40d Talk:Stairs

removing stairs

Looks to me like the "remove down stairs" option is missing. But if you rewall it ([b] - [C] - [w]), and then designate it for "Remove Construction" ([d] - [n]), that works to get rid of it. Or just rewall it and leave it as a wall. --Peristarkawan 20:44, 29 October 2007 (EDT)

You remove down stairs by building a floor ([b] - [C] - [f]) over them. "Down stairs" are just holes in the floor. Valdemar 19:45, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

Construction pro/cons

It seems that building an up/down stairway is the easiest way to build underground. --Vbraun 21:06, 29 October 2007 (EDT)

I'm betting that dwarves can traverse ramps faster than stairs, but I haven't tested this yet. --Peristarkawan 21:18, 29 October 2007 (EDT)

I initially tried creating a ramp to dig upwards, and my miner refused to dig further on the upper level. Stairs work fine.--McFrugal 02:19, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

Ramps don't appear to knock out the ceiling of a tile, whereas stairs do. It looks like the main use for ramps is to provide access for anything bigger than a tile wide, such as a wagon or a group of dwarves, and presumably you'll already have access to both levels involved in the rampmaking.--Xazak 19:38, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

on the other hand, they will dig a ramp along with the ceiling, when digging from above.--Dorten 01:13, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Logs and stone(probably more, not fully tested) can not be transported on stairs, limiting their usefulness.

I dug a few levels underground using the shaft method of up/down stairs and trees chopped down on ground level could be carried into the fortress. So Logs can be moved through stairs. --Mizipzor 11:52, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

Rocks and any variation thereof can also be moved on stairs. I've been using the top of my mountain as a gigantic rock stockpile.--Xazak 19:38, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

Strange, when I rewalled so that the only access to my tower was a stair I could no longer build floors out of wood that was lying outside. Building another ramp solved the problem, more testing obviously needed Otherdwarf 18:58, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

Destroy up-down stairs

Is there any way to destroy carved (not constructed) up-down stair? --Dorten 01:13, 11 January 2008 (EST)

You're kidding right? You just edited an article that answers that (and only that) exact question immediately before editing this talk... --Edward 07:41, 11 January 2008 (EST)

No, I'm not kidding. The stairs article says how to destroy constructed stairs, carved up stairs and carved down stairs. it says nothing about carved up-down stair. neither method worked for me (at least in 33e)--Dorten 08:00, 11 January 2008 (EST)

channeling --Jackard 08:33, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Removing Down Stairs (Again)

The above comments are obsolete with the current version as far as I can tell. I accidentally build a down stair where I meant to have an up stair. Constructing a Up Stair on top of it wouldn't build, and neither would Constructing a Floor. So I tried making a channel through it as suggested above, and this did indeed remove the down stairs, however, it still reads as 'Blocked' when I try to make a floor over the hole. Are there any answers to this? Shadowics 00:30, 1 July 2008 (EDT)

How to

Signed up just to ask this. How do I get the stupid things to work? I built down stairs and mapped out an irrigation system for my miners to work out down there and they haven't touched it (been about an in game year, during which they did have alot of free time with no tasks on any level). Additional info that should be provided, how many squares are needed to go down, just one or 3 per level or something? What version were they added in (I used to play a version that had a single level, when you always dug to the east and there was always a river and magma and adamantine). All in all consider that the people you may be informing don't know nearly as much about the game as you do, I have alot of friends that would like this if simple instructions and explanations were provided, but with those lacking theyed probably play like 1 hour, ever. Forgot me tag --Lowlandlord 01:39, 31 July 2008 (EDT)

Did you build up or up/down stairs on the level below, or just a series of down stairs one below the other? The up and down stairs function as the bottom and the top respectively of a staircase. So build a down stair where you want the top of the staircase to be, an up stair where you want the bottom to be, and up/down ones between them. Each time you press the < or > key moves you to a different level, and you only need a staircase on that level and above or below to get access. So you only need to go down one square per level, unless you want to go down 3 and have a fortress with massively thick floors. Dangerous Beans 22:00, 30 July 2008 (EDT)

Good to know, got it working now, making a new world now to build a fortress where the stairs aren't past the graveyard in the back, for conveniance.

Movement

Does anyone know if dwarves walk over stairs at the same speed as normal floor? Thanks. Vaniver 03:25, 13 August 2008 (EDT)

They sure seem to. Gairabad 21:30, 15 November 2008 (EST)

Falling

The warning about up/down stairs concerns me, but I've never had any problems. It says a surprising number of things cause dwarves to fall. Can we list those somewhere? Under what circumstances do dwarves fall down the massive flights of up/down stairs to their splattery doom? Rkyeun 23:21, 13 August 2008 (EDT)

Mostly combat and sparring, I guess... maybe dwarves sleeping on the stairs ? Seems odd. Timst 03:16, 15 November 2008 (EST)

I just did the test, I dug a 3x3 up/down stair to the bottom of the map. I placed a barrack over it, and made the 7 dwarf wrestle over it. It's now summer, they are all legendary, yet not even a scratch on them. And they do sleep on stairs. --Karl 15:00, 28 January 2009 (EST)

Well, now it's gone =). LegacyCWAL 16:40, 28 January 2009 (EST)

I too have never had a dwarf fall down a flight of stairs of any height. LegacyCWAL 14:10, 28 January 2009 (EST)

So, is all the doom and gloom about up/down stairs no longer a factor, or is it still a valid concern - and if the latter, why? --KittenyKat 21:51, 2 March 2009 (EST)

I think it's no longer a factor. Either falling is out, or else it's so rare that it might as well be. So I wouldn't worry about it. --LegacyCWAL 17:23, 3 March 2009 (EST)

Maybe someone confused it with the sliding-down-ramps-to-death-problem in the first place. Not that i had that ever happen to a dwarf, despite having fights and ramps at most of my entryways. --Höhlenschreck 21:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Stairs not working for me, either.

