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[Pukako]

Due to magma, and **FUN**, I have forged exactly 4 wafers of magic shiny blue stuff. And there is no more coming out until I drain the third caverns into the magma ocean. So, for the moment, that's all I'm getting.

One moody dwarf finally made up for all the artifact rock earrings and braclets, and stole one to make a very very nice battleaxe, but what should I do with the other 3 wafers? Three helms, one sword, something nice for the dining room?

Suggestions, please.

[nanomage]

Wait until more are demanded by moody weapon- and armorsmiths, I'd say. Though I'm pretty sure you can mine more with some creative engineering ranging from a bucket team to a checkerboard or drop chute
EDIT: also, are you absolutely sure that nothing more can be safely mined even without any special measures? perhaps you could attach some screenshot of your vein, it seems pretty much incredible that only 4 tiles are safe.

[Skuggen]

I'm sure it's perfectly safe to just dig straight down into the vein. What's the worst that could happen?

[Pukako]

What's the worst that could happen?

I have done that before, and know that there are worse things than the tangle of Forgotten Beasts tango-ing in the caverns....

[JAFANZ]

Due to magma, and **FUN**, I have forged exactly 4 wafers of magic shiny blue stuff. And there is no more coming out until I drain the third caverns into the magma ocean. So, for the moment, that's all I'm getting.

One moody dwarf finally made up for all the artifact rock earrings and braclets, and stole one to make a very very nice battleaxe, but what should I do with the other 3 wafers? Three helms, one sword, something nice for the dining room?

Suggestions, please.

Use one of the "Magic metal replication" exploits?

[Panando]

Weapons are normally the best use for a limited supply. This is because when a dwarf fights in combat, he uses exactly one weapon, but between 4 and 6 armorpieces. When he hits an enemy, it will normally be with that one weapon, but if an enemy hits him, there's only a small chance it'll be on the 1 adamantine armorpiece.

On the other hand, if you do want to go for armorpieces, then the helm and mail shirt are disproportionately important, the mail shirt for it's large coverage, and the helm because the helm *always* takes melee strikes if the dwarf passes out.

When you do want to dump water in the caverns, bear in mind it's a bazillion times easier if you dig out staircases than trying to channel, in fact using stairacses it's down right easy, you just dig up/down staircases in the layer above the magma, then pump some water in, and once you've added enough water, stop pumping. Dig out the new obsidian layer with up/down stairs (taking care not to breach the magma), pump more water in. Very very easy and quite safe.

[Pukako]

I have no idea how to post imgur pictures - sadpanda seems to be dead now... However, the preview went well. Ideas for achieving more blue stuff appreciated. But only the top cavern has water, so that's a major engineering effort that I'm very inexperienced in...

[neblime]

I'm assuming you can't dig straight north into the unseen blobs due to dwarven radar'd HFS?

[Graknorke]

I'm assuming you can't dig straight north into the unseen blobs due to dwarven radar'd HFS?

It's more that the tube COULD be through there. Since it's 2x2 or whatever.

Actually I didn't see the first screenshot before posting for some reason. The bottom-left tile is safe to dig out.

[Panando]

Ideas for achieving more blue stuff appreciated. But only the top cavern has water, so that's a major engineering effort that I'm very inexperienced in...

Yup, digging out up/down stairs above the magma and pumping water in is the way to go. How you do the pumping, is build the pump on the shore of the cavern lake (you can dig a new shore of course), and have it's outlet go down a shaft to the magma sea - the shaft will be long, but it can be up/down stairs all the say so dead easy to dig. This way, when you want water to go down, you just have a dwarf operate the pump, when you want the water to stop, you just stop operating the pump. No floodgates, levers, mechanisms, power etc, and virtually no risk because the system is fail-safe, as well as being able to just turn off the water by psychic command (dwarves respond immediately to a pump being 'stopped') there is also no possibility of say, getting a rock jammed in the floodgate, or flooding the lever room or something stupid like that. In the worst case if you flood the pump, it dislodges the dwarf, and he stops pumping.

[nanomage]

I have no idea how to post imgur pictures - sadpanda seems to be dead now... However, the preview went well. Ideas for achieving more blue stuff appreciated. But only the top cavern has water, so that's a major engineering effort that I'm very inexperienced in...

Actually, you're perfectly safe to mine a huge heap. On the first picture, everythin apart from the main 2x2 area is easily mined with a bucket team. Northern appexndix can be mined on th elower picture too, and the main 2x4 blob can probably be taken a slice from too.

[Skuggen]

I got lucky in my current fort, with a column extending about 10 levels above the magma sea. I have enough for a long time just by mining out the tiles that are guaranteed to be safe.
The fact that hollow squares have to share at least one tile with the square above and below can also help in figuring out what's safe.

[KiBoy]

If you don't mind then you can exploit the fact that adamantine minecrafts use 1 waffer and give back 1.8 waffers. Just remember to not melt the mastercrafted ones, or you'll smiths will go insane. :3

[jcochran]

Also for the questionable areas of shiny blue stuff, there's nothing preventing you from smoothing it, then carving it into a fortification. If there's no clowns on the other side, simply mine out the fortification and continue on.

[Witty]

But if the clowns are revealed, their pathing AI will kill the FPS