User:Squirrelloid/Under the Sea

This is my epic building attempt to create a dwarven fortress not just below the sea floor, but on the sea floor (preferably out of glass).

Geography: A rather large map to both get some nicely rugged coastline and oceanic slope terrain. (Ie, ocean with steep cliffs) Building in one z-level of water is child's play, building in 15 is challenging. The ocean is haunted - mmm... fun.

Geology: Despite seeing sedimentary rock on the embark screen, its all far underwater or part of the aquifer (which i honestly can't be bothered trying to mess with right now). lots of igneous rock available for quarrying though, which means i don't have to make wood blocks or anything so silly. Lots of sand, though no beach. Magma vent (this is critical). Aquifer fails to extend all the way to ocean, giving me vertical access within a screen of the shore.

Near temporary fortress: Plenty of copper ores (native, malachite, tetrahedrite all present) near the surface, plus some hematite, native gold, and native aluminum. One of the aluminum deposits appears alluvial... is that supposed to happen? Also some platinum and (apparently abundant) garnierite far below, but i haven't mined much yet.

Stage 0: Initial Dwarves:
Mechanic 5/Judge of Intent/Appraiser/Negotiator/Flatterer/Consoler
Mason 5/Building Design 5
Carpenter 5/Glassworker 5
Armorsmith 5/Metalsmith 5
Weaponsmith 5/Gem Cutter 5
Furnace Operator 5/Gem Setter 5 - Exp Leader
Grower 5/Brewer 5

Arrived with anvil, 2 iron bars, 2 copper bars, food, drink, 2 cats, 16 bauxite, some wood and some coal. Immediately built a wood burner, smelter, forge, butchers, and tanners using the bauxite. Burned a wood and butchered the female cat. Smelted some coal, and started 2 copper picks as soon as there was spare coke. Got the mining started, had the grower/brewer make an iron battle axe for dabbling, deconstructed wagon and all buildings (bauxite is precious).

Stage 1:
-Build a temporary settlement in the soil cliffs. Establish an initial working economy.
-Quarry stone.
-Build an engine.
-build a lot of corkscrews and pipes.
-open up an area under the water for an entrance to a more permanent fortress.
Estimated Time: 2 years

Quickly hollowed out storage areas in loam/sand/etc... over four z-levels, using the opportunity to add an exit on the shore z-level (having started 2 z-levels above it). Got farming up and running. Moved everything inside by late spring, and forbade all the bauxite.

Used some basalt encountered hollowing out the temporary fortress and an alunite outcrop for initial stone, followed by the discovery that relatively near the shore there is no aquifer to quarry vast amounts of stone. Made some blocks and some furniture essentials.

Tunneled out to the magma vent and set up a magma metal and glass industry. Got carpentry going. Got masonry and mechanics going on the shore z-level. Got two offices carved out of basalt.

Engine: There's a nice curve of land giving me a great place to put my engine (ie, massive power generator). Chop a bunch of trees in the way, and dig a channel along a cliff just inside from the edge, building walls wherever the channel breaks out of the cliff to give me a nice throughway, and dig out near the end so it opens onto the shore there. Build a screw pump at the starting end with ocean behind it and a straight shot down the channel, and build walls to bridge the distance between pump and channeled cliff. Put a floodgate at the end and trigger link it.

Immigrants arrive in mid-summer (wow). Lots of them. I'm up to over 20 dwarves. And simultaneously a huge herd of rhesus macaques - I beat them off decisively by drafting everyone near them, killing all but one with the loss of only a pet donkey foal (whatever) and no rest-worthy injuries. Butcher a lot of monkeys.

I make a few immigrants masons, build some walls to wall off the ocean between the pump (leaving space for a gear) and the presumptive location of my permanent fortress entrance, leave a space, and then wall off a ways south and then cut back to the cliff to stop anything from spawning from my south at shore level. By winter I also have a wall (with locked door) blocking access from the north on either side of the channel - i can remove doors and build more walls to extend how much channel i can use, but the currently accessible part is quite sufficient (11 waterwheels worth).

Have an immigrant fill the channel with water.

