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[puke]

I'll be honest, I havent played a great deal since the game went 3d.  Its been sort of daunting.  I have also not been on the forums as much, so im sort of an "old noob" when it comes to much of this stuff.

By way of example, I still dig chambers with supports so that no area is larger than 6 tiles wide.  I know i dont have to, its just habit.

Anyway, with the wait for the new version, i figgured that you guys woudlnt mind answering a question that has probalby come up a few times before:

whats up with flows and pressure from fluid sources?  i've read the wiki about it, and Toady's gamasutra interview, but whoever wrote the wiki article clearly hadnt read any of Toady's notes.  Not only are the fine details on pressure (or how the game creates the illusion of pressure without simulating it) a bit muddy for me, but i have a specific question about magma:

does magma really not flow up at all?  will it not flow up out of a channel, will it not flow up a ramp or stairs or up a shaft?  is this a bug or a feature?  if i implement magma flows in a fort, will a new version suddenly cause them all to overflow and lava my fort to death?

[Kagus]

They will not flow up, it is a feature, and it may or may not overflow in a new version.  But hey, it'd be fun to watch.

Just make sure you don't tap into the magma one level above the channel, so that it falls into the channel in a really cool magmafall.  Then you get problems.  Bye-bye smithery.

And you're not the only one who still watches out for 7x7 rooms.

[puke]

wait, do you mean that magma will flow up, but only up to the point that it was tapped?  or is that just a general caution against spraying magma everywhere?

[ZedEh]

I think he means this, but I haven't actually tried it, so it may not be a fun way to lose.:

code:

SIDE VIEW (Don't do this)
~~~#################
~~~~~###########_... <- magma will flow up level to 
~~~#~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~    tap-point, flooding your fortress
~~~#################
Where:
  # Stone
  ~ magma
  _ channel
  . floor

Now, can anyone else confirm this is correct?  I think it's because the 1-level drop pressurizes the magma.

[numerobis]

No; that's safe.  Magma doesn't have pressure.

What doesn't do what you want is

code:

~~~~___........ dining room
~~~w...

Then the magma goes over the channel, drops down to z-1, and slowly fills that.  But when it's full, the magma will then keep flowing, because there's no obstruction, and it'll reach the dining room, and you'll have a flock of !!dwarves!!.

[Frelock]

Yep, I remember my first time with magma, I had it fall down several levels to get to my smithy, because I believed it would be easier to tap a few z-levels up.  I thought to myself: "hey, wouldn't it be cool to have a waterfall of magma as a visual backdrop to the forges?"  It was, until the channel it was falling into filled to 7/7, and then good bye metalsmithing operation (which sucked because there was a strange mooding armorsmith in there).  But then I tapped into my magma flooded room from above, and everything was fine.

[Othob Rithol]

quote:Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>
And you're not the only one who still watches out for 7x7 rooms.</STRONG>

Oh so true. I really wish Toady would put that back in just for nostalgia's sake. Damn the realism, give me chaos!