40d:Road

A Road is a path of dirt, wood, stone, blocks or bars (metal, soap, etc.). They are used to make paths across the map that make it easier for people and wagons to travel by preventing trees from growing underneath them.

Three kinds of roads can be made:

• Dirt roads can only be built on top of soil, and any plant life (grass, shrubs, or trees) will soon grow back.
• Rough road can be made with regular stone, it will be the color of the first material used.
• Smooth roads can be made of any kind of block or bar.

Other buildings, including traps, cannot be built on top of a road.

A road is not strictly necessary for the wagons to reach your trade depot, as wagons can travel across most surfaces, including ramps, as long as boulders and trees have been removed from their route. Since boulders do not reappear, roads are typically only beneficial when built over soil areas where trees would grow; paved roads built over stone are purely decorative.

If you have discovered an underground river or underground pool, it may be wise to pave the floors of any underground water channels, lest tower-caps sprout and block the flow of water.

Building

Select b for build, followed by o or O depending on if you want a paved or unpaved road. Use keys h,m,u or k to adjust the height and width of the road. The number of materials required for a section of road is 1 + area/4, rounded down, where area is the number of tiles occupied by the road, including obstructed tiles. Roads may be built on constructed floors, shrubs and the top of walls the level below, but not boulders, trees, ramps or open spaces. Obstructions will not prevent the road from being built (unless they split the road into multiple disconnected segments), though removing the obstructions afterwards will leave holes in the road.

Paved roads must be designed by an architect before they can be built, though no labor is required for actual construction - as such, the architect will typically construct the road immediately after designing it. Though construction does not require a labor assignment, the dwarf performing the construction will still receive experience based on the material used.

Roads are one of the few features that can be built all the way to the map edge.

Training in the Metal Craft skill

Roads built of metal bars utilize the metal crafting skill. Also, when roads are demolished they return all the materials used to build them (no loss). It therefore possible to build metal roads, demolish them (at no loss of metal) and then rebuild them repeatedly. The dwarf will get experience as if he is creating metal crafts. To some this is an exploit.

Removing

Press q to access room actions then select the road you want to remove. Press x to remove the road - it is the only available action.

Worldgen roads

Worldgen roads (that you see on the map) aren't built as roads; stone roads are made of block floors and dirt roads are simply dirt. They are seven tiles wide (wide enough, incidentally, for a wagon to just fit on a diagonal one, since diagonal ones are seven tiles across in each orthogonal direction; only 7/sqrt(2) = 4.9 across, and a wagon is 3*sqrt(2) = 4.2 tiles across diagonally). Ramps go directly across the road when they have to connect Z-levels, rather than following the terrain. The fill around level changes seems to be made of natural material rather than constructed. Bridges are made of floors (a wood log bridge has been observed on a stone block road) with walls at the sides - ramps at the ends of each wall allowing you to walk on top of them. There is fill in the river allowing a uniform 3-tile-long approach. (that is, there are three tiles of bridge on the ground before being over water). Worldgen tunnels (Dwarf and Goblin roads) are similar; with bridges over chasms. Tunnels are reachable from a staircase and narrow passageway at the lowest level of a mountain hall, or from a basement level in a tower in a dark fortress. You cannot Travel while in a tunnel.

Road value

Dirt roads have no value/quality as they are just trampled soil and are not counted as a building. All paved roads have a set value calculated based upon the material and architect skill level of the dwarf constructing the road. To calculate the value of a paved road, simply add up the material values of all the components used and multiply by the overall quality of the road as indicated in the building list.