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[Hurkyl]

For the first time, I decided to embark in a black sand desert, and dig quickly to the magma sea and bring some magma up early in my fort. I am led to believe that one should be able to push a minecart down a ramp to fill it with magma, e.g.


S
.\
..\_  _S
....\/..


This is a side view picture where the S's are track stops. The magma is in the lowest two squares.

Alas, this didn't work. I'm pretty sure that my cart went into the magma, then rolled leftwards out of the magma, then rolled forwards again, finally coming to "rest" bouncing back and forth between the ramps. (I suppose I may have been mistaken about it rolling backwards partly up the hill; it didn't do it in my second test)

The setup, I believe, worked fine when there wasn't any magma.


Should this have worked? Should this have worked with a longer ramp? If it matters, it was a nickel minecart.

(I can't re-test my setup, because I lost all of my work due to my first DF crash to desktop just as I had extended my ramp, and I didn't have autosaves on)

[GreatWyrmGold]

Magma slows down minecarts.

[praptak]

I've had a minecart go through magma, alas, not taking any. It seems that taking magma slows the cart too much for it to continue out of the magma by itself. Maybe there exists the prrfect setup but I haven't found it.

[gestahl]

Minecarts have to slow down to / are slowed down by filling with magma, use magma safe rollers to get them back out. Also, I don't think you can power rollers from above, so you need a gear on the same level.

[greycat]

Someone else is attempting to fill minecarts with magma without using rollers already... I don't think (s)he has succeeded yet, but you should definitely check that thread for hints about what doesn't work.

Ah... praptak also posted in this thread, confirming the lack of success so far.

[Hurkyl]

I've had a minecart go through magma, alas, not taking any. It seems that taking magma slows the cart too much for it to continue out of the magma by itself. Maybe there exists the prrfect setup but I haven't found it.

Ah, I guess I mis-remembered what I had read: I thought I had read that this works.

[daishi5]

In order to get a minecart out of magma you need to use rollers, and you need to extend the rollers all the way on to the ramp out of the magma.  That last part caused me no end of frustration with my automated magma filling setup.  Make sure you build the rollers on the ramp out, you can't maintain enough momentum to carry a full cart of magma out otherwise.  I have had roller-less minecarts go into and out of magma, but it seems if it is fast enough to make it back out, it was always too fast to pick up magma. 

[guitarxe]

Speaking of magma and rollers, can the rollers somehow be installed directly in the magma, or would I have to first install them and then fill the place with magma?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Do dwarves survive when they go into magma?

[praptak]

Do dwarves survive when they go into magma?

Nope. Even a brief contact with magma sets the dwarf on fire which, unless quickly extinguished with water, kills the dwarf. Full immersion in magma is always fatal.

Channeling into the wall of a magma pool from above seems always safe - wiki says that it is safer to set this up so that the newly channeled ramp is inaccessible from where the digger stands (i.e. dwarf standing on a floor over mined-out tile) but I never found it to be necessary (maybe I'm just lucky).

Carving fortifications into the side of a magma pool is rumored to be safe but only if you have another carving job queued up. This is supposed to prevent the carver from pausing on the soon-to-be-filled-with-magma tile. I tried it once and it didn't work even though the dwarf immediately took the second job.

[nanomage]

Do dwarves survive when they go into magma?

Nope. Even a brief contact with magma sets the dwarf on fire which, unless quickly extinguished with water, kills the dwarf. Full immersion in magma is always fatal.

Channeling into the wall of a magma pool from above seems always safe - wiki says that it is safer to set this up so that the newly channeled ramp is inaccessible from where the digger stands (i.e. dwarf standing on a floor over mined-out tile) but I never found it to be necessary (maybe I'm just lucky).

Carving fortifications into the side of a magma pool is rumored to be safe but only if you have another carving job queued up. This is supposed to prevent the carver from pausing on the soon-to-be-filled-with-magma tile. I tried it once and it didn't work even though the dwarf immediately took the second job.

Carving fortification and digging from the same level used to be less fatal in earlier versions when the dwarves did not actually catch fire. A naked dwarf could survive brief contact with magma then, albeit having his fat melted off his hands or arms. Now? I think, any contact with magma sets dwarves on fire and is thus lethal.