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[Quantum Toast]

There...

There are no words.

I'd say "they should've sent a poet", but I doubt any poet would even get as far as the Fifth Way.

[Urist Imiknorris]

They should have sent a kobold.

[jfsh]

So, after I showed off Rimslaughters last year, I took a long break from DF.  But lately I've been looking for ways to procrastinate (I'm taking the bar to become a lawyer in a few weeks... studying is boring!).  I came up with an idea for a new fort, a twist on the Undergrotto massive-cavern idea: The Bore.



My plan is to drill down from the top of the fort to the very bottom of the magma sea, approximately level 104.  I'll leave in a few stalactites and stalagmites, and I'm also going to add some other fun features, but mostly I want a giant empty cavern, save for the interior pillar and a long circular stairway for caravans.  Right now, I am mining out stairs on each level, and eventually, I'll drop the ceiling, which will punch through all the empty levels and hopefully make my job a lot simpler.

This thing is going to be BIG.


It takes a long, long time to mine this out.  However, one of the fun things about this fort is that I can basically leave it completely open to invasion, and the defenses (plus some military screen planning) make it pretty much impervious to assault.  I have had to intentionally disable some of the traps, just so the later traps get to have a little fun.  So far, nobody has made it past the third line of weapons traps in the back door:



So, that's pretty much the plan.  I'm posting here at least in part to keep myself motivated, so let me know if you guys have any cool ideas for the hollowed-out section.  I want to make some glass-domed areas, like little dwarven terrariums, as well as an artificial volcano that the trade walkway will pass directly through.  I am also considering a giant iron bucket filled with magma, hanging from the ceiling on chains, which will drip down onto the glass-enclosed magma forges far below. 

Work faster, furnace operators, or I'll open the roof.

And in case anyone is curious, here's a few of the stocks screen as they stand today.






I'm most proud of the third one - 1,571 mechanisms in use!

[jfsh]

Oh, another idea I have been toying with is replacing the floors of the fort itself with glass.  With the glass roof and a little engineering, my underground farms already get light, but I could expand this further by putting glass into all the hallways.  If it goes far enough down, I would eventually get sunlight into the Bore, which is pretty cool.  And since Step 3 of the grand Rimslaughters plan is to fully colonize the circus, it would definitely be sweet to get natural light all the way down there...

[Graebeard]

Hmm, I'd like to see you bring light to hell.  That place needs a little brightening up

Glad to see someone else procrastinating their bar study on here.  I haven't played since March or so, but I just fired up an old fort after enduring way too much secured transactions study.  Just a few weeks to go!

[Lectorog]

I had not seen this before. These projects are beyond words.

Instantly put in my DF Favorites folder, right next to Flarechannel and Undergrotto.

Thank you for this revival. It made my week.

[jfsh]

Hmm, I'd like to see you bring light to hell.  That place needs a little brightening up

Glad to see someone else procrastinating their bar study on here.  I haven't played since March or so, but I just fired up an old fort after enduring way too much secured transactions study.  Just a few weeks to go!

Cool.  I'm glad I'm not alone!  I just like to pretend that I'm handling my dwarves' worker's compensation claims.

I had not seen this before. These projects are beyond words.

Instantly put in my DF Favorites folder, right next to Flarechannel and Undergrotto.

Thank you for this revival. It made my week.

Thanks for the kind words!

[HorridOwn4ge]

That's fucking awesome, you're whole fort in general is.

[accoro]

Thanks for ruining Dwarf Fortress for me. Knowing that I will never engineer my own fort, half as awesome as yours has killed the game for me.


P.s cracking job, though

[ThatAussieGuy]

Just remember; you cant spell "Slaughter" without "Laughter"! And my god is that thing amazing.  I salute, bow and kneel to your amazing dorfiness, good sir.

[jfsh]

A few updates:

 - I've made it through 8 levels of digging out the Bore, which doesn't sound like much, but it represents hours of digging, even at SPEED:0.  The massive number of mining jobs seriously hurts FPS - I'm going to try doing half-levels from here on out.  These levels were also solid rock.  I'm breaching the final cavern now, which is very large, and should make everything a bit simpler.

 - Rather than leave a natural stalagmite, I've decided to make one, using a "drip" of water and obsidian.

 - Rimslaughters faced its first "real" siege.  Goblins on jabberers, cave swallows, bats, crocodiles, and other fun stuff, along with some trolls.  The trolls made a beeline for the back door traps, which worked out poorly for them (including one insta-decapitation... wish I saved the screenshot).  The main force began moving towards the newly-arrived Human traders, which I was somewhat ambivalent about, but then they did something I just cannot forgive: they knocked over all the statues in the entrance way!

This worked out poorly for them as well.


Bonus: goblin head on tree!


 - As an early defense mechanism (basically ineffective), I locked a bunch of war and hunting dogs into glass-enclosed spaces that invaders would walk past.  Well, that was before the latest updates, and the dogs had puppies, and their puppies had puppies, and now they've all begun fighting each other to the death.


Any dog which defeats all comers will earn a special place  in the Rimslaughters defense plan.  Competition has been fierce.

[Vherid]

Wow.

[noodle0117]

Amazing beyond words.

edit: What methods have you employed to defend against the most lethal kind of fortress attack?
(Tantrum spirals)

[Jurph]

In a parallel universe, long ago, Fifteen Elvish Ways to Die burned itself into my brain.  It is a quaint and curious mirror image of the tale you have spun here...

[jfsh]

Update: I've been channeling down the stairs I carved out, because it turns out you can't drop the ceiling on them like you can with merely dug-out areas.  It's been slow going - channeling is brutal on FPS, and DF has crashed a few times after I've made substantial progress, which is irritating.

However, I've found a way to remedy my lack of a self-destruct switch.  I'm currently in the process of replacing the diamond moat with a massive chandelier made of ice, filled with magma, suspended directly over the workshops (and dining room below that).  One guess as to whether it will be held up by lever-activated supports.

What methods have you employed to defend against the most lethal kind of fortress attack?
(Tantrum spirals)

Masterwork/artifact furniture everywhere, mist generator, legendary cooks and brewers, and of course, I give each dwarf plenty of "personal time" to reflect on their thoughts, visit with friends, or otherwise lead happy and fulfilling lives.

Just kidding!  I work them like dogs.  I'm not satisfied unless it reads IDLERS: 0.

In a parallel universe, long ago, Fifteen Elvish Ways to Die burned itself into my brain.  It is a quaint and curious mirror image of the tale you have spun here...

That's interesting.  I wish I could do this one:  "A night out on the town. Within a leafy grove, Qwhuimkoln seeks to feed the swans, never seeing the school of piranha until too late."