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[itg]

Continuing my quest to destroy the world, I have discovered a way to mine out ALL the slade in Hell, including revealed walls, except for the unminable "rind" around the map's edge. Combining this technique with Dwarven power mining, it is now possible to flatten Hell and drop the rest of the map on top of it, removing virtually all evidence that Hell ever existed.

That's a project that will have to wait, however. For now, I have created a smaller demonstration project: the Hell Hole.

Spoiler: Before the Hell Hole (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: The Hell Hole: level 0 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Level -1 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Level -2 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Level -3: Tonight, we dine... (click to show/hide)

Artifact and slade furniture. One statue is of tick monsters (a type of demon), and the other is of Ezum Anvilage the Helmed Squid of Denominations, the militia commander who oversaw the conquest of Hell.

Spoiler: The Hell Hole: full-map images (click to show/hide)

How it works

The basic idea is to carve fortifications into the slade, then cast obsidian over those fortifications. The obsidian "overwrites" the slade, so you can fully mine out the tile. I came up with two different techniques for doing this. The first technique makes it easier to collect the slade boulders, but the second requires much less micromanagement.


Method 1

This is the first approach I tried, based on the slade mining technique mentioned in my other recent thread:

• Build a retaining wall around the area you wish to mine out.
• Construct a down stair over some unrevealed slade.
• Dig an up stair directly below it.
• Repeat steps 1 and 2, creating grid pattern over the area you want to mine. No, you can't build all the stairs first, then dig all the up stairs at once. Yes, this is really tedious.
  
  Spoiler: The grid of stairs (click to show/hide)

  
• Carve fortifications in all revealed slade walls.
• Dig down stairs (or channels) directly above all carved fortifications.
  
  Spoiler: I used channels here, but stairs are less work (click to show/hide)

  
• Add magma. It should fill up the fortification level.
• Add water. Thanks to the stairs you dug, the water can fall through the stairs into the fortifications and cast obsidian there.
  
  Spoiler: Obsidian casting in progress (click to show/hide)

  
• Dig out the obsidian.

Method 2

This technique is a lot less tedious to designate than the other one. Instead of constructing stairs one by one, you dig ramps directly below the surface, then construct stairs in the holes created. The slade boulders will fall into the revealed walls below these holes, but they can be recovered if you mine out the lower layer, too. If you're already on the bottom layer of the map, the slade boulders will fall into the void, and they will be lost forever.

• Dig ramps directly below the surface. Due to slade's weird behavior, the floor above will be left intact, and there will be no floor at all in the level below.
  Spoiler: Step 1 (click to show/hide)

  
• Construct or dig down stairs above the holes.
• Construct up stairs inside the holes
• Proceed as in method 1--carve fortifications, dig down stairs above, cast obsidian

[zubb2]

The crud peaple do in dwarf forts.

For not only the conquest of hell but the complete destruction of it, YOU , get two socks.

Two socks that breathe fire and were taken from malchior 5 where the socks grow to 800 feet high and breathe fire!!

[IronTomato]

PTW
You win.

[TeleDwarf]

Ok. You can drop stuff on hell and reduce it to something like a 1 tile wide ring around the map. Splendid!

1. How about caves? a whole-map cave-in would collapse caves and you will be left with a horrible, messed up by height map. deep ravines and high cliffs... Truly, a sight of a cataclysmic disaster... It would be just great if you could provide a map or a save after you collapse world on hell.

2. How about eerie holes? They would just consume everything, and if adjustant to the map edge - will leave a path for flying demons. So instead of a hell-less embark you will get the gates of hell. With all the landmarks of 1, but also with some endless pits.

[cyberTripping]

So instead of a hell-less embark you will get the gates of hell. With all the landmarks of 1, but also with some endless pits.

So, hell on earth, essentially?

[itg]

Ok. You can drop stuff on hell and reduce it to something like a 1 tile wide ring around the map. Splendid!

1. How about caves? a whole-map cave-in would collapse caves and you will be left with a horrible, messed up by height map. deep ravines and high cliffs... Truly, a sight of a cataclysmic disaster... It would be just great if you could provide a map or a save after you collapse world on hell.

2. How about eerie holes? They would just consume everything, and if adjustant to the map edge - will leave a path for flying demons. So instead of a hell-less embark you will get the gates of hell. With all the landmarks of 1, but also with some endless pits.

1. Hehe, yeah, it would be pretty great, especially because most of the map would be swallowed up by the magma sea.

2. That's actually what I was originally hoping for, but it turns out natural tiles crush the eerie glowing pits and sit on the bottom of the map.

[shali8]

he could actually cast the caves in obsidian and do it that way.

But that still leaves the problem of the magma sea...

I am sure someone of your caliber can fix that though.

[itg]

he could actually cast the caves in obsidian and do it that way.

But that still leaves the problem of the magma sea...

I am sure someone of your caliber can fix that though.

Yeah, if you wanted to preserve the shape of the caverns, obsidian would work. You could preserve a lot of the magma sea that way, too, provided you were willing to drain it and floor it with constructed tiles (to prevent the magma flow tiles from swallowing the cast obsidian). However, I would actually be more inclined to expose all the magma flow tiles on the map and turn the entire embark into a smoldering crater.

[DogsRNice]

this is how you win dwarf fortress

[TheDarkStar]

2. That's actually what I was originally hoping for, but it turns out natural tiles crush the eerie glowing pits and sit on the bottom of the map.

Wait, you can fill bottomless pits in DF?

[itg]

2. That's actually what I was originally hoping for, but it turns out natural tiles crush the eerie glowing pits and sit on the bottom of the map.

Wait, you can fill bottomless pits in DF?

You sound surprised.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

Why does this seem sane to my mind?

Seriously, this is explicit'd up. You have discovered a way to take a major obstacle and then crush it beneath the feet of everything else in the world. Not only will doing this turn the game's FPS into a crashfest, it will also create amusing results once every creature on the map dies from falling damage, if you would do this properly. And what will happen if you try this in DF2014, especially if you "abandon" (the non dwarf-disappearance kind) it right as the landscape is falling? Moreover, what will the landscape map give as elevation?

The demons will probably think that the sky is falling. You win, as you have made the idea of a sub-hell fortress seem silly.

[smjjames]

I think I'll try method two to punch a better access hole through the demon fort that I have (which has already been conquered.

Might practice a little using the fort itself though. Although I have no interest in collecting slade boulders.

Edit: Okay, apparently I got a slade boulder without needing to use obsidian? The demon fort part could be a special case though, no idea.

[itg]

I'm sorry if it wasn't clear, but you do not need to cast obsidian to gain the slade boulders--what the obsidian does is "overwrite" the fortifications you carved, so you can dig an open shaft of arbitrary depth. If all you were interested in was digging some slade boulders (I know it isn't), all you have to do is construct would  a down stair over some unrevealed slade, then dig an up stair beneath it.

[smjjames]

What about revealed slade? Or rather the walls of the demon fort that I am smoothing right now so that I can cut a non-labrynthine access pathway through the labrynthine tunnels.