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[Callista]

My current fort is in a completely frozen area--i.e., no running water, no trees. Found a source of sand by digging out a frozen river or glacier or something, then building and removing a constructed floor across the bottom of the river, revealing white sand. So: Green glass, and then pumps to get magma up from the magma sea and water up from the caverns. Total, about 70 or so screw pumps. They're all dwarf-powered right now; like I said, no running water, and the dwarves need the stats anyway because the goblins have been getting annoying lately.

The problem is here:



The first image is the lower level, the second image is the z-level directly above it.

On the lower level, there are two pumps. The one on the left is for bringing water up from the cavern, and is currently not being powered. The one on the right is being pumped by a dwarf (he's thirsty so you can only see his blue arrow). There are two floodgates controlled by those levers, to allow me to choose whether to pump water or magma. The floodgate on the left is closed, so you can see it; the floodgate on the right is open and located two spaces to the right of that first floodgate.

As you can see, that second pump above is not getting any magma through the grate, even though there's 7/7 magma below it, and the pumps below that are working just fine, bringing magma up (this is about 10 pumps from the bottom of the stack). The floor grate is located above the space right between those two floodgates.

Even more mystifyingly, this arrangement worked just fine to bring up water from the caverns. I've got a full cistern to prove it. I've checked for rogue trees in the plumbing; no problems there. The pump is pointed the right way, and the dwarves can get to it and pump it. The space beneath the grate is channeled out. It's just not bringing up any magma.

What's going on here?

[Yaotzin]

Stop thinking about your big system and isolate the problem. There's 7/7 magma under the grate in picture 2 but it isn't getting pumped up? Then you haven't channeled that tile or something. The problem is right there, the rest doesn't matter.

[Callista]

I have channeled it, though. Looking at the tile it says "sandstone grate/Open space". Water's gotten through that space; why wouldn't magma?

What other issues could be happening here?

[Sphalerite]

Can you upload a save?

[Callista]

Okay... This is weird.

I deconstructed the screw pump, and there was no pipe section in it. When I went to reconstruct it, the pipe section was gone. I used green glass for all my pipe sections (this I know, because wood is so scarce that there wouldn't be a reason for me to ever have any non-magma-safe pipe sections made). It's... odd.

I'm going to rebuild this once my glassmaker gets off her butt and we'll see.

ETA: Yeah. Somehow, I managed to build a screw pump without a pipe section, pump water through it, and not notice until it wouldn't pump magma. I still have no idea, but I'm happily watching my FPS plummet as my magma reservoir fills, so all's well that ends well.

[CaptainArchmage]

You have a closed floodgate beneath the grate. That tile doesn't have any magma in it. To solve the problem, open up the floodgate.

[Stromko]

Is green glass magma-safe? The pipe might be getting destroyed by the magma, which would prevent the pump from working. Try a steel pipe.

Bear in mind this is entirely theoretical, I have no idea if the stuff inside a screw-pump cares about the temperature of the stuff going through it, though I remember that it's always necessary to use magma-safe materials in a pump. This result (a single component going missing, and breaking the pump but showing no outward signs of it) is something I am not at all familiar with, however, and am not sure why/if it's supposed to happen.

edit: The rock parts (mechanisms etc) would need to be bauxite, and wooden components replaced with steel, if it's to be entirely magma-safe.

[Sphalerite]

Green glass is unusual.  Loose green glass items will be destroyed if exposed to magma, but constructed green glass furniture or buildings are magma-safe.  A pump made completely from green glass (green glass pipe, green glass screw, green glass block) is completely magma-safe when constructed, even though any of the component items would be destroyed by magma if not constructed.

[Callista]

I wonder if the magma somehow melted the pipe section... I had to rebuild everything above that pump, and then it worked fine.