About now the first dwarf caravan arrives. I buy seeds and food primarily, and trade mostly mechanisms.

Place gears for initial waterwheels, connect with wooden beams, build water wheels. My carpenter otherwise is building beds/bins/corkscrews and pipes. Have swapped initial dwarf miners out to train new arrivals (as i want to protect my initial dwarves valuable skills for moods), and they're currently just digging in soil for training - have them empty an alluvial copper deposit when they get decently skilled and switch corkscrew/pipe production over to copper.

Also start building floors 2 wide and 11 apart out into the water where the fortress entrance is going to be. Ultimately it'll be 2 arms of 7 screwpipes long bridged by a segment 11 screwpipes wide (with a gear protected by 3 walls in the corners). This'll finish screwpipes and all at the start of my second winter, including connection to engine.

At some point I send my carpenter to make green glass goblets - i have enough to trade with the elves by spring.

Economy is running, doors in critical places, devote mechanic to making a small stone-fall trap field in the entrance hallway (5 deep) to discourage goblins and rhesus macaques. And as my miners start reaching legendary i go on a mining spree to make sure i have mineral resources.

By second winter I've gotten some lame artifacts, lost a child to wanting 'cloth' but rope reed wasn't good enough, and have a legendary clothier from a mood (sigh, I didn't want to do much cloth work). I've also extended my engine to 12 wheels, providing a remarkable ~1000 net power. I plug in my water pump and dig some ramps down. One back from the open space for the above gears I build screw pipes, corner walls protecting gears, and swap 2 screwpipes for floodgates. Build a wall above this followed by a second wall separated by a space to stop wave penetration. (Did you know waves go *through* walls? at least if they're in 'ocean' space).

At this point my fortress is up to 55 dwarves.

Stage 2: Create initial permanent fortress
Estimated: One year, give or take.

And now its time to start digging downward. I drop 3 levels with ramps (and channeling to make sure wagons can go down). then run a straight shot for ~20 squares, drop another level with a ramp, and make an area for a depot and storage. Go back up 2 levels (right above long tunnel) and make some plumbing to pump water out of the entrance hallway - those floodgates above weren't for show. Divert the water back towards the shoreline south of my walls, and create spaces to place pumps to pump it back up and out over the water.

Ongoing

Stage 3: Seafloor construction (future)

Engineering challenges:

• Construct an entrance below sea level in the ocean that can be sealed and flooded, but cleared to allow a caravan. (done)
• Find a way to build downwards. You can't hang down stairs off the side, only up stairs, so you can't just build stairs down. Below are three ideas. Regardless, they all require substantial labor to deconstruct afterwards - can't mar the beautiful glass structures after all.
  1. Run a channel of magma to where you want to go down and release small bursts at just above sea level. This should ensure the resulting obsidian is touching your structure, and thus supported. Channel through it, release more magma. Rinse/wash/repeat. Not sure if the second and subsequent layers are actually going to be supported, but it'll be fun to watch. Removing the magma channel after your done building things could be a pain though.
  2. Drop magma from a z-level above the water. This will cause a 'cave-in' as obsidian forms unsupported on the water's surface, likely allowing the next portion of magma to hit a lower z-level of water, etc... Eventually (and in theory) you'll get obsidian on the ocean floor and it can build up, giving you an obsidian spike to carve stairs into.
  3. Just pump a path all the way to the ocean bottom from the shore... this is really labor intensive and not much fun.
• Use downward building techniques to build down through 15+ levels of sea water. Yes, I am crazy, why do you ask? Note that with the pumping method you lose 3 squares in all directions each level you go down, so you're looking at a minimum surface water pumping construct at least 88 screwpumps on a side to get a 1-block diameter tower with 15 z-levels of ocean to go through. Fortunately, every additional initial screwpump after that is pure gain.
• Pump enough water to build a large glass dome, preferably 6+ stories high, and in the end entirely under water. This is a challenge of breadth more than depth, as its going to require a similarly obscene number of screw pumps.
• Do all this and don't get eaten by the Skeletal Mako Short Fin Shark.