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[Bomepie]

I'm going to be moving a very very very large amount of magma and water for my current project, over 100k units at least(probably more like 500k of each depending on how tightly I cast). I'll need to get all of this fluid up somewhere between 10 and 100 z levels. I have an aquifer and a volcano ready to be sucked dry, so at least I don't have to bring it up from the caverns, but it's still a long ways.

The only way I've ever done this sort of fluid movement before has been pump-stacks, but I've been seeing talk of using pistons and carts as well. My question is how do these methods compare with pump stacks for transporting so much volume over so much distance?

[itg]

A pump stack really is the best way to go for a large-scale project like that. Minecarts and pistons can't move that kind of volume.

[Patchy]

For large amounts of magma, I still use the good old pumpstack here. Pistons and carts are good if you only need enough to power forges and fill small moats with. They just don't bring up the volumns needed for large magma megaprojects and "ftw" weapons.

The piston is generally one use per piston. If you want it to be repeatable, its going to use some of the magma you brought up to cast obsidian to reset the piston with. Pistons require less materials to setup and a little less time to build than a pumpstack, though making it repeatable catches it up with the pumpstack in time to setup.

Carts deliver 1 tile worth of magma per cart. Depending on the level of automation you design into the system affects material costs, time to setup/bugtest, and how many carts you can send up per urist of time.

The trusty pumpstack uses lots of materials and takes a fair amount of time to setup, but its a one time cost. Make sure the tile you drawing magma from refills its supply quickly and the amount of magma you can bring up easily surpasses what you can do with the other 2 methods if you ask me. The big problem with pumpstacks is the fps hit, but there is a better pumpstack design thread floating around which can alleviate some of the fps issues with operating a pumpstack.

[Bomepie]

Well, I guess I'll stick with what I know then. Thanks for the input.

[shadowclasper]

Actually, if you're willing to -wait- for megaprojects and got a proper set up for handling shit like overflowing magma and such to prevent it from cooling? I find mine carts are much easier to manage, and less power intensive than pumpstacks.

What I do is set up a 'ice cube resevoir'

The way this works is you have a 1x1 deep hole. That's your first resevoir, and that's where all your magma is going to be dumped into.

Then 1 space away, I have another deep 1x1 hole. But I leave a channel between the top z-level for them.

What this means is that each one will SLOWLY fill up. And then overflow into the next deep reservoir.

At the bottom of each of these, you make sure they're connected by flood gates. This way you can drain them all at the same time from a single pump stack by pulling a trigger and boom, they'll all open up and drain from the same source.

Then you set up impulse rails to slowly drain a part of the magma sea over time.

It's elaborate, but it's very low power intensity, allows you to store massive amounts of magma easily, near the surface, and can be easily drained as a whole while slowly filling up. It's great.

Anyway. It's not a method for anyone who isn't patient. So be patient, and it'll work.

[Bumber]

There's also the magma-carts-derailed-in-stockpile method of transport. You can have dwarves haul the minecarts quickly with wheelbarrows and the lava won't cool until you dump it.

Edit: Found the relevant post: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=109460.msg3374816#msg3374816