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Author Topic: Glass bridge to the island.  (Read 1340 times)

Canadark

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Glass bridge to the island.
« on: October 14, 2009, 08:43:34 pm »

Today I found a really neat island that was within swimming distance of the main land but still far enough that connecting them would not be a walk in the park. Both areas have abundant trees and stone that could be harvested for construction. I left with a ton of bituminous coal and right now I am trying to build a bridge from the main land to the island. Eventually I hope to move everybody over to the island so that caravans can cross over to trade and any attacking armies (playing with orcs mod : D ) will have to endure withering fire as they run across a glass bridge slippery with blood. I remember a while back seeing a really neat bridge somebody had designed complete with spires and what looked like suspension. I'm aiming for something more utilitarian, but with plenty of elevated causeways and towers to help my marksdwarfs. Right now it is just a single tile wide glass floor jutting out a short ways over the ocean.

Any suggestions?

Here is the local image:
« Last Edit: October 15, 2009, 10:04:28 am by Canadark »
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They Got Leader

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Re: Glass bridge to the island.
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2009, 10:41:57 pm »

Make a glass bridge all the way across the water. Then make smaller bridges parallel to the main bridge out of stone. Make spires/towers on the smaller bridges along the way, so that your marksdwarves can aim and shoot without worry of your towers being flooded with elf scu-- i mean, traders. Half way along your glass bridge, make a large toll booth out of stone, so that it looks like theres a giant stone castle suspended by glass.

That sounds like an interesting starting point. Care to share the map?
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Golgath

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Re: Glass bridge to the island.
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2009, 10:53:24 pm »

If you're going to bother with a glass bridge across the ocean, I'd say you may as well go all the way and make a glass tunnel under the water, so that all caravans that pass through can marvel at your feats of engineering.  Ideally it would be clear glass, but it'll work well enough with green glass.
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Phantom

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Re: Glass bridge to the island.
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2009, 11:00:34 pm »

Make bridge out of the crap you can find. As long as isn't to big to fall into the ocean.
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Kanil

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Re: Glass bridge to the island.
« Reply #4 on: October 14, 2009, 11:10:31 pm »

Upload the map. Or some screenshots. :p
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Yah, it sounds like minecraft with content, you have obviously missed the point, people dont like content, they like different coloured blocks.
Seems to work fine with my copy. As soon as I loaded the human caravan came by and the world burst into fire.

Akhier the Dragon hearted

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Re: Glass bridge to the island.
« Reply #5 on: October 14, 2009, 11:48:33 pm »

Bridges are cool to make. if you ever abandon the fort your in then the island will have access to all the mainland Civs.
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Phantom

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Re: Glass bridge to the island.
« Reply #6 on: October 15, 2009, 12:19:33 am »

Someone did connect islands before, forgot who.
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Akhier the Dragon hearted

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Re: Glass bridge to the island.
« Reply #7 on: October 15, 2009, 12:32:50 am »

I have done it myself. It also works if you build a road through a mountain chain.
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QuakeIV

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Re: Glass bridge to the island.
« Reply #8 on: October 15, 2009, 12:48:02 am »

If you're going to bother with a glass bridge across the ocean, I'd say you may as well go all the way and make a glass tunnel under the water, so that all caravans that pass through can marvel at your feats of engineering.  Ideally it would be clear glass, but it'll work well enough with green glass.

Okay that is such an awesome idea, im guna try that with magma.

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shadowclasper

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Re: Glass bridge to the island.
« Reply #9 on: October 15, 2009, 12:59:47 am »

I'm planning on making roads across one of my gen'd worlds and connecting as many areas as I possibly can with bridges. I'll turn off invasions during this though, simply because they would make it next to impossible to succeed.
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Canadark

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Re: Glass bridge to the island.
« Reply #10 on: October 15, 2009, 10:11:02 am »

I'm planning on making roads across one of my gen'd worlds and connecting as many areas as I possibly can with bridges. I'll turn off invasions during this though, simply because they would make it next to impossible to succeed.

Well that's no fun.

Anyways, I have every intention of building the whole thing out of glass, if only I had some magma this process would go much smoother.

When I first embarked I thought I was actually on the island side, until the dwarf caravan suddenly showed up coming from the western edge of the map. I was kind of hoping for a sort of escape scenario, now my dwarfs are much more vulnerable to attack from the orcs.

How exactly would one build a glass tunnel without draining the entire ocean? I've read about people building domes before but I've never been able to theorize how they go about doing it. I originally thought they made a giant block of glass with a massive spire they could burrow down through and dropped the thing into the sea, but don't constructed walls always collapse?

One more question... the size of the overhang has no bearing on whether it collapses or not as long as there is some small connection with stable ground, right?
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Aye, we are Armok, god of blood, evil, villager gutting, fortress building, legend making and elf thongs.

zwei

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Re: Glass bridge to the island.
« Reply #11 on: October 15, 2009, 10:37:17 am »

No, sadly, everything constructed gets deconstructed when you drop it.

You can, however pump water out of tile fast enough to create empty spot at which you can erect wall or lay floor tile. IIRC, you can also destroy water with atom smasher bridges which can double as walls.

That means that you can eventually wall off large section of sea, construct your tunnel and deconstruct dam.

Easy, huh.

Golgath

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Re: Glass bridge to the island.
« Reply #12 on: October 15, 2009, 11:12:02 am »

One more question... the size of the overhang has no bearing on whether it collapses or not as long as there is some small connection with stable ground, right?
As long as it has direct support from some point, it'll stay up.  Note that only floors and walls count for this.  Hatches and grates don't transfer support, so if you build something off of those it'll collapse and wreck the place.

As to what I was thinking, you could just build the bridge as a tunnel, as normal, and then just use an infinite water source to flood it to a level where the tunnel is actually submerged.  Bonus points if you just make your whole fort underwater-based, though you'd need to use drawbridge-walls at the edges of the map.
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