Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[BuGGaTon]

Howdy folks.  I just had a fortress where I was lucky enough to find magma only 30z levels down.  Whilst I could have just moved down to make my furnaces I decided to start attempting !!Science!! and built myself a pumpstack to keep all my industries up on the top 5 z levels.  The stack was 24 zlevels high and followed the safe magma pumpstack 3x3 style that avoids lag.  I made one alteration.

I added a floor hatch to every level so that I had a method of draining the stack for future modifications.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

XXXXXXX XXXXXXX    These are the two levels.
XX--oXX XXX---X    X » Natural Wall
XX-X%XX XXX-H-X    S » Up/Down Staircase (always in the same place)
XSWX%XX XXX---X    W » constructed wall
XXX---X XSWX%XX    % » Pump
XXX-H-X XX-X%XX    o » Open Space (channelled tile)
XXX---X XX--oXX    H » Hatch
XXXXXXX XXXXXXX    - » Floor tile (dug tile)

This pump worked perfectly.  Every single pump was created from iron metallic components (as they're the only technically magma safe metal and I had plenty of trees and iron ore) and stone blocks made from magma safe material.  I shifted an entire 16x37 7/7 magma tiles up to the underneath of my furnace.  Nothing broke, all lovely.

I then shut the flood gates leading to the magma sea, opened the specially designed flooding chamber and whammed open the floor hatches.  I also shut off the power supply to the pumps.  Everything looked fine.  The pumps switched off, the hatches opened, the magma drained away peacefully (a few splashes into the lowest level stairway as the magma slightly overflowed that last open space... considering adding a door to prevent this). 

I check back on the stack several months later and the entire stack of pumps has deconstructed.  No fights, no monsters, no FBs, nothing.  What could have caused it?  I double checked every material, it was all magma safe and it didn't fall apart until AFTER the magma had evaporated.

[Uristocrat]

If a monster destroyed a pump, they'd all come crashing down and I don't think you'd get a message.

I usually build walls around my pumps and seal them off whenever I'm done with them.

[rephikul]

If a monster destroyed a pump, they'd all come crashing down and I don't think you'd get a message.

I usually build walls around my pumps and seal them off whenever I'm done with them.

You do get a message, <furniture> has been toppled by <creature> in red.

[Drawde]

Were any of the pumps on top of a hatch or gear?  If a pump is built on top of something that is later removed it will eventually deconstruct.  As will any pumps that were built on top of that one, and so on.

I eventually gave up on a pump stack in an older fort when I learned that both tiles under the solid parts of the pump need to be either a building or ground.  When I had channelled alternating floor sqares to tranmit power.  I'd kept designating the entire stack to be built at once, and they kept falling apart when the pump below it wasn't built in time.

[BuGGaTon]

As stated, no monsters or creatures interacted with the tiles.  I didn't know that info about the tiles below needing to be stable.  I think I might have built even the bottom pump on a floodgate which remained shut throughout pumping but was opened again upon draining the entire stack.  I'm not positive but if there's a delay for something falling apart this might explain why it took a while to notice the pump stack having crumbled.  I'm going to go and reclaim the fortress to see if this was the issue.