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[Loud Whispers]

Just dump food and booze down the shaft. They can live there for the rest of their lives.

I second this. They will probably live longer then the dwarves in your fortress too

[Clotifoth]

"What's the deep dark pit, that turns mining operations to shit?
"The shaft!"
"You see this shaft is a bad mother--"
"Shut your mouth!"
"But I'm talkin' about the shaft!"
"Then we can dig it."

Siggied

[Starver]

(Good filk, there, BTW...)

The way I understand the OP's predicament (and, although I'm probably wrong, I'm going to run with this) is that he's set a column to be designated as channels.  Miner(s?) jumped in, channelled their way to the bottom.  While that was happening, masons (or other relevant material-handlers) were asked to build stairways in the shaft[1].  They will have been built by the particular artisans from the materials available at the top of the shaft.

At the very bottom, when the miner(s) halted in the downward dig, the designation may suffer from several concurrent problems:

• Materials at the bottom of the shaft (distance of zero) will be designated, only they aren't accessible by the masons that infilled the rest of the shaft.
• If you chose materials that the masons/whatever can access, there'd be the miners in the way,
• Possibly with a proper ground-access, there may be job cancellations when the mason/whatever tries to get to the bottom

To solve the first, I'd try either expand the list and navigate to specific rocks/whatever that are non-zero distance away, or don't bother expanding but choose the first rock-entry on the list whose first distance is not zero.

In the second instance, the miner needs to dig sideways to give them somewhere else to be so they don't get in the way of the building.

In the third... well, if this applies then I would do what I should have done right from the beginning and set the miner(s) to not only go sideways, but dig more stairwells to either get back to the top or reach up a level or two and then back into the existing stairwells.


And, in the future, don't (d)esignate (c)hannels to be dug, but instead the up/down stairwells.  No building is needed, the miners give you the structures you seek.


I do sometimes designate a column of channels, for an aesthetic form of well-shaft, but at the lowest level that the miner can be reasonably expected to dig sideways from I have him do exactly that, to meet some pre-existing shaft (probably one which originally discovered the water-source I'm looking for), or at least some up-down column that I have pre-designated as their escape route.  This is a specialised mining operation (with some more minor details in its execution, not explained) that anyone can do, but I wouldn't expect anyone to do unless they were after much the same effect as me.  If you were wanting to put stairs in (or even have stairs along the entire height, in an adjacent cell), there'd be no need to do this.


But I may not have understood your predicament.

[1] Because, I just found out in another thread, you can actually designate to build stairs in 'open space' below other stairs.

[612DwarfAvenue]

"What's the deep dark pit, that turns mining operations to shit?
"The shaft!"
"You see this shaft is a bad mother--"
"Shut your mouth!"
"But I'm talkin' about the shaft!"
"Then we can dig it."

Siggied

Yay, my first "Sigged"! :3

[krenshala]

(Good filk, there, BTW...)

The way I understand the OP's predicament (and, although I'm probably wrong, I'm going to run with this) is that he's set a column to be designated as channels.  Miner(s?) jumped in, channelled their way to the bottom.  While that was happening, masons (or other relevant material-handlers) were asked to build stairways in the shaft[1].  They will have been built by the particular artisans from the materials available at the top of the shaft.

At the very bottom, when the miner(s) halted in the downward dig, the designation may suffer from several concurrent problems:

• Materials at the bottom of the shaft (distance of zero) will be designated, only they aren't accessible by the masons that infilled the rest of the shaft.
• If you chose materials that the masons/whatever can access, there'd be the miners in the way,
• Possibly with a proper ground-access, there may be job cancellations when the mason/whatever tries to get to the bottom

From my experience, #2 isn't an issue, because it will not let you select those materials unless you are already able to path to them.

To me, it sounds like he built either all down stairs (<) or all up stairs (>) instead up building up/down stairs (X).  Which type he built (up or down) will determine which way the dwarves can travel.  From what I've read they will not be able to travel in the other direction.  I haven't pulled that particular type of xFUNx before, so i'm not sure which type matches what he describes.

