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[peridot]

Many forts are grievously short of useful metals; fortunately, good site location can ensure ample veins of goblinite. The mining process generally proceeds in two phases: slaughter the carriers, then collect, sort, and smelt the goblinite. I am looking for ways to streamline the latter process.

My best solution, in previous forts, was an obsidian casting/welcoming chamber. Incoming goblinite carriers would trigger pressure plates, dumping their companions into the welcoming chamber, then be killed or caged by traps. This solves the "mope around near the squad leader" problem that can otherwise result in carriers parking themselves near your first trap, requiring goblinite miners to go carry out the slaughter personally. Once all carriers had been slaughtered or placed in the welcoming chamber, I would close the bridges, flood the magma and water floors, dump them, and cast the goblinite in obsidian. This had the advantage of destroying the unwanted clothing and gewgaws and leaving only the iron items. I could mine out the obsidian, melt the iron, and have a clean collection process, with only the stray goblinite that never made it to the chamber to deal with piecemeal. Unfortunately, in my current fort, the goblinite consists only of copper, which I believe will be destroyed by the obsidianising process. (Also I'm tired of building hundred-z-level pump stacks.) So obsidian casting is out.

The other problem is the degree to which dwarves are (now) appalled to see dead goblins. When a rich vein of goblinite arrives and is slaughtered, by architecture or by goblinite miners, the bodies need to be disposed of. Obsidian had the advantage of obliterating the bodies, but I want the copper, so that's out. My best bet so far is to have a specialized cadre of corpse-disposers who are the only ones allowed into the kill zone until all the bodies are dumped. Then ordinary haulers can collect the goblinite. Nevertheless my corpse-disposers have page after page of "horrified to see a goblin die" in their thoughts, and the stress persists for years. It's also not a lot of fun sorting through my dwarves trying to guess which ones won't crack under the strain of body disposal.

How do you deal with goblinite collection?

[SMASH!]

Manly militia squad.

[Insert_Gnome_Here]

Would water then magma help?

[peridot]

Would water then magma help?

From the wiki it sounds like water-first might allow the copper to survive, but if it doesn't destroy the bodies it won't help with the depressed-collectors problem.

[Skullsploder]

You could always have your squads rotate out of active service once in a while to do corpse hauling. That way, military trains tragedy, individual exposure to tragedy is limited to one month, and civilians are spared the horrors of goblinite mining.

[BigD145]

A drowning chamber made right wpuld have the advantage of drowning your goblin vein as well as pushing the metals where you want them when the water drains.

[INSANEcyborg]

I think I have a solution to your problem.  Copper may not be magma safe, but it is fire safe.  Most of the goblinite slag, on the other hand, should burn away after a while.   Some quick arena tests show that fire can destroy bodies, but severed parts tend to stick around.

[Dorsidwarf]

I think your only real hope to mine copper-based golbinite without Dwarven Drama issues is flash-freezing or Happy the Miner Dragon.

[peridot]

I think your only real hope to mine copper-based golbinite without Dwarven Drama issues is flash-freezing or Happy the Miner Dragon.

Ooh, flash freezing! Wrong biome, though. And wouldn't that leave bodies too? No dragons yet, but fire I can probably arrange - probably even with a flammable artifact. A good pit trap shouldn't produce too many body parts either.

I might just go back to obsidian casting, though - I'm swimming in copper and get caravans regularly. So maybe just quietly making the goblinite disappear without dwarven trauma would be more convenient. Pump stacks, though. I've pretty much conquered the caverns, so at least they can go straight up. Who needs FPS anyway?

[vjmdhzgr]

I think your only real hope to mine copper-based golbinite without Dwarven Drama issues is flash-freezing or Happy the Miner Dragon.

If the magma's melting the copper, then dragonfire is definitely going to melt the copper. Dragonfire is hotter than the sun (I think, it might just be close to as hot) and as such, far hotter than magma.

[utunnels]

Why not do it in the old-fashioned way?
Dump all equipments, carry the cages to the atomsmasher chamber and destroy them.
Melt copper equipments and use the bars to build new cages.

[Reelya]

 cutway side view, miniaturized drowning tunnel:

Code: [Select]

###~###
###H###
E_HPH_D
##BBB##
##XXX##
##MMM##
Legend:

~ = water source
H = hatches, linked to the plate
P = pressure plate, set to trigger on enemies only.
E = entrance side
D = passive drain area for excess water
BBB = 3x1 retracting bridges for draining / clearing
XXX = larger lower bridge (takes from bank of multiple tunnels above) area for draining the water, also allows collecting clothes and corpses if desired. Size up to 9x3 for lower bridge with 5 drowning tunnels above.
MMM = magma flooding chamber (also 9x3), for disposal of non-metals, and optional obsidian casting.

I used to make a bank of these. They collected goblins and loot in the bridge section. A goblin steps on the plate, which opens the three hatches, then water pushes them into one of the holes, and the hatches reset. The advantage is its fully automated and separates dwarves from enemies. I made a bank of these so that goblins could always path through one of them while another had the hatches open.

dead goblins and loot accumulate in the "BBB" sections. They can then be dropped down 1 level for draining the water, and optional gathering of clothing etc. This level can then be dropped another level into a fillable/drainable magma chamber, or optionally it can double for obsidian casting. So the whole thing is streamlined but it leaves all options open on how you want to deal with the excess goblinite.

[vjmdhzgr]

I spent about ten minutes trying to think of some funny way of suggesting you make a military squad armed with pickaxes and trying to use mining terms to describe the outfitting of the squad and the killing of the goblins, but made no progress so here's some strange way of suggesting it by telling you that I intend to suggest it and not saying it like a normal suggestion.

[Bearskie]

So what about INSANEcyborg's plan?  Sounds about foolproof, although you'd have to wait a (perhaps) long time for the fire to finish incinerating the waste. 

If it works, I will be rather interested in incorporating it into my future forts.

[Reelya]

Using a dragon to create fire has some issues, first, getting a dragon. Second, targeting the dragon to shoot at the goblins, in such a way that you can reuse the shooting-gallery on more goblins later. Maybe combine that with a variant of the water-flushing trap I mentioned, flush goblins into a chamber which drains away, and has a floor which is a retracting bridge. You can then drop trapped gobline en masse into a shooting / fire room.

The middle trap layer ensures you can be collecting excess goblins alive, to be later dropped by bridge for a range of disposal options. This might prevent a problem I had with my automated drowning system mk1, which was that the deaths of their comrades cause remaining goblins to flee.