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[i2amroy]

I was just wondering, if there was a magma vent and I used a screw pump to dump water into the center of the vent, it would form a obsidian wall as the magma cooled, right? Now the question is, would the newly formed obsidian wall just immediately sink, as it would only be supported by magma? Or would the obsidian wall defy gravity and float in the magma?

[Bogdanov]

I've never tried but my instinct tells me if the water is dumped in the middle of a big magma lake, the stone may turn into obsidian but it will melt right away.

If this was real physics, there would be three possibilities :

- with too little water, it would probably evaporate before it gets a chance to touch the magma
- with enough water, you would get an "equilibrium" (i just made the translation up so dont blame me) where obsidian melts down at the same speed as magma cools down into obsidian.
- with too much water, the whole magma pipe would end up solidifying.

Edit : and by the way, it's not so much about gravity than it is about density : it is very very likely that solidified stone from magma is less dense than liquid magma and thus, floats on top of it. If you've ever seen obsidian stone in real life, you've probably noticed that it is actually very porous, making it very light.

[ May 18, 2008: Message edited by: Bogdanov ]

[ikkonoishi]

The game will pause with an "A portion of the cavern has collapsed" message and the new obsidian block will fall to the ground floor and off the edge of the map.

[i2amroy]

Thanks, But if I dumped the water at the edge of the magma vent, then the newly formed obsidian wall would not collapse because it would be attached to the edge, wouldn't it? Then the water would hit that spot and eventually spread to the magma next to it, causing that to solidify as well. If that worked, you could easily cap of a magma vent or volcano, allowing you to harvest any resources nearby without having to worry about fire men emerging and crispy frying any woodcutters or miners nearby.

[Duke 2.0]

Or you could construct a wall, instead of a water transfer system.

Unless you want to make many levels of the shaft obsidian for a stone farm.

[Bogdanov]

I'm still pretty sure you'll have to dump a whole lot of water on top of the magma if you dont want your obsidian to melt back into lava right away

[Derakon]

Lava doesn't affect walls, whether they're constructed or mined. I once had a Warm Damp Rough Water Wall on a glacier map, and I've done more than enough mixing of water and magma to prove that once you make some obsidian walls, magma won't touch 'em.

Now, if you're talking about loose obsidian stones, like what you get from mining, then yes, magma will melt those. But you don't get those from mixing water and magma. You get obsidian walls.

[dresdor]

If a dwarf dumps a bucket of water into magma, it evaporates before or the instant it hits the magma, and doesn't effect the magma.

If a dwarf drops a dwarf into magma, it evaporates before or the instant it hits the magma, and doesn't effect the magma.

If a dwarf drops a goblin into magma, it's hilarious.

[Wood Gnome]

i've pumped water from a stream to cover over a magma vent before - it takes a while and floods quite a large area around the magma before you cover it all, but the flooding never got very deep and evaporated on its own soon after.  however, in some spots the obsidian was 2-3 layers deep, which was frustrating as i had planned to dig 1x1 sqares to expose the magma under my forges, etc.

i wonder if it would be possible to enclose a magma vent with glass windows and blocks to keep the critters inside, then regularly dump small amounts of water into the vent so you would get steam, just as a visual effect for a dining room or something.  would the dwarves view it through a glass block floor?  hmmm.....

[Bogdanov]

I dont think dwarves enjoy steam. What they enjoy is mist, as far as i know. So if there's a window, there shouldnt be any mist behind the window, and it wouldnt please the dwarves.