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[crossmr]

There used to be a trick or something you could do to prevent dwarves from digging or building from a certain direction. I remember using it once when I had to build a plug for something. I'm trying to get this mason to finish a wall, but he keeps jumping into the area, no matter how many times I suspend the construction and let him walk away. But I can't seem to find any mention of this trick in my searches. Anyone remember what it is?

[Lectorog]

Designate a wall built where you don't want them to stand, then suspend its construction. Dwarves try to avoid standing on designated construction sites, so they'll stand somewhere else, but the useless wall doesn't get built.

Traffic restrictions may work, but this is a better method anyway.

[crossmr]

Designate a wall built where you don't want them to stand, then suspend its construction. Dwarves try to avoid standing on designated construction sites, so they'll stand somewhere else, but the useless wall doesn't get built.

Traffic restrictions may work, but this is a better method anyway.

hmm that certainly wasn't how I did it before.. there was something you could do..with a zone or something to keep dwarves out of an area.. maybe it's been removed. but I Seem to recall designating the ground for the plug as forbidden somehow..

[crossmr]

*bump*
Anyone have any ideas? all I can remember is awhile back I was trying to plug an aquifier, and I remember having issues with dwarfs getting on the wrong side of the channel. I recall finding a solution.. that seemed like painting the part I wanted to drop and forbidding it somehow..
hmm
I tried finding my old posts but for some reason I never mentioned it in the thread. The solution I found would have either have been here or the wiki, but forbid and activity zones are coming up dry on the wiki..

[nanomage]

tried burrows? tried suspending constructions? tried setting pathing cost for areas?

[crossmr]

Suspending rarely seems to work, and channels are dug too fast. I'm sure I didn't rely on that. Were burrows available in 40d?
it could have been traffic..but the description says there is no forbid with that, just an increased cost.

[FaultyLogic]

They safest way to dig channels is one tile or row at a time. If you're plugging with walls I don't see why you can't use the aforementioned method of suspending a wall infront of the one you're building. It really works.

[crossmr]

They safest way to dig channels is one tile or row at a time. If you're plugging with walls I don't see why you can't use the aforementioned method of suspending a wall infront of the one you're building. It really works.

I'm plugging with a floor. Channeling around an area and dropping it. The problem is often the last one, the dwarf decides to jump onto the island and dig it out.
but forbidding an area has lots of other uses too, if I could remember how it was done.
The problem is I play this game intermittently and end up forgetting stuff

[Sphalerite]

As far as I know, there has never been a command to specifically forbid an area.

There is a command to set areas restricted, but that only affects the pathfinding code.  Areas set to restricted traffic are heavily penalized when calculating path distance, so dwarves will avoid walking into a restricted area unless there's no other way to get where they want to go.  This has no effect on where a dwarf stands when building something however.

[Naz]

Unfortunately the only thing I can think of is to put a suspended wall or some other type of non-pathable construction on the spot you want him to avoid. Other than that be very careful with designations and don't mass designate an area for channelling.

[Saiko Kila]

Suspended constructions often don't work for me. But sometimes they do - I tried with and without them. Last time I was digging a hole over magma to build dump zone. Digger went onto suspended construction, which was also on Restricted Area, damn. I had to make tunnel to rescue that silly. Besides, you cant build  constructions on constructed floors, and digging near them is my main gripe. I use statues, but they need to be actually build because suspension doesn't work. And there is problem of standing on the wrong side of statue. Not much if a dwarf can move out diagonally. But if you want to dig, they also can do it diagonally.

[Sphalerite]

Besides, you cant build  constructions on constructed floors, and digging near them is my main gripe. I use statues, but they need to be actually build because suspension doesn't work.

Really?  I've been using suspended statues to prevent dwarves from standing on specific spots when building on constructions in my current megaproject, and it's worked without fail.  Although I'm using them to control where dwarves stand when installing windows, rather than where they stand while digging.

[Naz]

Yea I think there's really not much you can do about where they stand when digging. Thinking back I had a huge problem with this while building my plumbing system.

[krenshala]

The other option is to set the area you don't want them in as Restricted Traffic ( d -> o -> r ), and the dwarves will (mostly) stand somewhere else to do the work.

I had to use this to have a mason not trap himself at the bottom of the cistern because I could not designate a suspended wall on top of the pressure plate the dwarf wanted to stand on.  Mark the pressure plate tile as Restricted and he stood on the other side of the new wall, outside the cistern, for the construction.

This has the side benefit of not leaving suspended construction laying around if you forget to remove it right away (not that its really a problem, I admit).

[Sphalerite]

I'd be very surprised if Restricted Traffic zones had any effect on controlling where dwarves stand when doing a job.  I'll have to actually do some !!science!! to verify however.