," it's actually because rule#1 is in effect here. If you put a wall there to fix rule#1, you would have to put it on top of the first ramp, thus violating rule#2.

Yes, the top helps define the direction.  The "top" of the ramp has to be opposite the location of the bottom.

Two diff ways of "defining the rules" of a ramp.  But it sounds like you've got it.

[Shad0wyone]

Well, I don't know exactly what you're saying, but from my experiences, dwarves cannot go onto the upper part of the ramp, the one that says "downward (material) slope", they can only go onto the "upward slope" part of it.

[Albedo]

You can't all be morons, so I must be babbling.

A ramp exists by itself, unlike a stair, which needs another stair either above or below it.  With a stair, the critter enters one, moves to the other, and they've changed level.

With a ramp, the critter enters the ramp, and then they must go somewhere on the next level - that "somewhere" cannot reverse their direction.  They cannot be heading north, step on the ramp, and then step off the ramp heading south.  They have to keep heading north(-ish) on the next level.

[Opirian]

You can't all be morons, so I must be babbling.

A ramp exists by itself, unlike a stair, which needs another stair either above or below it.  With a stair, the critter enters one, moves to the other, and they've changed level.

With a ramp, the critter enters the ramp, and then they must go somewhere on the next level - that "somewhere" cannot reverse their direction.  They cannot be heading north, step on the ramp, and then step off the ramp heading south.  They have to keep heading north(-ish) on the next level.

I understood you, so pretty much what I had going

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

|\_  |        |/_  |
|  _/|   or  |  _\|
|\_  |        |/_  |

doesn't work because the dwarf won't move from the top of the ramp to the floor between ramps. Due to the fact that the bottom/top (whichever way the ramp faces) led into a solid wall. Correct?