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[TSTwizby]

I'm pretty sure that's what I'm already doing. What's so ambitious about that?

Note- I've been having trouble with the internet lately. I've played a lot more, and have a couple of screenshots to post, but it'll have to wait a bit. Also, I realized for the first time today that I don't actually need gear assemblies over all of the pumps, only one in each row. I feel kind of stupid now.

[TSTwizby]

Alright, I've got some time now so I've got some pictures of the work in progress.



This is going to be the set of controllers which are linked to the floodgates beneath the pump intakes. The hatches are going to be next to pressure plates, and vertical bridges and floodgates will prevent access to the plates until lowered. The floodgates will be connected to the levers which you have direct access to to control the placement of magma, and the bridges will be lowered and allow water into the pressure plate chambers whenever the system needs to figure out which pumps to unblock. The hatches will allow water to drain away from the area, resetting the floodgates. There are ways to set it up that take up less space, but all the ones I've found also take much longer to reset after use, so I'm going with this for now.



This is one layer of the printer itself. I've only built the pumps so far, though I've dug out the space for the bridges and floodgates. I'll build those once I have the things to hook them up to built, so I don't have to spend hours searching through lists of things to link to.

[Shoruke]

This is so awesome.

Once you have it working, the next step up is to hook this thing up to a Dorfputer so that you have a Dwarven Printer PC.

In the meantime, best of luck on the prototype, because this is actually pretty cool 

[Xenos]

This is so awesome.

Once you have it working, the next step up is to hook this thing up to a Dorfputer so that you have a Dwarven Printer PC.

In the meantime, best of luck on the prototype, because this is actually pretty cool 

And then print a megadorf.

[TSTwizby]

This is so awesome.

Once you have it working, the next step up is to hook this thing up to a Dorfputer so that you have a Dwarven Printer PC.

In the meantime, best of luck on the prototype, because this is actually pretty cool 

Thanks. The problem with hooking it up to the computer is that my lever/minecart assembly can already run the basics of the printer with many times less effort, time, and resources. I'm already at the limit of my wood, until the tree nurseries I've built get growing, and stuck at around 30-60 fps. On the other hand, I have a really lousy computer. What would be great about the computer is that (depending on its technical specs, which I haven't been able to find anywhere) it would probably be able to fully automate the printing process for relatively small areas (maybe 5x5x5 or smaller as a guess). On the other hand, I haven't got a clue how that computer is supposed to work, let alone how to build it. But I suppose there's always more to learn.

And then print a megadorf.

Megadorf too big. Also, cannot print ramps or pump stacks. Can print 20x20x__ box, no larger. Could print minidorf.




In other news, work is progressing somewhat slowly due to framerate issues and continuous interruptions by goblins. I am working on sealing off the windmill area so I don't need to worry about defending it, which should make the goblins more tolerable. Unfortunately, sealing off the whole fort is impractical due to concerns about wood. I've just about finished mining out the area I posted a screenshot of below, but there have been some problems with the aquifer feeding it, so there may be some more trouble there. Aquifers behave very weirdly near mountain biomes. I'm going to be gone for the weekend, so no updates (though since I've got a 9 hour train ride, there should be plenty of progress), but once I get back the internet should be fully functional again so I should be more consistent afterwards.

[Triaxx2]

Interesting. I'd have used a layer drop mechanism, but that's just me. (Print Layer, disable bridges, layer falls, enable bridges, repeat. As long as what you were printing was not quite large enough to be supported by the walls you could print and drop from the bottom up without having to deal with support issues.

Adapting it to a megadorf printer isn't hard. I don't think Floodgates grant support, though. Which would mean you'd have to have a support built in, but all that means is printing a center support connected to a conventional support, then building the mold and printing the rest of it. When done, the mold is removed and the support disengaged after the bridges are removed.

In fact, since dropped constructions are destroyed, the size is effectively limitless. All that's required for infinite size printing is the casting of that single central pillar. Build to the center of that casting, construct the pillar form. Form the pillar, remove the form, then you can build floors to hold the casting, with bridges on the outside edges to hold the water and magma in then after printing, removing the bridges and releasing the support causes the printed object to drop to the ground. The Construction framework then collapses, leaving only the casting. I think perhaps I'm brilliant. Or in sane.

[rhesusmacabre]

No, a layer drop system wouldn't work. In a cave-in each tile is dropped individually, not the layer as a whole, so you would just end up with a mound rather than a statue:

 ###
       becomes      #     not      ###
  #                ###              #
 ###               ###             ###

[Triaxx2]

Ah. So I'd have to cast in blocks and carve out. Not a problem.

[TSTwizby]

It turns out the place I'm staying has internet after all, so I'll probably get some more pictures up tonight or tomorrow.

Interesting. I'd have used a layer drop mechanism, but that's just me. (Print Layer, disable bridges, layer falls, enable bridges, repeat. As long as what you were printing was not quite large enough to be supported by the walls you could print and drop from the bottom up without having to deal with support issues.

Tried that. Doesn't work. Bridges would deconstruct when you tried to cast blocks not otherwise supported. Also, what rhesusmacabre said.

The rest of what you said violates the 'automatic' part of this to such an amazing extent I wouldn't be surprised if it took less work to just cast a huge block of obsidian and then carve out whatever you wanted to make. Which seems to be your next suggestion, and is even less automatic. Sorry if this seems harsh, but the 'automatic' here is really the most important part of this project to me.


