v0.31:Stonegears/Digging deeper

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Going down

Now it's time to see what's down deep below the surface. This will only involve one miner, and we want to keep the other two busy. To keep them busy, designate two tunnels from the center of the living area, each one tile wide, one going west and one going east, out to the edge of the site; the tunnels will stop one tile short of the map edge, since you can't dig the very edge of the map. For each tunnel back away about 8 tiles from the edge and designate another tunnel branching north. The site-wide map for the living area level should look something like:

SCREENSHOT PLACEHOLDER

This will have two of your miners doing exploratory mining for minerals. Since each tunnel is only one tile wide each tunnel will only tie up one miner.

Designating the shaft to dig downwards will be a little different. Go to the stairwell at the center of the living area and set things up to designate up/down stairs (d-i). However, instead of using the arrow keys to move the X cursor around, move the mouse pointer over the center stair, hold down the left button, and with the other hand press > repeatedly. This will place a stairs designation where the mouse pointer is on every z-level that you pass through. Keep on going down until you hit relative depth ____/absolute elevation ____. ((Extra instructions if necessary to breach first cavern from above))

Now unpause and let your miners dig. Pretty soon the view will show some new scenery, and a message box will show the message You have discovered an expansive cavern deep underground. Press Enter to dismiss the box, and you'll find that the game is paused. Take the chance to look around (k) the Template:L. Things you'll see:

• Underground "Template:Ls". These are actually giant mushrooms with the consistency of Template:L, which can be cut down to make logs.
• Underground Template:Ls. These are wild growing versions of the underground crops your farmer is growing.
• Template:L and Template:L, underground versions of Template:L.
• Template:Ls, which your dwarves can gather to Template:L into Template:L Template:L.
• Underground Template:L, which can be used as a source for Template:Ls and Template:L
• Various underground creatures. These can also be listed via the units screen‡ (u).

Since the underground trees, shrubs and grass are types of fungus, breaching the cavern lets their spores out into the rest of your fortress, where they'll start growing on any underground floor which is made of Template:L or covered in Template:L (except for farm plots). This presents no danger, and can in fact be useful: if you dig out large areas of soil and leave them empty then they'll start growing trees which can harvests and grass which can be Template:L, all of it safely underground rather than on the (possibly) dangerous surface. The spore-spreading can present a bit of a problem, since when a sapling grows into a tree it blocks movement, which can lock dwarves in or out of rooms. If this causes a problem you can Template:L a rock Template:L over the soil floor to prevent tree growth.