I've just started playing Dwarf Fortress vanilla. I'm following a guide and it had me dig a staircase down, which I have done. The problem I'm having is that my miners won't go down the stairs to dig out on the next level down – The only thing I can see is that there are some 'gabbro' blocks that blocked construction of the stairs.
Are they causing my issue, and if so, how do I remove them?
If they are not the cause, what's making it so my miners won't go down to the next level?
Level one:
Level two:
Best Answer
It looks like you've dug down-stairs on the level below. Down-stairs need an up-stair below them to work - or an up/down-stair if you want to go down additional levels.
If you don't want to dig around, you can solve your problem in this case by building an up/down-stair on one of the tiles on the lower level (through the Constructions menu). Make sure you use material that your dwarves can get to for the construction job, though (so not one of the nearby gabbro stones).