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[Remsly]

Okay thanks for the other advice. I'll probably try the fortification mode combined with the wall grate, floodgate, etc. Don't want my heavy skilled smiths get melted by some angry mobs on fire! 

[Remsly]

Okay... THAT didn't went as planned.... for some reason I breached the magma pipe to early and, whoosh, 15 dwarves because my channel wasn't ready....

Aah well was fun to see them die! Currently I think magma crabs and fiery imps are killing my other dwarves. Jolly good fun! xD

[celem]

Well.  Now you know one of the many ways *not* to breach a volcano.  Just keep at it till theres a minimum of burning short-arses and yer golden.

Incidentally i'm lazy and use no floodgates, fortifications or grates or any such but suffer no magma critters.  I cut the hall for the forges and plan where each workshop will go, channeling the required holes to let the workshops access the magma.  I then put a down stair in one corner of the room and cut the radiator (the grid-shape that will contain 7/7 magma) beneath.

 I use legendary miners to cut the actual flow loose, i2amroy gave a trick on page 1 that will never cost you a dwarf, i always use that (designate a nearby tile for mining after the dwarf begins on the desired tile, undesignate it again once hes breached the pipe and is moving, if you have multiple miners you may need multiple of these 'bait' designations to be sure the guy tapping the pipe gets assigned one of them)
Another reason to use a miner for this is that if through some stupid dwarfyness it all goes pearshaped, he can cut himself a new upstair faster than magma flows and you just have an extra stair to deal with, as opposed to a burning beardy.

Once the magma is running into the radiator and the miner is out, i channel out the downstair from the forge-deck and floor it over.  When you then build your workshops they will block the holes you cut to provide them with power and there is no way for critters to get onto the forge level, even if they drift into the radiator (which they will almost never do since theres no path).  Just make sure you are positioning the workshops so that impassible tiles are above the holes allowing access to the magma, if you mess this bit up then yeah...crabs and gimps everywhere.

The only true drawback to this kind of method of inflow is that you cannot drain the radiator to expand it, though you can cut another one adjacent and then breach into your original one using the same tactics as tapping the original magmapipe.  The floodgate is usually there for control for just these reasons, but magma-dwelling building destroyers then necessitate all that faffing about with fortifications and grates, which is just timeconsuming.  Without those features the entire magmaforge including it's 'plumbing' can be dug by 1 miner, probably within a month.

If you decide later to build a superdwarfy magma weapon then dont make the mistake of linking the reservoir to your radiators, build it it's own tank, magma flows much slower than water and charging your weapon will likely depower the forgedeck

[BoredVirulence]

What celem said. If you have the inaccessible part of the workshop covering the hole, there is no way down. In fact, there shouldn't be anything that can get through, because of that whole "building destroyers can't destroy buildings above them" thing.

Fortifications, wall grates, and floodgates are all a waste of time because creatures can swim through the fortifications if the magma's level is high enough, and building destroyers can destroy everything else. Might was well use a bridge to block it if you're that paranoid.

Now if you want dwarfy, screw all that. Mine out a huge magma lake, have the workshops along the shore or on an island. Station marksdwarves there. Mod in a magma based creature that can be tamed and sheared, capture one and create clothes from its fur. Mod the material to have a constant temperature like nether cap. Then make your military / metal smiths wear the fire / magma proof clothes.

Now I want to do that...

[Remsly]

I think I'll go for the radiator set-up and close off those gates. I'm not using too much modding really. Only things I use is a graphic mod and DwarfTherapist.

[Hamiltonz]

I found that using a novice engraver to carve the fortification will give enough time for some other dwarf to pull the lever for the floodgate I previously built immediate next to that last square.  The floodgate will hold open waiting to close as soon as the engraver finishes his work and paths away.  I almost never get spare magma on the floor.

I'll use the trick of designating another square for the engraver to work on the next time I breach magma.  That way I'll not have all that blood on the floor.