Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[chevre]

How can I set up magma workshops? They must be placed over lava or what? I don't see any documentation on this and have never messed with magma before so I am scared to even dig into it. I have a nice embark with a volcano in the west, a steep 15-z slope down to the plateau where I started and dug into, then another steep slope down to a brook.

[Putnam]

Just like in vanilla, they must be placed over magma.

[Srial]

How can I set up magma workshops? They must be placed over lava or what? I don't see any documentation on this and have never messed with magma before so I am scared to even dig into it. I have a nice embark with a volcano in the west, a steep 15-z slope down to the plateau where I started and dug into, then another steep slope down to a brook.

Here's how I make magma workshops with a volcano.   Dig out two large rooms, one above the other, right next to the volcano at least a few levels from the top.  The lower one you will flood with magma, the upper one is where your workshops will be.  If necessary aim for larger than you think you'll need cause once you flood the room it's harder, but not impossible, to expand it.  Usually I go for 20x20, which gives me room for 2-3 magma smelters, 2 crucibles, a blast furnace, 2-3 magma forges and maybe a volcanic forge or armorer if I'm feeling plucky, and a few stockpiles. There are probably other furnaces but I've never bothered to build any.

The lower room you want to have a single exit point with a door.  Some people use a magma-safe flood gate, but as long as the door is never opened once the room is flooded it doesn't matter what the door is made out of.  It will hold.  Forbid the door so dwarves and pets never go in there once it's flooded.  Also, before you flood the room make sure you move out, usually by mass dumping, anything of value in there like ore you want, cause you aren't getting it later.

To flood the room, try to get it so the magma enters the lower chamber on a diagonal.  That will cause the magma to flow in more slowly giving your miner plenty of time to get away almost every time.  If you feel unsure if it's safe, only have a single expendable dwarf do the final break through.

In the upper room, you'll need to channel down a hole in the floor that you put the furnace over.   If the furnace has an impassible square in it (the darker X's when you are placing it), then aim to put those impassible squares over the hole in the floor to make sure no one falls in, or nothing like a fire elemental swimming in the lava gets out.  Unfortuantely not all buildings have impassible squares (magma crucibles for one) so sometimes you're just going to have to deal with a hole in the floor some nasty could crawl out of.   It's usually pretty rare.

Hope this helps.

[Nevets_]

With the new magma tankers you no longer need to make a giant magma pit below your workshops if you don't want to.  Instead you can use any magma powered workshop to fill a magma tanker (a special metal minecart made at the forge).  Dig a 1 tile channel where you plan to have your workshop over the magma, and carve a 2 tile track leading up to it.  Build a track stop on the track adjacent to the channel set to dump in the channel's direction.  Then setup a hauling route that starts at the far tile and 'P'ushes the cart towards the track stop immediately.  Assign your already filled magma tanker to the route and watch as a dwarf uses it to deliver a 7/7 load of magma precisely where you need it.  Un-assign the tanker from the hauling route so you can refill it for your next workshop, deconstruct the track stop and smooth over the tracks and now you can build your workshop over the magma.

ex:

Code: [Select]

. . . . . . .
. _ = = . . . Channel out 1 tile and carve a 2 tile track.
. . . . . . .

. . . . . . .
. _ # = . . . Build a track stop set to dump west.
. . . . . . .

. . . . . . .
. _ # U . . . Setup a route starting on the eastern track tile that pushes (not guides) the cart west immediately.
. . . . . . . Assign the already filled magma tanker to the route.

. . . . . . .
. 7 U = . . . After magma gets dumped into the channel, unassign the magma tanker.
. . . . . . .

. . . . . . .
. 7 . . . . . Deconstruct the track stop and smooth over the tracks.
. . . . . . .

If you don't have easy volcano access you can hope to find a rough blood of armok gem, which will let you fill magma tankers at the alchemist once you research and build it.  Don't forget to also research magma in general to unlock all the magma workshop variants you normally can't get without finding a volcano/magma sea.

