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[Urist Da Vinci]

No, no, it's just temporary.  Cast a huge cube of obsidian, one layer at a time.  Hollow it out so that a one-block-thick wall is all that's holding back the water.  Then build your glass dome however you like.  Once you're done, undermine the obsidian seawall so that it collapses completely into the sea floor.

how do i undermine only the obsidian and not the buildings (domes are boring)

Firstly, cast a hollow square of obsidian rather than a solid cube. When you are done, the water inside is isolated from the water outside. Drain the interior, and build on the sea floor.

Mine out a square wall-shaped hollow space under the obsidian wall, so it has somewhere to go when you collapse it. Remove support from the inside of the wall by channeling along the inside and digging under it so only a thin floor holds it up from the outside (which is still ocean). Drop constructed walls from above the surface to punch through the thin floor on the outside, and the obsidian wall caves in to the sea floor square hollow space. Your glass city will now flood.

If you don't understand what I mean by a hollow square wall, look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caisson_(engineering) (except that you want it open at the top, with no roof).

[Mrhappyface]

I wait until winter.

[Naryar]

OBSIDIAN  YOU WOULD DARE TELL ME TO SPOIL MY BEAUTIFUL UNDERWATER PRISON RESORT WITH A VIEW OBSTRUCTED BY THAT BLACK STONE!!!!!! IT MUST BE MADE OF GLASS WINDOWS AND WALLS

Obsidian is a form of glass. You'll be fine.

Volcanic glass, its opaque, not clear, how am i suppost to impress upon my prisoners guests the futility of escape into a hostile ocean how beautiful the ocean is, if they cannot see out?

Obsidian is the most dwarven stone ever, why are you complaining ?

[Sus]

I wait until winter.

Oo, then you don't even need glass; simply build a magical un-melting Dwarven ice dome on the bottom of the sea! 

[LordFerrok]

OBSIDIAN  YOU WOULD DARE TELL ME TO SPOIL MY BEAUTIFUL UNDERWATER PRISON RESORT WITH A VIEW OBSTRUCTED BY THAT BLACK STONE!!!!!! IT MUST BE MADE OF GLASS WINDOWS AND WALLS

Obsidian is a form of glass. You'll be fine.

Volcanic glass, its opaque, not clear, how am i suppost to impress upon my prisoners guests the futility of escape into a hostile ocean how beautiful the ocean is, if they cannot see out?

Obsidian is the most dwarven stone ever, why are you complaining ?

once again, obsidian is opaque, now tell me, if you were going to have a room with a view would you want the windows clear or opaque.
P.S. opaque means exact opposite of clear.

[Necromunger]

Would it be possible to build a large multi-building habitat connected to walkways above the water, fill it with all the dwarves will need, get them all inside, and sink it to the ocean floor?

This made me lol.

I couldn't help put laugh at this guys reasoning. BECAUSE ITS REASONABLE. and then i think of the gorey mass of blood and puss at the bottom of the sea floor.


Imagine a group of dwarfs working on a project like this for years, they are get inside the complex. Disconnect the complex from land remotely while they all huddle up inside the submarine.

Then seeing just smeared dwarf everywhere half a second later. And a massive splash up in the air.

[LordFerrok]

Would it be possible to build a large multi-building habitat connected to walkways above the water, fill it with all the dwarves will need, get them all inside, and sink it to the ocean floor?

This made me lol.

I couldn't help put laugh at this guys reasoning. BECAUSE ITS REASONABLE. and then i think of the gorey mass of blood and puss at the bottom of the sea floor.


Imagine a group of dwarfs working on a project like this for years, they are get inside the complex. Disconnect the complex from land remotely while they all huddle up inside the submarine.

Then seeing just smeared dwarf everywhere half a second later. And a massive splash up in the air.

the sad thing is now i really want a seige so i can do this and see how far the body parts spread

[Loud Whispers]

once again, obsidian is opaque, now tell me, if you were going to have a room with a view would you want the windows clear or opaque.
P.S. opaque means exact opposite of clear.

Why the hell would you want to see the husk whales about to drown you in air?

[LordFerrok]

once again, obsidian is opaque, now tell me, if you were going to have a room with a view would you want the windows clear or opaque.
P.S. opaque means exact opposite of clear.

Why the hell would you want to see the husk whales about to drown you in air?

Cause I can charge good money for those seats.

[The Bard]

Order your masons to cut the obsidian so think you can see through it. should be easy after carving thrones and chests out of contiguous blocks of the stuff.

[Callista]

Beware: Building destroyers can destroy windows. Build with green glass blocks.

[Symmetry]

No, no, it's just temporary.  Cast a huge cube of obsidian, one layer at a time.  Hollow it out so that a one-block-thick wall is all that's holding back the water.  Then build your glass dome however you like.  Once you're done, undermine the obsidian seawall so that it collapses completely into the sea floor.

how do i undermine only the obsidian and not the buildings (domes are boring)

Firstly, cast a hollow square of obsidian rather than a solid cube. When you are done, the water inside is isolated from the water outside. Drain the interior, and build on the sea floor.

As an experienced obsidian/oceanic engineer I think it's easier to cast a solid block and mine out all the inside.  Building gantries for the ring to hold the shell takes a long time due to linear construction, I think it would be much faster to build lots of floor.

Also pumping out the water takes ages, and you need more gantries for the pumps.  Unless you sacrifice a dwarf and drain out the bottom edge of the map or something.

Beware: Building destroyers can destroy windows. Build with green glass blocks.

Also remember some sea creatures have building destroyer.

[flieroflight]

If you use windows, you will suffer when the swiiming building destroyers come along.

I did one with digging a row along the edge of the ocean, into the aquifier, that had brigges i could open.close so that water would drain into theaquifier or not.
it worked, but causes massiv fps hits.

[Loud Whispers]

But... Flooding is 80% of the fun from underwater forts :C

[Urist Da Vinci]

...

As an experienced obsidian/oceanic engineer I think it's easier to cast a solid block and mine out all the inside.  Building gantries for the ring to hold the shell takes a long time due to linear construction, I think it would be much faster to build lots of floor.

Also pumping out the water takes ages, and you need more gantries for the pumps.  Unless you sacrifice a dwarf and drain out the bottom edge of the map or something.

Beware: Building destroyers can destroy windows. Build with green glass blocks.

Also remember some sea creatures have building destroyer.

Time to drain interior: short (see below)
Time to mine out solid block: long, proportional to area of city, limited by number of miners.

Construction speed of anything: limited by surface area for masons to stand and the number of masons that you have, plus the amount there is to build. Building a ring requires fewer blocks than building a large square area.

You need to drop the ring at the end anyways in order to sever the connection to the sea floor.

I never said that I pumped out the water. I used my magma supply to ignite an iron bin full of coal bars, and dropped that in the interior to boil away all the water. Even if I wanted to mine out on the sea floor, that doesn't require a dwarf sacrifice - you can have your miners survive if you do it properly.

Having glass windows in the fort is more fun. It's more likely that a dwarf will break/topple one in a tantrum spiral. It also justifies having backup secondary tunnels between buildings (instead of the standard skyway tubes).