I suggest having your miners set to also be masons, then build an up stair at the bottom (b - C - u) and up/down stairs every level above that (b - C - x), except for the very top, which will either already have a down stair, or will need it constructed (b - C - d).  You could also have a "rescue party" building up/down stairs from the top down at the same time to speed things up.

To solve the first, I'd try either expand the list and navigate to specific rocks/whatever that are non-zero distance away, or don't bother expanding but choose the first rock-entry on the list whose first distance is not zero.

In the second instance, the miner needs to dig sideways to give them somewhere else to be so they don't get in the way of the building.

In the third... well, if this applies then I would do what I should have done right from the beginning and set the miner(s) to not only go sideways, but dig more stairwells to either get back to the top or reach up a level or two and then back into the existing stairwells.


And, in the future, don't (d)esignate (c)hannels to be dug, but instead the up/down stairwells.  No building is needed, the miners give you the structures you seek.


I do sometimes designate a column of channels, for an aesthetic form of well-shaft, but at the lowest level that the miner can be reasonably expected to dig sideways from I have him do exactly that, to meet some pre-existing shaft (probably one which originally discovered the water-source I'm looking for), or at least some up-down column that I have pre-designated as their escape route.  This is a specialised mining operation (with some more minor details in its execution, not explained) that anyone can do, but I wouldn't expect anyone to do unless they were after much the same effect as me.  If you were wanting to put stairs in (or even have stairs along the entire height, in an adjacent cell), there'd be no need to do this.


But I may not have understood your predicament.

[1] Because, I just found out in another thread, you can actually designate to build stairs in 'open space' below other stairs.

Yeah, you can build stairs "in the air" up or down, as long as the mason can path to a tile directly above or below the one you want to have the stairs in.

Personally, I dig a shaft down using channel or ramp (d - h or d - r designated on the z-level below) with an up/down stair two or three tiles over, with passages connecting the two every other level (to ensure the miners can always path back out).  If you plan to flood the shaft, just make sure to wall off the access passages once the digging is completed so you don't flood anything important (... like I did that first time  ).

[Starver]

• Materials at the bottom of the shaft (distance of zero) will be designated, only they aren't accessible by the masons that infilled the rest of the shaft.
• If you chose materials that the masons/whatever can access, there'd be the miners in the way,

[...]

From my experience, #2 isn't an issue, because it will not let you select those materials unless you are already able to path to them.

What I was getting at was a variant of the "whose access is it anyway?" situation.  Imagine you have some tunnels either side of a one (or more!)-wide chasm, functionally isolated (maybe due to walling up, or the miners being destructive in after making their original way to the other side, somehow).  Designate some floors to be built as a bridge (or, indeed, a bridge).  You could be using materials that exist on the other side of the chasm from where your masons are (or other relevant craftsmen/the architect).  In which case you either have a cancellation/suspension of job or the artisans just never take the job up in the first place.

(I've had a recent fort where I've had to make sure both ends of a bridge were accessible continuously.  This is for bridges that are the 'second half' of a bridge-to-bridge 20-tile gap-filler, where I've started with access to the solid ground on the other side.  The architect or mason doesn't need to access the solid-supported side, because they have walkable tiles on the first segment of bridge, but because they have it initially you get Suspension problems when you temporarily disconnect that from the fortress as a whole and it's a lot of fuss.  At least the way I tried to do it, first time, so I don't do that any more.)


If you're using "distance zero" materials for the lower-most stair of a shaft, in the way I'm imagining the OP's problem, I'm not entirely sure (and I could always experiment, I suppose) but they'd be the ones not accessible to the artisans, in a similar way, unless the artisans have side-access to the lower Z.  Choosing further-distance materials will be choosing (barring those in the expanded lower section, still isolated) materials accessible from the majorly-accessible areas of the fortress, within which your builders will be coming from.

Of course, you could always give one of the bored miners the job of masonry/whatever and let him engineer his own way out.  If everything else is in order, of course.

That's how I see it, but I'm still not sure if it's the true situation.