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[TheStanman]

Thanks for all your help guys. Currently in the process of waiting for the first immigrant wave and constructing the parts for the plumbing systems.

For those worried about the Dragon Heads - They will be 3D, and overhanging the rather large moat. Hopefully the magma will free fall several tiles away from the nearest Dwarf-accessible position, if I really have any reason to go outside. 

My biggest worry is the magma either falling too quickly or not quickly enough. A flooded moat would suck, but hopefully a draining system would alleviate that fear. 

[Dante]

Yeah, it's probably best to have a second line of defence, a moat or something.

For instance, I just had to savescum because I got a tiny splot of magma on the 'shadow' of a raised bridge, which caused it to deconstruct, which caused about half a z-level of magma to pour into my fortress with frightening slowness.

[Hyndis]

The biggest problem will simply be getting that much magma to pour. You will have to construct elaborate cisterns underground to store the magma and let it pile up between pourings.

I kept running into this problem where the magma would evaporate before it fully filled the area to be poured. I eventually abandoned building an above ground obsidian castle, so instead carved out the center of the world into an underground city, complete with freestanding buildings.

[Savok]

I've not done this yet, but my plan for a mega-type obsidian casting involves a series of spouts way up at the highest z-level, calibrated so that they drop the right size of a magma glob into sections of the casting. And another similar system that does the same with water.

[blue sam3]

How about filling a multiple z-level magma cistern above the structure, held up by one support, then dump that support, this should allow a massive amount of magma to fall into the cast at once, if you get it big enough, you could fill the entire level at once.

[Ruin]

How about filling a multiple z-level magma cistern above the structure, held up by one support, then dump that support, this should allow a massive amount of magma to fall into the cast at once, if you get it big enough, you could fill the entire level at once.

I personally just divided the outer cast into fourths, pouring 1/4 at a time.  Plus, I used the nearby river to power the pumps.  They work MUCH faster when all pumps are going.  After creating the separate aquaduct and magmaduct systems 20 stories high, I really didn't feel like creating anything more than just a few walls.

[BlazingDav]

I imagine itd be simpler as far as overflow problems go to simply pump magma for the tower from the moat, then magma from there falls back in etc. though the moat should be wide for safety, hardwork or dwarfy awesomeness, even a slightly deeper middle would make things interesting for variety, which would be handy actually if magma was pumped off magma flowing from the bottom of the moat as the flow would be faster that way.

Then to regulate to manage possible evaporation, use some magma proof mechanics to trigger more magma to be pumped up from the source (you would probably need a magma pipe to even attempt this anyway) to a part of the moat when magma there falls below a certain depth. (the toggle being magma on it at about 4/7 I guess; pumps stop, magma off below 4/7, pumps start up again)

Though one thing to negate pressure issues is the old faitful diagonal flow, pumps would pressurise it making the flow faster, when it flows faster the spread of lava probably increases making it more dangerous, a clever floodgate system could probably enable this to be manipulated so that you can either stop the spewing, let it spew out, but in a more controlled way, or an anti-siege mode letting it spread out more causing chaos. Though if it doesnt work out like that taking the pressure off the magma can't be a bad thing really even if its useless

[mission0]

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-6961

If this helps at all, that was how I set up my pumps

[TheStanman]

I think the design I have now is thus:

There will be 4 Dragon Heads, each the same size, equidistant from the four corners of the main tower like so.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

O---D---O
l............l
l............l
l............l
D1.........D
l............l
l............l
l............l
O---D---O

D = Dragon Heads
D1 = Dragon Head with drawbridge underneath.
O = Corners of tower
- and l = walls of tower.

This means one will be above the entrance drawbridge. It will be made of magma safe materials, and hooked to the same lever. Once pulled, the drawbridge rises, floodgates rise BEHIND the drawbridge to prevent any magma from entering the tower in any way. Floodgates in the dragon's mouth itself will then lower, providing a nice (hopefully) stream of magma, sealing my castle shut securely.

Pull the lever again, and the floodgates rise, stop the magma flow, and the drawbridge lowers, with its accompanying floodgates lowering as well, allowing caravans inside, as well as immigrants.

For magma storage, I hope to do some math and figure how much magma I'd need to fill a cistern at the top of the tower as well as the moat surrounding the structure itself. Not just 1/7, but a full 7/7 height in all tiles. This way, any extra magma that sneaks into the system will be the magma dropping back into the moat at that time.

The magma will be collected at 4 points in the moat, meet in an area of pumps in the center of one of the tower's basement levels, and be sent up a row of pumps that make up the fortress's "spine", with water also being ferried as well. It will empty in the cistern, where hopefully fluid dynamics takes care of the rest, and a level of equilibrium is found, allowing both the moat and cistern to remain at relatively stable levels, without one or the other overflowing.

Hopefully that well o' text made sense to you guys

[TheStanman]

Update: The first migrants have arrived. Mostly peasants and farmers. My food and booze stocks are decent, but the severe lack of trees on this map has me slightly worried about barrels. Not to mention the parts needed for the massive plumbing required. I'll need to get a craftsdwarf to create some trading fodder for more supplies.

2 children also accompanied them as well. How useful.

I might draft a two peasants to start our small military, as all civilizations have access to my site, including Orcs.

[Inquisitor Saturn]

I've done magma casting a few times before. It's not especially necessary to have pumps made from bauxite and iron. Any non-wooden material will work. Also, you don't need a whole layer of water or magma to make an obsidian tile: you can have 1/7 of each, and they'll turn into a wall on contact.

[Chromie]

However, when I dictate dwarves to build walls, they always seem to do this:

......................
++= =++=+=+
.......................

a more building-material efficient thing to do is have one small staircase, and then build bridges around the outside of each 'floor'.

Go a few z levels up from http://mkv25.net/dfma/poi-18378-cooledobsidiantowergroundfloor to have a look at mine in-progress.