I've not been in DF since my last post, so no spiral-ramp screenie, I'm afraid.. Just wanted to share a couple pro-tips..
d-b-d allows you to mass-dump within a selection rectangle, once you've set up (i) a garbage dump. This helps save your fingers.
Then, once it's dumped, it's automatically {Forbidden}. To mass-unforbid, it's just d-b, then area-select over the forbidden items to make em available again. That way, the stone's usable, and any stray corpses get carted back to your refuse stockpile.
With the damp stone.. The most common cause is that you're digging on the z-level beneath a river/lake/pool/well/whatever, so you should be fine. It's warm stone that's the potential for !!fun!!. If you find warm stone, back off, go up a z or three, then tunnel back. Rinse and repeat till you don't hit warm stone, and you should hit open air above a magma pipe/pool.
And my favourite little touch? Tantrum spirals. Urist McUnfortunate dies to carp. Urist's wife, Urist throws a wobbly and smacks the nearest thing upside the head, killing someone's pet kitten. Urist McKittenlover sees red and takes it out on the nearest person, who happens to be that lazy bugger that hangs out in your dining-room all the time and has eleventy-hundred best buddies. McKittenlover's in the military, and promptly bifurcates McLazysod. This usually all calms down with one Dorf left in the whole fort, rocking catatonically in the corner, wearing his mate's face as a hat..
LOVE DF.
