Hey folks, I'll start this with some info on what I'm attempting to undertake and some background info about myself. To start it off I play DF using a combination of Dig Deeper/Relentless Assault so I have crazed Orcs, Warring Humans, Goblins, all the other races/creatures wrecking havoc in my worlds as well as an average of two sieges a year, hell sometimes in a season. So I should have a metric ton of interesting history waiting to be engraved. I love my engraving and the idea of an above ground fortress, especially after reading about Matchshield. I attempted my own version, did quite well actually, had districts/buildings for specific crafts and whatnot, but it got bland with building everything with block, which I still don't get why they can't be engraved (probably something in the coding than a real life issue). So threw that out and started over with a dream.
I thought to myself two days ago, why not cast a giant block of obsidian and carve a city/village and carve from the top down as well as smooth/engrave outside walls as I go. I'm currently on my 3rd attempt. First one was off to a good start, nice flat site, magma pipe relatively close to the surface, river that freezes during winter so it can be dammed up/diverted underground for my use, tons of wild life(mostly geese, but those get cleaned out fairly fast when first wave of migrants gets reassigned to hunting/butchering/tanning). But due to a stupid mistake on my part it went to hell, forgot when casting/farming obsidian you start with the magma then add water, not the other way around, so i ended up with a 100x120 tile lake that had a corner filled with a pock marked slab instead of a nice solid slab. Same world, different area, a tropical broadleaf fortress. I should of just said to hell with it when I opened the unit list and saw page after page of aggressive animals.
I mean the river was loaded with carp and pirahnas, I had both alligators and salt water crocodiles on the banks, various dinosaurs roaming the wilds. But I've dealt with the evil that is carp and need water from a river with the use of several rows of fortifications in the water tunnel. I would turn off hunting/fishing labors as they come. I really didn't need river water til I had a mold set up and the magma pipe tapped so I dug out a starter working/farming area along with a room to throw my shells and bones before beginning work on cutting down a rectangular section of the hill till I hit ground level. But it wasn't meant to be. So far I have one level of hillside mined out and being prepped to be collapsed when I get a notification one of my miners was killed followed by the pair of war dogs. Pausing the game and swearing at my own stupidity of not setting a bookkeeper so I could zoom to the corpses, I begin a sweep of where I was mining. Turns out an alligator wandered away from the river, up 3 level in the pursuit of tender dwarf flesh.
So now I notice my other miner nearby, surely close enough to the now named gator of doom, and I quickly unpause/repause to undesignate that section to be mined in hopes that he would turn around and head back to the meeting hall. But I wasn't meant to be. Upon unpausing he wanders forwards about 2 squares, get a question mark over his head then notices the gator who now notices fresh meat and begin to chase the miner down. Now this fort just started out, not even through a full season and my miners been digging through mostly rock in their excavations, meaning he didn't have a decent boost in his agility/str/toughness and the gator has just ripped his buddy in twain. I wasn't sure he would make it so I looked for my pair of woodcutter/farmers, thanking the gods above I decided to embark with real axes instead of bitless(modded in training weapon) who had the remaining two war dogs assigned to them. Now these boys had been clearing trees on the level above in preparation of the cave in and the fact one cannot have enough wood lying in a stockpile either for furniture or charcoal, so these boys were leveled a bit, so with them along with their dogs should be enough to drop that gator when I would activate them along with the lone miner.
So I did, set the 3 into a quick squad and set the station point at a nice spot ahead of what used to be the fleeing miner and hope it all works out. But this is Dwarf Fortress, things like common sense and dwarves don't mix. So upon activation, my miner turns around and flings himself upon the gator (I imagine him emitting a bellow of rage before he makes the leap. So now I have a miner turned recruit, armed with a copper pick and pigtail clothes, going toe to toe with a murderous animal that is almost twice his size. He lasts two seconds before ending up in more pieces than the first miner. Now I'm pissed, that goddamn reptile was going to die, I've had fortresses survive marauding hippos that got lucky enough to walk through unarmed cage traps, survived and led a prospering fortress between orc and treant sieges. Even the odd friendly ancient vampire... well I didn't survive that, bastard came in and destroyed a flood gate that held back a huge cistern for my obsidian farming operation, which wasn't 3 squares from a stair case that led to my meeting hall/slash bed room complex, didn't even notice till I got the dangerous terrain warnings, so with a 3rd of my dwarfs locked into bed rooms and lower levels quickly. So that was abandoned and I edited out vampires building destroyer.
