I know how to clone something in a rotated manner.  (like petals of a flower)

What however are the settings to clone a line vertically (so that it looks like steps of a ladder as an example)?

Done:

Setting the rotation angles to 0 and the row s and cols to, say 10, and 1.

Result:

10 clones in 1 vertical  col as expected

Problem:

There is no space between each clone. It looks like a big block because the clones are stacked right up against each other.

What setting specifies the distance between vertically tiled clones in each column?

Thanks.

Umm.. further experimentation and fiddling..  found it :) ...

In the Shift tab, set shift Y to a number (its a percentage of the tile's height)

Case closed.

I refer you to the last part of my answer to another tiled clones question: https://inkscape.org/forums/questions/how-do-i-edit-the-row-and-column-properties-after-i-have-created-tiled-clones/#c15555