Wait, why can’t a gulag just be a squat, concrete building? Is this a gulag party center or something?
How does this sound? (Specifically 1:15)
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Could do the trick. Should be more memorable, however. If it isn’t stuck in your head ten years after the game came out, it’s not sufficient.
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Are you speaking with the voice of experience? 
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Sure, you’re regular run-of-the-mill gulag can be. But I don’t want my settlers seeing daylight for their entire miserable lives. As such, I need to expand a bit ya know?
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Ah, I know a gulag connoisseur when I see one! Are you sure you want to go for the '77 concrete block gulag? It’s really not in fashion anymore, endless, bottomless pits are the newest trend. Easy to clean and maintain, easily expandable, huge capacity and if done properly, absolutely zero chance of seeing daylight.
If you are interested, I could send you some pamphlets about it. A buddy of mine is in the bottomless pit business.
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Is that so? I had always been told “How preposterous, bottomless pits?! Sir, such a thing will only exist in fantasy.” Yet here you are proving them all wrong.
Am I interested. Of course I’m interested.
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Indeed it is! Of course, it is not exactly cheap which is the reason it is rather a… niche product. You don’t see them often nowadays as there simply is little demand. Opinions such as the one you stated, which are basically “Why should I spend lots of money for a proper bottomless pit if I can build a hundred gulags for the same price?” are sadly very widespread. They would rather waste their money on such useless things like, shudder, a lair inside a vulcano than a proper detainee storage system.
Of course, there is also a very strong gulag lobby, which is very devoted when it comes to eradicating all bottomless pits. I’m afraid we won’t see any new, bottomless pits of the good old day quality very soon. In a few decades, I doubt that there will be any around at all.
However, I’ve sent your contact information to my buddy, C.M.O.T- Diggler. He’ll get in touch with you real soon.
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I fear how someone can make such a spirited conversation about gulag design. It’s very… concerning.
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don’t worry, my first few designs will be much much worse. Anyone know anything about the Word Bearers?
When you consider the overlap between Dorf Fort and Stonehearth players, the gulag discussion makes perfect sense. I have horror/engineering stories from that game that still worry me sometimes… like the lava shower, or the spider pit.
Custom floorplans and templates will be amazing. I’m planning on making an interlocking hex-grid honeycomb with roads in the in-between spaces. So many bee metaphors!
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Ah, of course… I recall a particular conversation on the Bay 12 forums about a forcible-reproduction and then death chamber for mermaid bone collection. Can’t wait to engineer mass murder in this game!
I’m confused about what this “gulag” is. Is it this?
It says that on wikipedia.
I’ve noticed that the Floors are elevated off the ground. This will be a problem because the Doors aren’t elevated, which will make the building unable to enter, which will make our little Settlers have a problem when trying to access the building. It should be that you have to dig out the Foundation of the Building, fill the Dug-Out area with the Floor, then build the Walls, Doors, Roofs, Etc.
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Or just make some stairs (which is impossible because stuff lower than 1 block doesn’t exist 
)
The settlers can climb one block as you can see on the first picture Tony posted=P So It’s not a problem^^
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You’re wrong. Remember that everything in the game has a scale. You could eventually create tiny stairs, like two steps or something, really short and small. But it’s useless, as Didis said settlers can climb small steps (in the lower terrain there are lowered areas and I think they can walk there without problem).
The problem EpicDwarf mentioned would be really a problem if settlers hit their heads with the top of the door frame when entering the building. I don’t know if that would happen, I don’t remember the height of the door hole in relation to the settlers.
But it’s true that it’s a bit weird having the floor elevated just right at the entrance, maybe would look better digging that area before. Nevertheless, zoomed out it’s not noticeable.
I’m going on a limb here and, from a developer’s perspective, say that this is not intended. The floor will likely be even to the ground, however, it would (likely) be more effort to color the terrain properly (I’m not entirely sure how that is done at the moment, to be honest, as the whole rendering stuff is still pretty isolated behind a wall of engine and magic) than it is to spawn some ghost blocks.
In order to build the floor, and the roof later on, your script needs to know what is “inside”. The easiest (or rather laziest, but all programmers ought to be lazy, so this is completely acceptable and even desired) would be to have the settlers just place blocks at locations where you want it to be inside. And that’s what is done here.
I could be completely wrong and they actually do intend to have the houses one block higher up, with some sort of stair, but I feel like this would give a rather odd look. I don’t think elevated foundations would fit the game itself. So my dibs are on a temporary debugging reason, rather than a game decision - in the similar way the ladders for the scaffolding are just blue wireframes.
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it’s an interesting issue, but in the end it really just boils down to how the player lays out their buildings, no? in other words, you can either build around the terrain (making your designs fit with what you have), or, when we have the means, adjust the terrain to fit our design requirements…
I am in favor of elevated floors. It really differentiates from the stockpile/farming area. And you can have 2 block walls in rpg vision, so it really looks like a wall without obstructing too much. 1 block wall does not look like a real wall imo. it is the same heigth as a row of wood blocks for example.
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