I've gotten most of the controllers finished for the first four layers (which are the only ones I've fully built so far, since I'm waiting on the wood necessary to power the rest of them) and am starting work on the minecart part. I've started a practice fort to get the hang of the minecart system, since I've never really done anything with it before, but I think it should work as intended.

edit- sorry, progress has been slower than expected. Just got beseiged, and the resulting carnage encouraged me to spend some time building up fortress defenses rather than working on the printer. I will probably have something worth seeing tomorrow. First layer is finished, nine more to go, though the first five are all at least started.

[TSTwizby]

Alright, sorry for the lack of updates. I was having a bit of trouble for a while with the work I'm doing, and right when I'd caught up on that my computer started acting up. Things should be better now, and I actually have a fair amount of progress to report.

I've finished setting up the floodgates in front of the pumps on the first 7 floors, so only three to go. You can see the remains of an accidental flood I had earlier.



I've got a minecart set up to trigger some pressure plates which will hopefully be timed so that liquid has time to flow where it needs to.



The first of these pressure plates lowers the bridges in the large flooded area, which allows the water to hit the pressure plates which have the floodgates in front of them lowered (which are controlled by a set of levers to the north). The pressure plates here in turn lower floodgates sitting under the intake of the pumps.



The next plate lowers the bridges (yet to be constructed) which when raised block off the floodgates under the pumps from the magma which will be flowing around the outside of the pump stack.  The third plate starts the pumps up, and the last resets the system, dumping all the water out from over the pressure plates. I'm hoping that all the bridges stay down long enough to let the various fluids do their work, but also that they close soon enough that excess magma is not pumped.

[simonthedwarf]

I dont even understand what this is doing.. so it must be pretty good.

[TSTwizby]

Okay, if you mean you don't understand what I'm trying to build then it is this:

A device which will, at the pull of a single lever, cast obsidian on any number and distribution of tiles in a 20x20 tile section of the ground below it, based on the input from a bunch of levers placed elsewhere, and reset itself. The area below it will be deep enough that multiple layers can be cast on top of eachother, making it possible to 'print' many different obsidian structures.


With the next step being one which can cast multiple layers at the pull of a single lever, though I think that's going to be far beyond not worth the effort. If you mean that you don't understand what the machinery described in my last post is doing, then here is an explanation of how the printer works, with extremely crude diagrams:

Somewhere in the fortress are a bunch of levers arranged in a grid. Elsewhere in the fortress, below a rapidly flowing and infinite source of water (in this case an aquifer) are a set of chambers with the following structure:

Code: [Select]

# = wall, c = hatch, ^ = pressure plate, X = floodgate, = = bridge, ~ = water
###
#c#
#^#
#X#
===
~~~

The bridges are normally raised, and the hatches, which lead to a drain down into the caverns or hell, whichever is appropriate, normally closed. The floodgate is linked to one of the levers, and the pressure plate is linked to a floodgate which is sitting directly beneath the intake for a pump. The area around the pump looks like this, with the pump's intake being to the left, from the side:

Code: [Select]

~ = magma, %% = pump, * = gear assembly
##  #*#
## # %%
##~=X##
#~~#*#
#~# %%
#~=X##

The bridges are normally raised, the floodgates closed, and the mechanisms unpowered somehow. As you can see, the pump-structure can stack vertically in a staggered manner, and can also be continued horizontally, resulting in rows of pumps which can pass magma onto any square in a rectangular area. The levers mentioned above are linked in such a way as to correspond with the place on the floor below which the corresponding pump will dump magma on.

The minecart setup, as pictured below, has the first pressure plate on the track linked to all the bridges in front of the water-filled area, allowing water to activate the pressure plates and lower the floodgates in front of the corresponding pumps before the bridges raise again, locking the water inside. It is also linked to a floodgate much farther down which lets water into the area the pumps hang over, up to a level of your choosing (based on what level of the construction you are printing. The next pressure plate causes the bridges separating the magma from the newly opened pump intakes to lower, allowing the magma some time to flow in before the bridges close again, preventing excess magma from being pumped. The third pressure plate turns on the pumps, which dump the magma onto the water (which by now has hopefully filled the chamber below) and forming obsidian. The last pressure plate opens the hatches, releasing the pressure plates that had been keeping the floodgates near the pumps lowered, and also draining the water from the chamber below.

The technical drawbacks of this design are that I'm still not sure if there will be enough time for magma to flow into the chambers before the bridges close, and won't be until I actually test it (and although it's not that difficult to fiddle with that part of the mechanism a bit, it is extremely difficult to clear the magma from the pumps), it requires an enormous amount of power to operate (about 7000 power, though this is largely my fault for making it so big) and there are some 3D things which must be printed in stages since liquid does not fall at a steady rate and thus you can't count on some supporting structures to be cast before the things they need to support, in the case where things are being supported from their sides. On the plus side, the mechanics are simple, the device is entirely self contained and can be modified to be of any given size and shape. It is also relatively cheap to build so long as you have access to sand, which I do.



As far as updates go, I'm currently distracted by besieging goblins wiping out my copper-clad army to the point where I've decided to just cheat myself some Adamantine, but I'm also just about done setting up the floodgates, so the next thing to do is to build the casting chamber.

[lcy03406]

It's awesome!

[TSTwizby]

Progress has been much slower than I'd hoped. I had to stop for a few days since I've been traveling, but beyond that I've managed to fix the goblin problem and connect all the floodgates and bridges how I wanted to. I should be better about updating from here. There isn't really anything interesting to look at at the moment that I haven't already shown, so I'll just leave it at that for now.

[hjd_uk]

cant you just turn sieges off? or wall off the surface (except a muder-hole trap area which any invaders will spawn in ).