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[Lord Dakoth]

For a while in the new version, I designated up/down 1*1 stairways tile by tile. Designate, go down one level, repeat two hundred times. I discovered a trick to QUICKLY and PAINLESSLY dig a large vertical staircase, even over hundreds of Z-levels. I thought I'd share it with the community.

1. Make sure the [MOUSE] option is set to YES in your init.txt file. (YES is the default value.)


2. Open the designations menu, and hover the mouse pointer over the tile where you want your staircase to be. Make sure that you won't run into any problematic features (i.e. caves or magma) beforehand. Select (i) Up/Down staircase.


3. Hold down the LEFT mouse button. (Clicking the mouse on a tile with "Dig" selected will mark the tile for digging.)


4. Without releasing the LMB, Hold down "SHIFT" and "." (move down Z-levels.) As you continuously scroll downwards through Z-levels, the mouse pointer will designate EVERY TILE in the shaft as an up/down staircase.


5.


6. Profit!

[Torgan]

Sweet, didn't realise that. 

[Alexei403]

This is totally sweet.

Yay for mouse input!

[Foxbyte]

It's even easier if you change your z-level keys to something that don't require shift.

[Village_Idiot]

Awesome! With the new Z-levels it always takes ages to designate a stairway.

[Oglokoog]

You can also always use AutoHotkey.

[Rastaan]

 

*/worship*

[opsneakie]

Nifty, now can you figure out a way to do it for larger stairways? I generally make 3x3 stairs

[Stephen346]

I've actually used this technique a lot... it's very useful.

Nifty, now can you figure out a way to do it for larger stairways? I generally make 3x3 stairs

Just repeat the column 9 times.  If you're designating downward and you hit the bottom, move over a square and start going up.

[darkrider2]

dude that is awesome.

[derekiv]

Damn, beaten to the post. I found this out and used it to designate a 5x5 staircase all the way down to the bottom of the map.

[random51]

I seem to recall this working in the previous version up till 40d.

[bmaczero]

I seem to recall this working in the previous version up till 40d.

It definitely works in this version, I've done it.

[gtmattz]

I seem to recall this working in the previous version up till 40d.

Works in 40d as well, at least it does/did for me.

[herrbdog]

Can dwarves still fall down up/down stairs ('X')? I remember them falling some 10 z-levels in early .40 so I stopped using them.

My main staircase is 4x4

(for odd # levels)
<..>
<..>
<..>
<..>

(for even # levels)
>..<
>..<
>..<
>..<

I've just been lazy, I need to set it up in AHK.

This leaves room to put traps on the staircase. But it does make something 100 z-levels downstairs actually 400 tiles away (or is it 300? meh, it's far.)