It's a more micro-intensive process than the tradition magma room underneath your furnaces, but it's much faster than digging and filling a huge room with slow moving magma, and especially faster than pumping magma up from the sea.  Plus it has the advantage of not using up the whole floor directly underneath the workshops, I use it for minecart tracks to move coke/ore/bars around too since they can be placed around the little 3x3 pillars this process leaves.

[Srial]

That sounds interesting.  I've never tried using minecarts or tracks.  I never saw much point in them.   

I'll give your plan a try on my next fort.  Thanks.

[silentdeth]

ex:

Code: [Select]

. . . . . . .
. _ = = . . . Channel out 1 tile and carve a 2 tile track.
. . . . . . .

. . . . . . .
. _ # = . . . Build a track stop set to dump west.
. . . . . . .

. . . . . . .
. _ # U . . . Setup a route starting on the eastern track tile that pushes (not guides) the cart west immediately.
. . . . . . . Assign the already filled magma tanker to the route.

. . . . . . .
. 7 U = . . . After magma gets dumped into the channel, unassign the magma tanker.
. . . . . . .

. . . . . . .
. 7 . . . . . Deconstruct the track stop and smooth over the tracks.
. . . . . . .


The tracks are not necessary, you can just put the minecart on top of a track stop with no track under it.

[Arkenor]

Slight emergency.

Moody dwarf wants shell, but was totally uninterested in the shell I got when I slaughtered the cave tortoise I'd brought for this very eventuality. Where can I get shell that he'll accept?

[silentdeth]

fish from murky pools, that might give you pond turtles, which could work if you clean the turtle and then the shell.

[SabbyKat]

Slight emergency.

Moody dwarf wants shell, but was totally uninterested in the shell I got when I slaughtered the cave tortoise I'd brought for this very eventuality. Where can I get shell that he'll accept?

Building a fishpond, there's a reaction to 'acquire shells' from it. Though, I don't know if you have enough time to build it, then fish one out successful.

[Niveras]

Egg layers... does the creature laying the egg need to remain on the nestbox 100% of the time in order for the egg to hatch?

I brought some dew beetles for drinks and gave them some nest boxes to try to expand my stock a little; however, I'm worried that the time away from the nest when being milked will "invalidate" the incubation and make the nesting superfluous. The DF wiki does mention that, in order to hatch, both "the eggs (and mother)" must be prevented from leaving the nest, which I take to mean that yes, the mother has to sit there for three months for them to hatch, though that is the only time the mother is mentioned at all and doesn't expound further on that particular requirement. They seem to return to the nest on their own after being dragged back to the pasture.

Just looking for confirmation to that effect.

(Really more of a question about vanilla DF mechanics but since it pertains masterwork creature - no vanilla creatures being both milkable and egg-laying that I know of - I figure I'd just ask here.)

Regredit: Looks like I should've just waited. Despite being taken away from the nest box for a short period and getting milked, the dew beetle eggs still hatched.

[Repseki]

As long as you forbid them, and no dwarves walk over them (I think), they should hatch after a few months.

[Linkeron]

If they do not hatch after three months, something happened.

[firefly68]

In an extension to what Repseki said, if dwarves can get to the nest box, they will take the eggs for cooking instead of allowing them to hatch. You can forbid the boxes, or maybe put them behind a locked door.

[Niveras]

I had no problem just turning off eggs from the kitchen menu and in my food stockpiles. Since eggs need to be boiled to be edible in Masterwork, my dwarves ignored them as I intended.

My question wasn't regarding the eggs themselves anyway, but whether the mother had to stay on it all the time. As far as milking and shearing goes, it looks like that time off doesn't cause any problems, but it might be different if they get interrupted some other way (such as fleeing a hostile).

[Felius]

I had no problem just turning off eggs from the kitchen menu and in my food stockpiles. Since eggs need to be boiled to be edible in Masterwork, my dwarves ignored them as I intended.

My question wasn't regarding the eggs themselves anyway, but whether the mother had to stay on it all the time. As far as milking and shearing goes, it looks like that time off doesn't cause any problems, but it might be different if they get interrupted some other way (such as fleeing a hostile).

They still get taken to the stockpile though. I personally make 1x1 chambers with doors for the egg layers and when I want more of a given species I lock the doors of a few of their chambers.