Old image of a Barrack outside of the permanent hospital, it essentially looks the same except now everything's built and running.
Placing barracks outside of hospitals is a habit that comes from frequently having to treat patients that sometimes try killing the other Dwarves. Someone gave me the idea of having an observatory in the hospital, so there's a tiny dining room made up of brass tables and thrones on one end of the ward. This barracks is the second largest, with a second floor being built but it might hold the title for best looking.
The hospital is incredibly well stocked from a great Fortress rope reed/pig tail fiber cloth industry (something around 50 million urists in cloth crafts have been accumulated), with plaster from caravans (running out - the caravans no longer show up), splints, crutches, vast access to freshwater (more on that later, not shown in pic) and only lacking in soap. There are two Doctors, Doc. Tekkud Oakchanneled and Doc. Onol Bloodshark who are both skilled craftsdwarves in their off-time and skilled doctors on duty (and they actually help patients!). They've saved all but two patients that came to them, the first happened in the Fort's infancy. Winter came and the river froze when that fateful battle occurred for Cerol, and water was not found in time. The second was unfortunately too savaged to save from infection. Both were of a resulting encounter with the eternal menace, the raven.
It's very fortified on account of it being in the overlap of the Overworld and the passage that leads to the Quarry, which in turn has a sharp ramp leading into the caverns.
Though it's more to keep people out of the caverns than to keep cavern critters in.
Fairly old Overseer screen cap (Overseer screen caps are a bit harder to get than in-game and stonesense ones) but it's close enough to what it looks like now. The right corner is where the barracks/hospital is, with the pathway leading into the Quarry up top. I like my Fortresses to connect to Fortresses, to be inside Fortresses, above Fortresses and as horizontal as possible. The Overworld complex is comprised of a few key buildings from which walls sprout out, connected by the towers which act as strong points in the defence. A brook runs its way through the Fort meaning the water supply is completely secure.
In the direct center is the HQ, which has nearly every lever connected to anything in the Fortress. There are so many connections that any attempt to use them will undoubtedly result in unexpected effects. Towards the bottom beneath what looks like a copper cross are the farms (massive), below that the Broke (memorial hall). Scattered here and there are gatehouses, one South and one West. Next to the hospital is the Citadel, the largest barrack and the civilian hive.
This is the Citadel as it stands now. It is what the Overworld complex was built around, much as the Citadel was built around the first workshops. The grass at the bottom is actually a ditch where I've let grass grow over. Burning material. The entire lower level is also reinforced with constructed walls so you won't be seeing any sandy walls in adventure mode. It's arguably the most fortified area of the entire super-complex (if you ignore the Great Halls which benefit from the Citadel's and its own). You can even see the little sentry tower on the bottom right overlooking the path to the Quarry and the airspace around it. Those patches of beige and white on the main building are where the differences between marble and limestone blocks show through stonesense and overseer, they show rather well the scaffolding that got assimilated into the superstructure.
Needless to say, it takes a lot and incorporating the scaffolding saves much time.
This is the most habitated level with the Citadel on the left and the Civilian hive on the right. Every bedroom in the Fortress is a grand bedroom. These ones are guilded with brass, but it likely won't happen with brass again - probably copper or silver, the brass is being diverted to the construction of the Broke. Everyone gets a nice load out of furniture, all made of white stones.
Here you can see the remaining influence of Silentthunder's outpost days. An old hospital sits besides two dormitories outfitted to house soldiers, not migrants and of course the original barracks and stockpiles. Off screen further north is also one of the oldest buildings in the complex, the first booze stockpile. The lower levels are of course fortified to spire and back, reinforced with thick, thick walls in the event of theoretical siege actually being a siege. The citadel and the civilian hive are made up of individual cells that are mostly all asymmetrical from one another, yet close enough alike that they resemble an imperfectly natural fractal. It has that unplanned permanent look to it that I like.
In the citadel is also the current largest unbroken staircase, at over 103zlvls in height. I plan to use all the zlvls. All of them.
Cavern layer two being fortified near the Quarry works. No need to have Dwarves picked off by Giant Cave Swallows and Giant Toads while clearing the unstable ground left by piercing through the ceiling.
Not quite anything impressive just yet, but you can see the scaffolding (constructed from nearby trees), the Quarry (more scaffolding and mechanisms) and where the Dwarves have reinforced walls/dammed the lake outisde of the Quarry (that was horrifically arduous).
Cavern layer 1 is also being fortified (and is surprisingly more hostile than layer 2) but until finished, doesn't look anything worth screen capping just yet.
The only completed tower in all of Silentthunders. Pretty thing, it's also going to be the smallest. Not sure what to name it, will think of something later. I'm not quite sure how to describe the design of it other than it's tapered to a staggering point. Gargoyles overlook the land. I am considering adding fortifications that serve no purpose but to look awesome. It's somewhat reminiscent of a fortified lighthouse or watchtower as much as it is its own strongpoint, what with the interchanging fortifications/windows at the very top.
I don't like how most people's farms are small, dreary holes in passageways manned by depressed beardless Dwarves. As a result, it has a vast quantity of statues as befitting an Englishman's garden, with a footpath both above and below ground. On the bottom is the Broke, with the brook running through it and memorials standing amid a sanctuary. On the end stands an old Willow tree, older than many of the buildings that grew around it. The memorials nearer the bottom are of those who fought and died against Silentthunders' finest. The top shows the fallen Dwarves of industry and valour. Far at the top the workshops can be seen. The workshops are a scattered mess that were meant to be temporary... Only they never really moved. As the buildings grew around them the workshops became more and more permanent until they became the center of activity for anything that wasn't construction or kitchenry.
That is the main frame for the Tombspire being built for the greatest contributors to the Fortress hanging over the farms. Quite a lot of it is constructed from precious metals.
Screen cap of the farms from late winter, when most underground crop activity slows to a standstill. Note the hatred for sand/loam walls. If an adventurer can't see them, the better!
A megaproject: The Brass Tower, with the artifact limestone door Velasiv on top. Completed.
The courtyard with its aligning etchings that spill blood onto the levels below. It's huge, with 3z lvls of open air within. It houses the trade depot as well as the raven bomb and the entrance to the Fort complex/exit to the Brass Palisade.
The Quarry is one of the first few structures to have ever been made in the Fort, and it has since grown to become a megaproject which has in itself created more megaprojects. It links the caverns to the surface via a large and sharp rampway, ensuring even Overworld dwellers can have some Fun.
Currently it is over 30zlvls deep, with digging leveling out here due to obstructive layers requiring controlled cave in to demolish. Technically that screen cap is a bit out of date, there's now an inverted fortified dome. Just in case.
*EDIT
Fixed broken images
Poll
Author
Topic: Silentthunders - We have struck spoilers (Read 24083 times)