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My dorfs took the risk and decided to dig out a cotton candy vein. The legendary miners quickly dug out everything above the magma sea without finding it hollow, and then proceeded down through it into the part encrusted in semi-molten rock. And that's when they made a terrible mistake: by digging the candy around the ramps they used to go down, the ramps were destroyed. They did this thrice before they realized they were trapping themselves.

So now they're stuck in a vein of cotton candy, surrounded by semi-molten rock, three levels below the magma sea. I got them to build a ramp out of cotton candy, but when look at the ramp it is shown as "Unusable Rough Raw Cotton Candy Block Upward Slope", and the dorfs don't use it to go up. They have no other materials available to them.

How can I rescue them?

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    +1 for "Unusable Rough Raw Cotton Candy Block Upward Slope"
    – John the Green
    Mar 20, 2012 at 4:15
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    @JohntheGreen He means Raw Adamantine. Vanilla Dwarf Fortress does not have actual Cotton Candy.
    – Raven Dreamer
    Mar 20, 2012 at 4:17
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    @RavenDreamer I'm pretty sure the point was not to give spoilers by actually naming it...
    – SaintWacko
    Mar 20, 2012 at 17:51
  • @SaintWacko It appears on the stock and equipment screens as a valid material type, and even as a potential dwarf preference. I have no idea why there's this need to keep its existence "unspoiled".
    – Raven Dreamer
    Mar 20, 2012 at 19:45
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    @RavenDreamer Well, I suppose that's true. Hm... I wonder if there's a mod with all the material raws modded to be candy... "You strike the goblin in the head with your Cotton Candy Shortsword. The goblin's head goes flying off."
    – SaintWacko
    Mar 21, 2012 at 15:42

2 Answers 2

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Forget about ramps; have them build an up stair and then down/up staira until they can get out. It takes the same number of raw stones to craft, but is easier to use than a ramp.

The wiki has more, but essentially, your problem is that for ramps to work, they also need walls (which it sounds like you have not built).

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  • Ah, and I suppose that semi-molten rock doesn't count as a wall for that effect, then.
    – R. Martinho Fernandes
    Mar 20, 2012 at 4:39
  • @R.MartinhoFernandes Not if the wall's 3 z-levels tall -- the dorfs need to go up the ramp onto a walkable floor (although this floor itself could have a ramp on it), but if there isn't one the ramp's unusable. So an alternative escape could use ramps and walls to build a large ramp (by building ramp-wall, then ramp-wall atop that (ramp on top of the lower wall, of course), etc.), but it would use twice as much "cotton candy" as just making the stairs.
    – Kromey
    Mar 21, 2012 at 0:42
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    You could also just dump stones into the hole they are in. (Together with booze and food).
    – Ids
    May 30, 2013 at 11:51
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If you dump stones on their heads, they might die. Just letting you know. However, if you have enough space for them to stand to the side, that might work.

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