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[Brandstone]

I've been considering channeling out the area around my fort, but leaving ramps going from the edge to the middle. This way my entrance is at the bottom of my fort, and ideally also located between my fort and the caverns. This means i can have a single military area for both above and below ground threats. I am having trouble taking water sources like Brooks or rivers into account. One easy fix would be to dig around them, but I'm not sold on that idea. Any thoughts? What external fort design do you use?

[Girlinhat]

Generally, my external construction consists of watchtowers.  Small 3x3 rooms built on stills, with windows above-ground and no direct access (have to rebuild stairs every time you want to access it).  This makes them immune to building destroyers but still able to detect enemies when manned by some animal.  As for above ground in general, I do a small walled area (like 20x20) with a butcher, tanner, some refuse stocks, and some finished good stocks, to quickly burn through any sudden animal slaughter and have my caravan-packers close to the depot.

[slink]

I've been considering channeling out the area around my fort, but leaving ramps going from the edge to the middle. This way my entrance is at the bottom of my fort, and ideally also located between my fort and the caverns. This means i can have a single military area for both above and below ground threats. I am having trouble taking water sources like Brooks or rivers into account. One easy fix would be to dig around them, but I'm not sold on that idea. Any thoughts? What external fort design do you use?

Here's my mental image of what your fortress could look like with a re-routed river or stream.
 
First, block the river or stream.  Don't do it right at the edge or you might destroy the water-creating tiles.
 
Channel out several layers in a square around your fortress, going far enough out from your fortress to allow for a four-tile-wide river course to be cut and pass under your ramps.  The ramps suitable for caravans are going down on all four sides of your pit. 
 
Now you channel a four-square wide ditch all the way around the outer edge of your pit, except where you go under the ramps, where you dig a tunnel.  On the side opposite from the blocked river or stream, dig to the edge of the map and make fortifications for a drain.  Unblock the river or stream.  You should end up with a waterfall, leading to a river which drains off the map.  You might want to make the riverbed two tiles deep in case it might flood otherwise.
 
I made a very badly executed sketch in Paint, but I just discovered that my FTP program doesn't work under Windows 7.  *sigh*  So, you'll have to imagine the illustration until I can get something to work for file transfer.
 
Edit:  I got it!  I had to boot up my WinXP Pro machine, but I got the sketch uploaded.  Like it said, it is badly executed, but you can see what I am picturing.  The fourth ramp, on the side of the viewer, is left off for convenience.
 

[Brandstone]

That actually looks and sounds pretty neat Slink, but I'm trying to make it so it reconnects to it's outlet. Which I probably should have mentioned in my post. Also, I plan on making the ramps contiguous so anyone arriving or leaving can pick any direction they want.

[noob]

drain the river into the caverns.

[j0nas]

Generally, my external construction consists of watchtowers.  Small 3x3 rooms built on stills, with windows above-ground and no direct access (have to rebuild stairs every time you want to access it).  This makes them immune to building destroyers but still able to detect enemies when manned by some animal.  As for above ground in general, I do a small walled area (like 20x20) with a butcher, tanner, some refuse stocks, and some finished good stocks, to quickly burn through any sudden animal slaughter and have my caravan-packers close to the depot.

Wait, does these constructions detect goblin ambushes and thieves?  Like seriously?

Because if so we're going to start seeing these kinds of things making an appearance in my forts real quick!

[MijRai]

Why not make a new outlet? Carve fortifications into the map edge where you want to drain and it is easy.

[Girlinhat]

With some reliability, yes.  A dog in a watchtower can reasonably detect things, the same way that an archer on a wall will spot an ambusher or thief as they pass close to the wall.  My design is basically...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

W+W
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W+W

WGW
G+G
WGW

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Three Z's here, with (W)alls, (G)lass windows, and (+)Floors.  You need to build the last window after the animal is put in place, so it's locked in.  Raised like this, the windows are immune to building destroyers, and the windows don't let any tray enemy bolts hit the animal.

[j0nas]

With some reliability, yes.  A dog in a watchtower can reasonably detect things, the same way that an archer on a wall will spot an ambusher or thief as they pass close to the wall.  My design is basically...

That's really neat, I had never considered a solution like that.  I normally just chain dogs around the edges of the map, which has the glaring flaw that I keep having to replace the dogs!

Roughly how far away in squares from the animal would you say things are detected, generally?

For my design I imagine I'd borrow yours, but modify it slightly to make it 2 z-level windowed pillboxes with strictly underground access, with an eye for possibly adding an extra level with fortifications and crossbowdwarves as the fortress grows, but yeah, awesome idea overall!

[Girlinhat]

3x3 (ie, 5x5 including walls) or 5x5 is usually made for archer towers, gives them a bit more leg room, but a 1x1 archer tower is possible.  I modded mine for miasma generators, using food stockpiles, hatches, and more fortifications at the base, so that I could flood the map with miasma at will.

The range is either the same range, or range -1 due to height, I've heard conflicting reports.  Just be aware that any stealth coming at you diagonally won't be immediately detected, as those walls prevent sight.  You can remove the roof and make corner windows, but it doesn't look as good in Stonesense :3

[Urist Da Vinci]

Look in my signature for the stealth detection science.

TL;DR - Stealth can be detected only as far as 3 tiles away.

[Dorf3000]

I've been considering channeling out the area around my fort, but leaving ramps going from the edge to the middle. This way my entrance is at the bottom of my fort, and ideally also located between my fort and the caverns. This means i can have a single military area for both above and below ground threats. I am having trouble taking water sources like Brooks or rivers into account. One easy fix would be to dig around them, but I'm not sold on that idea. Any thoughts? What external fort design do you use?

You can leave a border area at the edge of the map, with a channel in it to take the river around your ramped pit.  This is probably the easiest method, and also leaves enough space for wagons to appear when they are brought back in a later version.

The alternative is to route the water under your fort, using water pressure to make sure it comes back up the other side and out again.  This is a lot more difficult, because you'll need to be absolutely sure the tunnel is sealed before you break through into the source, but there's more opportunity to make water traps and have wells, etc in your fort.

In both these cases you'll need to seal off the original path with walls (or magma, if you can wait that long to get it up there) by pumping the water out with a line of pumps.  Otherwise you'll end up with the water filling BOTH paths to the same level from the original source...

[Carnes]

Slink, i like that idea : )

[j0nas]

Look in my signature for the stealth detection science.

TL;DR - Stealth can be detected only as far as 3 tiles away.

Interesting, thanks.

[Urist McBusDriver]

The alternative is to route the water under your fort, using water pressure to make sure it comes back up the other side and out again.  This is a lot more difficult, because you'll need to be absolutely sure the tunnel is sealed before you break through into the source, but there's more opportunity to make water traps and have wells, etc in your fort.

I MUST TRY THIS.