Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ahonek]

Unless you "float" the floodgates/doors/windows, the obsidian would stick to the floor under that floodgate/door/window.

And if you do that, there will be an un-molded layer beneath, so that probably wouldn't work. Bridges would probably work though.

I'm going to test this on a smaller project, say, 5x5x5.

[JmzLost]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't it be possible to do a very violent casting?  Fill up the entire block with magma, which means getting a wall in place around it to hold the magma.  Then, plump water onto the top of the whole thing.  It will cast obsidian, which then falls to the bottom of the tank and displaces more magma upwards, which then gets cast into obsidian, etc.  To prevet the top layer from sticking, you can make the top-most walls from floorgates, doors, or statues.  Anything that holds fluid but doesn't support a wall.

A couple of possible modifications:

• Fill the mold with water and drop magma on top.  Uses less magma.
• Drop the magma in the center tile of the mold only. This forms a pillar, and the top layer will form a disc as the magma spreads.
• Make the top level of the mold 1 tile wider on each side.  When the upper layer is completely obsidian, channel the center and edges to drop the disc of obsidian to the bottom of the mold.
• Use a support to hold the disc up while channeling, unless you have a lot of extra dwarfs.
• Repeat for as many layers as you want.  Can later be expanded by digging underneath and dropping the whole thing, if you decide it isn't big enough.

Note that "disc" refers to whatever shape your magma caster is, and this is all based off of an old ocean fort that someone else did.  I haven't done much casting, and assume no responsibility for any Fun caused because you were silly enough to listen to me.

JMZ

[Anathema]

There's an easier method: add an extra tile of water on each side, which you never need to cast. So to cast a 20x20x10, enclose a 22x22x10 area in walls and fill with water. Cast the central 20x20 bit by adding magma to the top and letting the obsidian fall down (try dropping the magma with a few retracting magmasafe bridges above the water to get the entire 20x20 area to cast at once, rather than just forming a 1-tile pillar wherever the magma drops). By the time you're done you should have your desired 20x20x10 obsidian block surrounded by a 1-tile water barrier. Open a floodgate or just deconstruct a wall (riskier) on the bottom floor and let the water drain out, remove the rest of your containing walls, voila. The only problem is a little wasted water, if magma is more plentiful on your map you can do it the other way around.

Edit: forgot about the pillar problem, bridges should solve it.

[Girlinhat]

If you have a vat or water/magma, and you cast obsidian in the center, you'll have a pillar of obsidian.  This will cause any new obsidian cast around the pillar to stick to the pillar, and you end up with a tall obsidian tower with a flat top, shaped somewhat like a mushroom.

A slower but altogether more accurate way would be to flood a layer with magma or water, cast it, and then the next layer, and keep going.  This could be achieved with 2-3 pump stacks (or 1 if you're smart) and just one windmill farm/reactor, because you only need one pump stack at a time and can swap power between them.

[Urist McGyver]

Question: Does unbalanced weight works in DF? I mean, if I build an obsidian fortress on the sky(like I mentioned earlier) with an entrance on one side and the fort spanning a billion tiles from it, will it crumble?

[Girlinhat]

Currently no.  It's my understanding that it used to, but this has been nerfed.  Any single pillar of support will hold up any size load.

[Urist McGyver]

I was thinking of spanning a 50-Z 3x3 ladder to the top, where then I would start the construction.

Code: [Select]

#===#
|XXX|
|XXX|
|XXX|
#===#
The pit of doom would be a hole leading to the floor level  (or maybe I can dig a channel where the pit of doom would lead for about 50-Z levels and make a FREAKING ONE HUNDRED Z LEVEL PIT OF DOOM!!!)

[RTiger]

20x20x10? I am making 90x90x8 right now.

[JmzLost]

If you have a vat or water/magma, and you cast obsidian in the center, you'll have a pillar of obsidian.  This will cause any new obsidian cast around the pillar to stick to the pillar, and you end up with a tall obsidian tower with a flat top, shaped somewhat like a mushroom.

Yes, the mushroom shape was part of the idea.  The method I was thinking of was originally used for casting an obsidian block in an ocean, where it was easier to cast the mushroom shape, then channel the top to drop the cap onto the ocean floor, and then cast another cap.  I was just adapting that to general block casting.  Haven't done a lot of casting myself, and certainly not multi-level blocks.  Just offering another idea, which other people can (and did) improve on.

A slower but altogether more accurate way would be to flood a layer with magma or water, cast it, and then the next layer, and keep going.  This could be achieved with 2-3 pump stacks (or 1 if you're smart) and just one windmill farm/reactor, because you only need one pump stack at a time and can swap power between them.

I think this is what the OP was already doing, and was just asking for better options.  Of course, in DF there is no "Right" way to do anything, just some ways are dwarfier that others (and some actually work, but that's optional ).

JMZ

[Girlinhat]

The more violence is involved, the more productive of a plan it will be.  Thus, get ready to make a magma block, and drop water on it in rapid-fire from above.

[BigD145]

If you've ever been a cheating cheater, you'll know that spawning some 10x10 magma sheets over an ocean using dfliquids will yield some water and magma pockets.