Okay, a few months ago I stopped playing DF for some reason or another, but now the charming little dorfs hooked me up again. Since I sucked back then and still suck at fortress design, I tried to pick an easy terrain to settle down: a forest with a magma pipe, HFS, flux and literally hills of magnetite looked perfect. Unfortunately, there's also the little issue of a terrifying mountain, chasm included, next to it, and while I found no giant eagles on embark (one showed up later at the other end of the map), a troll and a pack of antmen assaulted me on the 30 second mark.
After burying the poor war dog who died there, things started marching smoothly. I walled in the fortress entrance, and a layer of loam or whatever made farming easy, which is why I didn't concern myself with water until a troglodyte mauled the adept mechanic/architect who was trapping the entrance. Now, when I tried to tap into my pseudo-moat to make a well, I found that it had evaporated entirely, leaving me with muddy loam to quench my poor dwarf's thirst.
1) How can I stop water from boiling away?
Fortunately, some immigrants showed up during the first autumn, so that makes up for the impending death of my mechanic (now dehydrated and starving. I don't know why he's starving though... I have plenty of food in my stores). The next inconvenient is the wildlife, since the poor groundhogs in the valley are getting massacred by a mysterious force... probably the hordes of terrifying monsters living in the chasm. But, in order to start my war industry, I need to find the magma pipe hidden somewhere in the obsidian plains.
2) Does the chasm prevent me from using the Depot trick in all Z-levels to find strange features?
3) Eh... below the surface there's a layer of loam, can I start digging for magma in the level immediately under it? I'm using 30x30 squares in order to find the pipe, but there's a LOT of obsidian so I'm quite clueless on where to dig.
That's it for now, no goblins have appeared yet. An advantage of having so much obsidian is that a 2x2 room with a cabinet and a coffer is a Decent Quarters, apparently.