Trying to build an underground bedroom complex... wanted to have seperate down and up stairs for better traffic flow. Is this not possible? The miner built one stair down on the first floor, one stair down on the one below... then stopped. He won't even carve out around the existing one so I can put in an up stair. (And now he's fortified himself into a chasm full of beasties. Dur.) The stairs (and now the new fortifications are flashing with a yellow C on a background color I'm not sure of, being red/green colorblind... --Azaram 00:33, 15 November 2008 (EST)

(That means they're constructions, so you can't dig them out.) Can you diagram a side-view of how you're setting up the stairs? --GreyMaria 00:47, 15 November 2008 (EST)

A "down stair" is not a stair that can only be taken down -- it's a stair that only connects the current level to the one below it. And you always need to connect an up stair to a down stair to be able to travel between levels. So two down stairs won't work. A down stair above and an up stair below will work, or up/down stairs on both levels (up/down stairs will connect to any stairs above or below, and can be used to create continuous stair columns).--Maximus 01:49, 15 November 2008 (EST)

Ah, ok. I was trying to create a bunch of down stairs, in the assumption that down stairs are traffic-marked to go down. Thanks... GreyMaria, it was basically 'move to one position, designate down stair. Hit > to go down a Z, so the X is in the same position (Coordinates would be helpful here... :-p) and designate another down, repeat.' -- Azaram 05:55, 15 November 2008 (EST)

Yeah, that would be your issue, like Maximus said. Is the article really that misleading? <_< --GreyMaria 13:33, 15 November 2008 (EST)

It's probably that the way stairs work in DF is inherently counterintuitive. In the real world, "down stairs" means "stairs you are only supposed to take down". In DF, it means "stairs that go halfway down to the next level that only work if paired with another set of stairs coming halfway up". That tripped me up the first few times I built them.--Maximus 18:16, 15 November 2008 (EST)

Yup, that's what I was thinking. Down stairs for where you want them to go down, up stairs for up, traffic flows well and everybody's happy. Part of the reason I was doing it that way was I had seen mention of the danger of up/down stairs and clumsy dwarves falling down them, and I had somehow gotten the impression they won't do that on stairs that are either up or down... Re parallel stairs below; I'd started doing that on my (surprisingly successful for me) current fortress... I got a 20 dwarf immigration and they all swarmed the meeting room where a party had been started, down the stairs and it seemed nobody was stepping on anyone's feet. --Azaram 06:16, 26 November 2008 (EST)

Incidentally, dwarves do tend to hug one side of a hallway or the other depending on where they're traveling, due to the way the pathfinding algorithm works. So if you build several parallel stairways (I recommend a 2x2 grid), that helps to eliminate a choke point. It also allows them to sidestep out of each other's way instead of one dwarf having to crawl (literally) past each other.--Maximus 18:16, 15 November 2008 (EST)

Why is stacking up/down stairs inadvisable?

The article says it may be... why? --N00ser 15:06, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

This was removed from the article in JAN. I couldn't say if its true or not, but i never had that happen to a dwarf.

=== Danger of up/down stairs === At first, it may seem that there is no need to build downward stairs and upward stairs: if you really want, you can simply build up/down stairs everywhere, although this may be less aesthetically appealing. However, if a dwarf falls, they will not be stopped by an up/down stair but will be by an up stair. A surprising number of things make dwarves spontaneously fall, which normally does nothing, since they like to stay on flat ground. However, if they are, say, climbing a seven-tile-high tower with up/down stairs, you might want to replace your dwarf splatterer. --Höhlenschreck 15:17, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

You might want to take a look at this previous discussion Talk:Stairs#Falling. --Karl 15:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I see then. Took it out anyway. --Höhlenschreck 21:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

"Breaking out" from below

I have a stack of up/down stairs finishing with a down stair on level (ground-1). From there I want to break out to above ground in the middle of a ring wall.

What do I need to do here? I get that if I deconstruct the down stair I will be stuck on the level (ground-1).

I'm thinking that I need to dig an up stair next to the existing down stair, then on ground level if I designate "dig down stairs" the miner will do this from underneath.

Hoping this is right?Garrie 04:34, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• Since you dug a down stair just below ground level, there's nothing from which to dig an up-stair, but if you construct an up/down stair on top of the down-stair, you should be able to pierce your way through to the surface. --Quietust 04:38, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

No, sorry... I went underground via a 3-wide down ramp "over on the plateu", now I want to come up into the middle of a tower "out in the plains". I have built a ring wall already, I want to come out into the middle of it. Didn't think this far ahead when I did my standard "dig X's to level ground-2, > on level ground-1".

When I designate "build an up-stair" on top of the down-stair I get "destination unreachable". I'm going with "shift 1 tile north".Garrie 04:59, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course it's unreachable - you have no up-stair below it. No upstair below = no access to that location. As Q explained, you can construct an up/down stair over the dug downstair (unless you're in soil you should have some stone around - turn "mason" on your miner, if only temporarily to get that one job done). Then you'll have your access.--Albedo 19:08, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Hatches

I think hatches should stand out more and just a bit longer instead of just a couple of sentences as they serve an important use in fortress defense, locking stairs and movement down.--Seaneat 09:29, 16 January 2010 (UTC)