But back on track, I'm pissed off that this gator just tore apart two of my most important dwarves of the starting seven. His scaley ass was going to die before being put away till I get a leatherworker in the mood to make a legendary leather thong, studded with the bones of this beast. So I sent the remaining members of the 3 man squad after the beast. Fifteen seconds later dwarf/dog/gator clash. I finally realized why one section of the river seemed to be free of dwarf eating fish, the banks empty of crocodiles, not even other gators. That section was his section. This reptile struck fear even in the hearts of carp, he was the patron saint of all dwarf mauling reptiles and by god did he show it. He killed one dwarf but not without wounds, it was missing an eye it's throat was bruised. Next a war dog was bisected as it's partner tore into the reptile. Soon the wounds were piling up on beasts, both domestic and wild. Then I see it "Urist Crazed warrior-farmer is enraged" and I smile, thinking this animal was going to be in for a world of hurt, and I was right, to a point. The gator ended in meaty chunks, but there was losses on my side. My remaining dog was crippled, missing an eye as well as his tail and half his face. MY badass dwarf had a handful of bruised fingers and a busted arm, but was quickly retrieved and laid in a bed by my craftsdwarf.
Game pauses as it saves with the arrival of summer. This site is located in a tropical forest, not a warm tropical forest but a hot tropical forest. Soon every puddle and pond on the map begins to dry up and my crippled dwarf is thirsty. So I quickly set my mason/carpenter to craft a bucket while my craftsdwarf and butcher begin excavation for a canal to the river in preparation of a well. Now, the only remaining water on the map is the river teeming with dwarf hating wildlife, even the previous empty section is filled with carp, who in sensing their reptilian rivals death, moved into his territory. I heave a sigh and forbid the freshly made bucket, do a mental salute for the crippled dwarf, and add farming labor to my mason and hope hope the previous farmer goes out peacefully, well as peacefully as dwarf with a floppy arm and suffering hallucinations from water deprivation can go. This works out for a month, I ignore the spam about getting water, no bucket. Cripple is now thirsty and hungry, his mood dropping lower and lower with each day that passes. Then I see red text.
Urist McCripple goes insane, followed by going beserk. So now I'll tell you about this fortresses basic layout. As I mentioned earlier it's basically 2 rooms, one big one that houses everything needed to survive, with a smaller one that was a refuse pile/graveyard with a 3 tile wide path to the outside with a bridge set to raise when being sieged. Beds, table, chairs along with the food pile are in the middle. Everything used for trade crafts and trade on one far side next to the depot, the aforementioned garbage room the other. As luck would have one dwarf was throwing an idol or something in a bin next to the depot, the other disposing something his damn cat brought him. The only thing separating the two was a crazy, armed with an axe, dwarf with a floppy arm. It was like watching a game of pong. Garbage dwarf walks out of the room before quickly running in while being followed by a dwarf acting like Jack Nicholson in the Shining. Idol hauling dwarf figures now would be a good time for a drink before meeting the dwarf who shall be called Jack with rage in his eyes.
Idol man quickly turned tail and ran while Jack hobbled after him, giving Garbage a chance to escape the room of rotting chunks, only to be chased back in. I'm sitting here hoping the two sane dwarves outlast Jack without dying or going nuts. All I needed was two mad dwarves acting out 28 days later on the remaining one. Game pauses, saves, it is now fall. Hope springs with thoughts of rescue by caravan. Hope shatters when I remember caravan doesn't show up till winter now. I hit escape, then abandon and read the forums as I gen a fresh world in search of a site like the first one I mention. Noticed slavery/friendship mod. Revert back to D16 and move my raws and art files over, gen a quick world.
Start a small fortress in hopes of catching some elves and enslaving them and breeding them. Works out to a point, in a previous fort I had elf captives pop out elflings while caged. Never had I before so quickly saved a game and edited raws to have [PET] [trAINABLE] lowered the age till child stage along with removal of the baby stage completely and removal of the multiple litter rare tag. Soon I had almost a dozen full grown elves running about along with 15 little ones. Even had an execution/entertainment pit filled with war elves. Nothing will bring a smile to your face faster than watching a frogman with an attitude get tore apart by ravenous long ears. Found out three things then. One you don't need 'Slavery' to have tame elves. All you need is an elf baby/child in a cage along the the pet tag in the raws. Two game treats war elves after they kill something even if its not a dwarf as a hostile entity, not cool when you have a named war elf get splattered for doing what its trained to do. Three elves even tamed and classified as an animal will gain social skills.
Quick save scum, try out Slavery for the first time. realized simple option while funny isn't worth it after getting spammed that a yak wont pick up equipment due to 'wounds'. Save scum yet again, try out experimental mode. Eureka only the elves in the fortress showing no job in the units tab. So now I have a breeding population of haulers/meat. But I wasn't happy with that. I have plenty of haulers. I need more specialized roles yet elves only showing as animals with an option to be slaughtered. Caught a whole ambush worth of Orcs in the meantime. Played around with the steal option in slavery now I have 7 mining orcs with no option to set labor, so I had them butchered. Worked like a charm. I now have orc stir frys and orc leather shoes. But I have a new problem, whenever an elf pops out a kid, the kid terrorizes everyone in the meeting hall till a military dwarf offs it. Watching an elf baby(baby was born before edit to the age change and removal of the baby stage, think of elves as Taltos now for those who have read Anne Rice pre making good with god) fly across the room, straight from it's mother's arns due to a hammer dwarf feeling the need to play dwarf tee ball before receiving a bolt to the brain since he technically killed a fellow citizen. I haven't laughed that hard in months, before realizing how sick and twisted I am. Not sure why he batted the baby, but I think it's due to the elves while being a friendly animal, they are still part of their home civilization, which I start out as hostile with, still need to mess around with dwarf companion and see if I can't fix this. But this still had some extreme potential but doesn't work to the fullest, so I abandon, exit the game and edit raws to make elves playable thinking it was dominant civ thing.
