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[Arrkhal]

Now I have an idea for a megaproject which will probably fail.  A monolithic, cast obsidian Aztec pyramid with a temple on top, and a massive tower on top of that which goes as high as the map allows.  Goblin prisoners go up to the top of the tower and get thrown in a hole, landing splat on the altar at the top of the pyramid.

Only thing I can't decide is whether it'd be cooler to have it be totally smooth and polished, or have every square inch engraved.  Maybe I could hack the entity file and add [ART_FACET_MODIFIER:EVIL:25600] to the dwarves temporarily, to make sure the engravings are appropriate.

[OneRaven]

My most recent megaprojects failed not from disaster but from not coming out very mega at all. The latest one was a giant spiral ramp 16 tiles in radius that had all the fortress sprouting from it like a root system. It worked, but when I looked at it through Visual Fortress it looked ugly, as I'd gone through all sorts of blindingly colored rock on the way down. 

The previous megaproject was a tower 20+ stories high, with bedrooms all the way up and the nobles quarters on the top floors, the king's throne room at the highest full layer, and then tapering down, and all made of clear glass. I nearly finished the entire thing when I checked it in 3Dwarf and found that it was way more phallic than I wanted  . I should have gone with a square tower.

[alway]

Well, one of my recent megaprojects very nearly failed... I dug out about 45k stones worth of room (a huge circular cavern with a big pillar in the middle) and, as planned went to fill the bottom 2 z layers with magma. I think a diagram will better illustrate...


WWWWWWW                WWW                   W      W=wall         _ = floor
WWWWWWW               WWWW                 W      --- = bridge   M = magma(of course)    L = lever (ill get to that in a moment)
WL_____  __----------_WWWW                 W
W___  _____WMMMMM WWWWWMMMMMMMW
WWWMMMMMMMMMMMWWWWWMMMMMMMW
Now, due to the wall, the magma would not come up through the below-magma-level-area which was my magma forge location. As it was filling extremely slowly, I decided to speed things up with 3 pumps to greatly increase the flow of magma from the pipe to the cavern. This lead to the magma becoming pressurized.
A couple things to note at this time: 1. That lever was to turn off the pumps. 2. The only way to that area was via the bridge from the central pillar (which had staircases to higher levels with bridges which went to the rest of the fort) 3. The living quarters for my dwarves were relatively far away (as in a couple hundred tiles to walk to get from the living quarters to the lever).
Now, when the magma filled up level 2 all the way... I was a bit slow in sending a dwarf to pull the lever to turn off the pumps. The pressurized lava (pressurized I think to level 4) began to fill up the 3rd level with tiles of 1's. By the time a dwarf managed to get into the central pillar to turn off the pumps (I think there were hauling stuff from a recent goblin attack at the time), most of level 3 was covered in 1's. The dwarf managed to make it to the far side of the bridge... where he was cut off by magma in front of him about 2 tiles from the end of the bridge. More lava then proceeded to cut off his escape from behind, and he was then burned to death as another tile of lava landed on him. Not only did this cut off the bridge (my only access to the chambers with the pump levers) but it also proceeded to melt the bridge, since it was made of non-magma safe materials. I then told my dwarves to mine their way in via the main stairway into the cavern (which happens to be directly above the area in question). At this point, the 1's were beginning to turn into 2's and flood 1's into the room with the lever. Luckily, a pair of dwarves managed to run past and pull the lever. Well, one did anyway, I think the other was after a sock.
Edit: here is a picture i took when level 2 was about half full, the area in question is a few levels under the main entrance to the area, which is just left of center in this picture.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hmm... other fails... Probably one of my early forts. I tried to drain an aquifer. Bad idea. Worse than embarking with 50 cats.
Then another fail when I was playing with orc mod on another map. I had a great 3 drawbridge airlock system around my trading depot. Unfortunately for me, I hadn't hooked up the inner most drawbridge, which I did not find out until orcs had run past the first 2. That single band of orcs took my population down from over 100 to about 12. A couple seasons after that (when the tantrumming stopped for the most part, yay for now vacent noble's quarters!) an elven trading caravan came. By this time I was barely stuggling by, since due to the huge losses I had taken, I had no immigrants, and so any supplies were welcome. Unfortunately, the elves brought a goblin ambush with them, and me being over-eager for elven goods had not shut the outer bridge of the airlock system. A handful of goblins got in, slaughtered the elves, and then proceeded to take out bunches of dwarves. By the time the last goblin died, I was down to 6 dwarves. Of that 6, 4 were bedridden due to wounds, leaving a legendary miner and legendary child as the only dwarves capable of working, and since children can't be told what to do... It was more like 1.25 work-capable dwarves. Well, after a few months 2 of the 4 wounded died of hunger/thirst, leaving me with 2 wounded and 2 whole. After a few years of isolation, the 2 wounded eventually got better (and the legendary child turned into a peasant) and the dwarves managed to eek out a living. It took I think around 3 years for any migrants to brave the dangerous place which was my fort.

