Hatch Cover

A Hatch Cover is a circular covering for a hole in the ground, which is effectively a vertical door. It is classed as furniture and can be built from several materials (e.g. rock at a mason's workshop, wood at a carpenter's workshop, or metal at a metalsmith's forge).

When closed, hatches have the symbol ç, and when open they look like empty space.

Hatch settings

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

• l Forbid/Permit Passage
  • A hatch set to Forbidden is impassable to any dwarves in the game. A hatch cannot be set Forbidden if it is open. Invading thieves may lock-pick and bypass a Forbidden hatch.
• o Keep Tightly Closed/Make Pet-Passable
  • A hatchthat is pet-passable allows through traffic of pets. A pet can still pass through a hatch that is tightly closed if it does so while it is being held open by an object or dwarf.
• s Set as Internal/External
  • A hatch set to external functions as a floor? when defining boundaries of a room such as a bedroom. A hatch set to internal allows the room boundaries to pour over.

Building Hatches

After constructing a hatch at any of the above workshops, they must be "built" (placed) like all other furniture. Hatches can be built on any free floor tile, over empty space, or above down-staircases (or up/down staircases). They cannot be placed over several constructions, like Floor or Wall, and it is unknown if you can place them over traps.

To be used effectively it either needs to be placed above a downstair (or in an up/down stair) where like doors it will impede liquid flow while still allowing access, or alternatively it can be linked up to a lever (and probably placed above a channel, or lava, or below a river etc), which when pulled will remove the hatch temporarily allowing whatever is above to fall down below. When not placed above stairs, you need to ensure that there is no floor in the way, or the hatch cover will purely be decorative.