40d:Door

A door (called a portal when made of glass) is a piece of furniture which can be built from rock (at a mason's workshop), wood (at a carpenter's workshop), glass (at a glass furnace), or metal (at a metalsmith's forge - requires three bars). The symbol for a stone door is that of a solid tile, the color of its material, with a cross of a different color across it (e.g. ┼) Doors of different materials use different tiles. Glass doors (or portals) use the symbol O. Metal doors use the symbol ╪. Wood doors use the symbol ║. A gem door, which can only be created by a strange mood, uses the symbol ☼.

Doors made of all materials function identically, although doors made of more valuable material will increase the "value" of a room it is used in. High-quality doors give a happy thought to any dwarf seeing them, especially when a door is part of a room that the dwarf personally owns.^[Verify] Items made of a material a dwarf has a preference for will give an even happier thought.

Doors, when closed, will prevent the passage of fluid (water and magma). However, if a dwarf opens the door, the fluid will come spilling through.

Doors may be hooked up to a lever, in which case they will operate like a floodgate without any delay.

Door settings

There are three options one can specify on a door from the q menu:

• l Forbid/Permit Passage
  • A door set to Forbidden is impassable to everyone in the game. A door cannot be set Forbidden if the door is open. Invading thieves may lock-pick and bypass a Forbidden door.
• o Keep Tightly Closed/Make Pet-Passable
  • A door that is pet-passable allows through traffic of pets. A pet can still pass through a door that is tightly closed if it does so while it is being held open by an object or dwarf. This also affect the door's permeability to wild animals - a tightly closed door is a good way to keep wild animals from blundering into your fort.
• s Set as Internal/External
  • A door set to external functions as a wall when defining boundaries of a room such as a bedroom. A door set to internal allows the room boundaries to pour over.

Placing doors

After constructing a door at any of the above workshops, they must be "built" (placed) like all other furniture. Doors can now be placed on any open square directly adjacent to a wall - doors cannot be placed diagonally adjacent to walls. Other doors and statues do not count as walls for door-building purposes.

Free-standing doors

It may be considered a bug or an exploit, but a door can be placed where no walls exist. It requires a constructed (not "natural") wall to be adjacent to the location, then the door placed, then the constructed wall can be removed. (d, n.)

In this manner a line of doors can be built across a hallway wider than 2 tiles, or even into an entire "wall" of doors. If in a line of doors, a "free standing" door can be treated as any other door - locked, linked to a trigger, etc. (A lone freestanding door cannot be locked - not that there is much point in doing so.)

If a natural wall is adjacent, even diagonally, and then later removed, the "free-standing" door will collapse if it has no other walls to support it.

Note that doors block the movement of wagons, even in a 3 tile wide corridor; if a Dwarven or Human caravan arrives and your trade depots are behind doors one of two things will happen to any wagons: 1) If the doors are unlinked, the wagons will proceed to the doors and then stop.^[Verify] If the doors are then deconstructed, the wagons will continue with only time lost.^[Verify] 2) If the doors are linked (to a lever or pressure plate), even in the "open" state, wagons will not sense any path and will not enter the map (with the usual announcement about "bypassing your inaccessible site"), but any pack animals and caravan guards attached to them will proceed as normal.

Doors and constructions

A door built will not create a floor above it the way a wall will. If construction is to be done above a door, walls, fortifications and floors can be built on top of doors. Doors cannot be built on top of other doors – there must be a floor. Stairs and ramps, of course, cannot be built on top of doors either.

Door strength

Creatures with the building destroyer tag can destroy doors. All doors. There are no exceptions. Run.
(Conversely, any door is completely invulnerable to anything that isn't a building destroyer. Therefore, a glass portal can stop an Elite Hammergoblin.)

Doors ajar

Sometimes dwarves will leave items in doors, propping them open. Having a door open when it should be closed can lead to all sorts of fun with water, magma and hostile creatures. It is also impossible for a door to be forbidden or "tightly closed" while propped open, further complicating matters. One way to avoid this problem is the use of a door, chamber and then another door. This decreases the likelihood that both doors will be jammed.

To remove an item from a doorway designate a garbage dump (preferably nearby) and then look at the item and mark it for dumping. A dwarf with the refuse hauling labour enabled will come along and shift it.

If you don't want to designate the item for dumping (or can't, if it's owned by an individual dwarf) you can clear the area by dismantling the door and rebuilding it. Dwarves always clear the area when they build things.
Select the door with q and then press x to order the door dismantled. Reconstruct the door in the same way as building a new one.

Buildings, Constructions and Rooms FAQ
When I try to build a bed/door/chair why does it say needs bed/door/chair?
How do I make and build chests?
How do I construct a wall from a particular direction?
How do I designate rooms or areas?
Help! My doors are stuck open!
Once placed, can furniture be moved?
How do I increase the value of a room quickly and easily?
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