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[Weirdsound]

I've been trying to do some starts away from Volcano's, which means having to Tap the Magma sea to start a successful metal industry. Sadly to efficiently tap the magma sea I'll need to understand some combination of boroughs, minecarts, and/or pumps. Even more sad is the fact that I've never really figured out how to use any of these features.

My last two attempts to learn and implement some of these things were interrupted by the arrival of vile forces of Fun. After a near scrape with a Minotaur who appeared at the same time as some migrants, I've decided that perhaps locking up my gates for good is in order to ensure that my Fortress lasts long enough for me to learn what I want to learn.

So now I turn to you b12, to help me figure out if my Fortress has all it needs to exist as a self contained unit. If you want to see a save file or some pictures, let me know and I will make it happen. For now a simple list of important assets should suffice.

Food: I grow quarry bushes and plump helmets. I also have a whole bunch of egg laying hens. I've never realy messed with fishing before, but I have channeled out an Aquifer that I'm building a hospital ontop of, so assuming fish live in the resulting underground lake, that could be a source of food as well. I have over three thousand servings of prepared meals stockpiled

Drink: I grow plump helmets and pig tails. I have struck (and sealed off) the caverns, so I could also get cave wheat or sweet pods from the random bushes now growing in my base and tree farms if two kinds of drink is not enough variety.

Clothing: I grow pig tails. If I wanted to get fancy I could grow dimple cups as well.

Trees: I have struck the caverns, and have two tree farms dug out. (One looks to be ready in a season or two.) I have a full wood stockpile. I have lots of beds already (Just need another dozen or so. Less if I set up a dormitory), and rock pots exist now, so I'm not entirely sure if these are even essential.

Trash disposal: I have a garbage dump sitting under and atom smasher, accessed by a diagonal passage to keep the miasma out of the areas where dwarves like to hang should I forget to regularly push the lever to crush it.

Strange Moods: I have a decent collection of metal bars, rock blocks, leather, glass, silk, wool, and other such mood materials that I have picked up from traders. I have several large animals ready to be chopped up if bones are required. Most of my workshops can be walled off if a mood looks to be going bad.

Grazing: My underground tree farms double as pastures.

General Happiness: My dining room is legendary, and many of my dwarves have nice bedrooms with cabinets. Might want to throw some extra chairs in the dining hall.

Man Power: All my key industries are staffed, and I have 30-50 idlers at any given time. Starting new industries or a military shouldn't be an issue with or without migrants.

Tools: I have a few spare battle axes and picks in case something tragic happens to a miner or woodcutter.

Military: Closest thing I have to a military is a caged Minotaur outside of my fort near the entrance and hooked up to a lever. I intend to turn it loose on a goblin siege or perhaps some SOL migrants to spare them from starving or freezing to death. I think I'll set up a danger room and start training an actual squad in shields once my first tree farm is ready.

I think that most if not all of what I need right there. Am I missing anything? Thanks in advance for your help and advice. Once my prospectors find the Magma Sea I'm sure I'll have questions about how to deal with it here as well.

[weenog]

You should probably come up with a decent military before you go digging deeper.  Even if not for clowns, you might run into something nasty in the caverns, and not have time to forge equipment and train soldiers before you have to deal with it.

Lighting and re-sealing an area for safely growing surface crops might be helpful.  Having at least two kinds of booze can (sometimes) prevent same old booze bad thoughts, but you won't get many favorite booze good thoughts without a wide variety of drinks available.  Also, if pig tails prove insufficient for keeping your clothing industry going, rope reeds make an effective replacement, as they aren't seasonal but grow year-round.

[Weirdsound]

I have an airlock every 10-15 Z Levels in my exploratory shaft. All I have to do is pull a lever, and a bridge raises sealing whatever nasty stuff I find off from my fortress.

But yes, a danger room and a military is high on my priority list at the moment. I could scavange some of my weapon traps for weapons, or risk letting let one more caravan in... But either way, I don't think I'll be able to make armor for a whole squad of 10 until I hit magma. I have a bit of Lignite, but I'd rather use it for making steel than fueling a basic furnace.

[Tirion]

Maybe you could buy some sheep and pasture a breeding pair in your underground tree farm. A steady source of cheese, yarn, hooves, bones, leather and meat are better than a dwindling yarn stockpile. As for silk, cavern spiders often lay webs in rooms near the caverns, even if there is no path between them.

[Triaxx2]

With the advent of minecarts, you can bring magma to you, all you have to do is find it. If all you need is to power one or two forges/smelters, using a mine cart on a track to be guided down to just above a magma trough, then pushed through it and back out, is far easier than trying to move thousands of pounds of stone.

You'll need mine carts either way, so learning to use them is a good plan.  A simple way to do it is to find a spot to put your magma forges, and dig the magma pockets, planning for the oddities of the individual workshops. This is more efficient than the conventional method, because you can plan your track for the layout of the workshop at hand, and always have it under a blocked tile so it's not burning anyone.

Plan your track to run right beside each hole and build a track stop on each one, setting it to dump from the track into the hole. Then dig all the way down to the Magma. Ensure that you have no more than 3 ramps in a row. Down at the bottom before it dips into the magma trough, dig three ramps down to the trough, give it one square in the middle then an up ramp to the other piece of track. Then go back up however you like.

Hauling routes will be simple. Press (h) then new route, and new stop at the top of the track. Then one down at the bottom just before those ramps, then one just after. The top should be set to guide, the bottom just before the through, use the push commmand to have it sent through the magma without melting a dwarf. Stop 3 guides to 1 and travels over the dumping stops to empty into the holes.

Deconstruct the stops as each square is filled. Viola. Instant magma forge anywhere you like.

[Tirion]

Water and magma can also be loaded into minecarts by submerging them to a depth of at least 6/7, and dumped by a constructed track stop. Loading fluids onto minecarts can be difficult because their weight can slow the minecart down greatly. Curiously, filling a minecart with magma does not injure a dwarf riding it. A minecart will hold 833 units of magma. This is enough magma to increase the depth of a single tile by 2.
The capacity in a minecart affects whether a pressure plate triggers or not, based on the pressure plate's setting.

[Triaxx2]

That's why I use the the three z ramp drop to provide speed enough to shoot the cart out the other side of the water/magma.