I was wrong, even while playing as elves, I couldn't assign labors. So I did the sensible thing when playing as cannibal elves, re-enacted the Donner party while sending the loan survivor off to wrestle bears since elves don't seem to bring anything but berries when embarking. So as my elves consumed one another I opened raws from D18 version and D16 since they're identical and compare the differences between the dwarves and elves. Thought it might have been something with the ethics, but that wasn't it as Elves even while they have few, do have a few labors. So I copied over damn near everything from the dwarves and pasted over the elves. Still no go, so after a regen, and yet another Donner Party I notice one of the most obvious difference in the tags between the two. Dwarves have [INTELLIGENT] while the elves don't. Sure enough it worked, I lost the option to butcher but I could assign labors. But this brought another problem. The damn long ears were friendly with me. Something that I need to remedy. What was the point of elven slaves if the only way to get them was kidnapping caravans. I wanted pows damn it.
Luckily this was fixed when I added [BABYSNATCHER] and turned their ethics back to their old cannibalistic ways, not sure which of the two did it, but one tag gives you free bags and workers, the other gives you awesome history. Which brings me to my current fort. It resembles the first one mentioned, nice flat site, magma pipe not too deep, river that freezes during winter so it can be easily dammed for my use. As well as a metric ton of geese and rabbits. So with small mods. I turned my dwarves from friendly booze swilling to murderous abominations(god I love the chaos dwarves graphics) dwarves that can and will eat your brother then wear a fine pair of shoes made from his skin. They were the result of Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter from the Silence of the Lambs union. It was beautiful...
First season was uneventful. Got my two rooms dug out, depot walled off with a bridge. Then the lizardmen came. They sieged me on and off for a full year, with maybe a weeks reprieve a season. So while my dwarves were underground I found the magma pipe and started making charcoal so I could get forging the screw pumps from the iron I brought with me. Now fast forward 2 game years, lost one dwarf to an imp when he was building the first screw pump for the magma stack. I'm now up to 30 strong and I'm beginning channeling in preparation of the base slab of my soon to be made obsidian block. Even have a newly caught and 're-educated' elf mining as well as smoothing stone in his spare time (he had the highest artistic trait). A squad of hammer dwarves are clearing out of my soon to be construction. Nothing says good morning to my dwarves like a rabbit or a goose hitting a wall at mach 1 next to the exit to my underground bunker when they come out to work.
Now fast forward to where I am now. 6 years in first slab half way finished since even three pumps and near endless supply of water isn't going to cover a 100x130 area even with a mold surrounding the thing. So I made 100 flood gates and in the process of hooking them all up to a single lever. My elves increased from 1 to 4 to 3, as my mining elf has gone legendary and engraving soon following, while 3 previous thieves (I mean if you come to a fortress where the locals will kill you, consume you, then parade around while they wear your face as much as look at you and have a habit of knocking the wildlife across the map before it explodes into a fine mist, you have some brass balls if you want one of their children for your civ and I can respect that) have become a hunter and a married couple. Since they're not classified as animals anymore the couple doesn't leave the fortress till I get more breeders, the hunter though with some minor mods to the weapons of elves(go to hell bows and your useless stacks of arrows, hello xbows and training ammo) was one of my damn best till he fell asleep and a siege come onto him. No great loss though, elves apparently wont socialize with dwarves and vice versa. So only the elves got the unhappy thought while my dwarves were ecstatic in the thoughts of orc meat stew that would be coming as soon as they wandered into my cage traps.
But now after that whole spiel and bit of story time I come to have a questioned answered. I want my 'Block' to be 9 maybe 10 z-levels above ground not counting the slab that's one level down. I have some experience with pump stacks, but never when it came to filling a 'mold', usually to take magma from one level to a higher one. But I want to make a pump stack go up 10 maybe 11 levels with an aqua duct like structure that would pour it into the mold. I figure I could go without making a a multi level reservoir. My question is this. I know liquids falling several levels will make a mist when they hit something solid. I just want to know if this will generate any extra magma loss from evaporation. I'm not worried about water evaporating I have plenty of that, but my magma is somewhat limited. it took almost a full year to fill my channeled out mold and that was with a fairly large reservoir just below the surface, and I'm currently pumping from the highest point in the pipe so I can drain the first level fast. I really don't want to have to build an extended above ground reservoir and magma safe flood gates/mechanisms if I can help it.
Any help, suggestions, and tips would be greatly appreciated, I apologize for the slab of text, didn't realize it was this long, and I hope my recounts of experiences *cough epic failures* brought a smile to your faces and made your saturday better.
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Topic: Question about Magma Evaporation from falling several Z-levels (Read 734 times)