[Tradanbattlan]

I tried reconstructing a dream I had in the Dwarf Fortress world. Complete with zombie clowns, flying bats and a man made of lazers.
I was close to completing the temple full of chained-up Twilight fans when suddenly-
POWER OUTAGE
I hadnt saved anything.

/uberfacepalm

[Lord Dakoth]

This isn't so much a failed megaproject as one of my complete blonde moments.

I built a giant diamond-shaped structure out of green glass. It was like a pyramid, on top of an upside down pyramid. It was about 17 Z-levels tall, and the amount of glass needed to build it was something completely silly. Half my fort was inside the glass diamond. The entire thing was supported by a single block of green glass at the bottom.

Then later, I was at the base of the structure, and I see this random green glass block wall. I'm like "What the hell? What's this doing here?" Remove construction.

Next thing I know, I get the "A section of the cavern has collapsed!" message, and in the next two seconds, ninety of my 120 dwarves die. And the entire structure deconstructed, leaving hundreds and hundreds of green glass blocks on the ground.

[IronBeer]

This isn't so much a failed megaproject as one of my complete blonde moments.

I built a giant diamond-shaped structure out of green glass. It was like a pyramid, on top of an upside down pyramid. It was about 17 Z-levels tall, and the amount of glass needed to build it was something completely silly. Half my fort was inside the glass diamond. The entire thing was supported by a single block of green glass at the bottom.

Then later, I was at the base of the structure, and I see this random green glass block wall. I'm like "What the hell? What's this doing here?" Remove construction.

Next thing I know, I get the "A section of the cavern has collapsed!" message, and in the next two seconds, ninety of my 120 dwarves die. And the entire structure deconstructed, leaving hundreds and hundreds of green glass blocks on the ground.

Sounds like a lot of Fun. 

[Quietust]

Sounds like a lot of Fun. 

Sounds similar to "Launching Armok", though not intentional.

[Logical2u]

A perpetual waterfall was one of my first "megaprojects". Ended up having my mayor/godly miner drown while removing a wall along the moat...
Tried to savescum past it, dwarf-tooled around... ended up glitching it and not succeeding, having my fortress of like... 14... turn into a tantrum spiral of sorts. I think it was because of instead of reviving him I ended up instead killing something else when I teleported it to the wrong tile...

Another fail was attempting to make a 2x2 super-fort. It... it actually failed because the FPS still managed to get ridiculously low...

[SquirrelWizard]

i was going to sculpt a special magma cannon as the centerpiece for one dungeon. Following the "mine's bigger" philosophy I was going to have my Trade Depot built under it for intimidation value.

Suffice to say my fortress, and the placement of the magma made it so that the "Divine Sword of Armok" was shelved due to the tedium of having to organized its construction over half a map.

[Crabe]

My first megaproject failed (But it wasn't my fault!)

I was attempting to build a huge upside down pyramid, starting with the tip on the ground and makin the base in the air.  I was going to eventually move my entire fort into it and stop up the entrance.

It was going well, construction was going nicely when suddenly I got the message:
CORRUPT SAVE FILE MISSING DEF: ELEPHANT
Or something like that.  The sad part?

There were no elephants at my fort. 

[Lord_Shadow]

8 bit micro processor.... yeah...