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[Minority]

Hi

Does anyone have any good methods of putting up scaffolding to smooth/engrave walls above ground level? I know I can just build floors but I've had problems taking them down before where dwarfs get stuck on little bits of floor multiple Z-levels up and dying of thirst/hunger.
Any ideas?

Cheers.

[acetech09]

A wall of up/down stairs. Remove it one level at a time once you're done.

[Minority]

You may have just saved the lives of countless masons. Kudos to you.

[krenshala]

The floor method does work, as long as you remember to work from the outer edges inward, and that dwarves prefer to stand on the W (left) side of the block they are messing with (I think the order is W N E S, but I recommend checking the wiki to confirm).  That tendency means you want to do rows from right to left if you can, and one row at a time regardless.

If you have a dwarf that is stuck on a bit of floor you can always have them deconstruct it ... assuming they don't have too far to fall.  Any injury is useful in helping your doctor(s) improve or maintain their medical skills. 

Using up/down stairs as scaffolding, however, definitely makes things simpler as they always have access from above or below (depending on which way the scaffolding was built).

[Cellmonk]

for more permanent applications of scaffolding-like structures, I've got a few ambiguities to clear up. first off, will dwarves shoot through up-down or up stairs? and if i had this setup (where _ = floor, ^ = ramp, + = fortification with floor on top, all viewed from side): _^+ , would a creature coming from the left be able to go up the ramp to the right, and visa versa? and would a dwarf behind the nonramp side of the fortification be able to shoot through?

[CapnUrist]

If you have long lines of scaffolding needed, bridges work well, though require a little more time a dwarf power to construct (takes a third of the material, but requires an architect to design it first). You just have to ensure that the bridge is cleared before deconstruction begins.

[Eoganachta]

If you have long lines of scaffolding needed, bridges work well, though require a little more time a dwarf power to construct (takes a third of the material, but requires an architect to design it first). You just have to ensure that the bridge is cleared before deconstruction begins.

This. I used this to smooth and engrave my magma crypt below my dining room.

[Garath]

coming from left, goes up ramp, steps on floor.... yep

shoot through fortification, check. Though your enemies need to be pretty good to do this
for fortifications, its better to carve a wall into fortifications, it comes with a floor tile above that doesnt go away after carving. It really does save time and if you have a lot of fortifications it will get you some highly skilled engravers for when you start to decorate your fort

for more permanent applications of scaffolding-like structures, I've got a few ambiguities to clear up. first off, will dwarves shoot through up-down or up stairs? and if i had this setup (where _ = floor, ^ = ramp, + = fortification with floor on top, all viewed from side): _^+ , would a creature coming from the left be able to go up the ramp to the right, and visa versa? and would a dwarf behind the nonramp side of the fortification be able to shoot through?

[Aspgren]

 Building scaffoldings take time. What I do is I always have a storage of GRATES on hand (around 20-50) so that scaffoldings can be put in place in no time at all. The drawback is that you have to micromanage and both place and remove the grates one by one or the dwarves will mess it up somehow.

 ... come to think of it, this method isn't very effective at all.

[Garath]

do normal cave walls contaminate drawn water? if so, ths could be my answer on building resevoirs faster

[TurkeyXIII]

Grates are effective for doing a lot of small things one after the other, they can be put up as fast as floors and taken down faster, but you need to craft an oversupply of them first.  Added bonus in situations where flowing water might cause problems.

I use a combination of bridges and grates, depending on the situation.