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[Salmeuk]

Hello!

I would like some tips on creating, mantaining, and defending magma smelters and forges. I have a fortress in it's third year, and I've not delved anywhere near
the magma, but running my forge operations off of charcoal has depleted my wood supplies, and an alternative fuel would be nice.

I haven't had any practice with the magma, and would find any advice you're willing to give helpful.

-Would it be reasonable to position the forge & smelter far from my base, or should I focus on moving my base as close as possible?

-How much, and what type of defense would be necessary for the forge and smelter?

-Would there be any reason to keep my old forge and smelter around?

-Do multiple forges and smelters increase the chances of attacks?

Diagrams of anything you explain would be very nice.

I've been lurking around for a week or two, and have seen that this community is very helpful, and decided to join.  

edit: And I just realized that this message would be better off in the DF gameplay questions subforum, so sorry about that.

[ August 19, 2007: Message edited by: Salmeuk ]

[Greiger]

My experience is limited (I only got to the magma once, and then the fort was overrun by goblins within a season)
But I would assume closer is better. My main area was before the cave river,(why the goblins won so easy) and my metal smiths were almost constantly canceling jobs from hunger or thirst before they even got to the smelters with the ore.

Everything else, I donno, but that may help until someone more experienced shows up.  

[Veroule]

Attacks by magma men seem to be infrequent and they are about all you have to worry about from breaching the mamga flow.

If you are running with temperature on then a bug causes them to die instantly, otherwise a weapon trap or 2 should deal with them.

The only other thing you have to be concerned about is another bug that can occasionally cause a dwarf to be stuck on a magma smelter.  If you have a dedicated military unit though it is not a problem, putting that unit on duty and stationing them at the spot will move the stuck dwarf.  Still something to watch out for.

Beyond that saying, "Hello magma and goodbye charcoal," is easy.

[thepodger]

What I do is set my main fortress between the river and the chasm, and then have a "colony" with its own small quarters for the magma glassmakers and metalworkers.  This seems to work fine.

[Shades]

quote:Originally posted by thepodger:
<STRONG>What I do is set my main fortress between the river and the chasm, and then have a "colony" with its own small quarters for the magma glassmakers and metalworkers.  This seems to work fine.</STRONG>

I tend to do the same, but without the quarters for the simple reason that dwarves don't sleep often (but for a long time) and went you have the economy going there is an annoying habit of non-smelter dwarves claiming your outpost rooms and the smelter dwarves claiming main fortress ones.. which does no-one any good at all.

[Haedrian]

 

Here's a section from 'peacelaboured' my old fort.

Efficiency-wise it could be better, but you get the idea...

Towards the top of the picture you can see I put a 'living' area to prevent them from having to walk for food and whatnot.

(Added: The strange shaped thing at the bottom is the barracks, I didn't put that there because of the forge, but rather a coincidence..)

[ August 20, 2007: Message edited by: Haedrian ]

[intently]

Not sure if this image will work, but here's my magma/barracks setup.

Keep in mind that this is the first time I've gotten to the magma.... So far so good!  

I dug to the magma before my first winter, and have most of my dwarves living between the magma and the chasm, with a small colony at the river and another out by the cliff face.  I'm very spread out, but that's fine because I'm getting immigrants fast.  The game is definitely taking longer to develop, though, because of the hauling times.

I'm in my second winter now and I have stacks of steel that I haven't decided what to do with yet.  I've got plenty of food, and FINALLY plenty of wood to build more beds.  I started without an axe (on purpose) and built a few from iron once I got my magma smelter working, so that slowed me down, but it's working out well.

[Marsume]

The only sure way to defend anything at the magma river involves building an aqueduct across the chasm from the river spliting it with channels near the magma and allowing it to flood both above and below the area you want to use. This will create steam and kill most anything as they work their way to your smelters. Raised drawbridge walls won't hold them back for long because magma men destroy buildings. Just don't steam to close to your smelters as the steam carries a bit.

[Savok]

This article lists the pros and cons for various places to place your fortress.

[kuro_suna]

i usually build most of my fort between the cave river and chasm so it near the river and farms, good ore and the magma

to protect the magma works i just hollow out 5 or so tiles from the magma and have every exit lined with stone fall traps or weapon traps if i have a few large daggers lying around, i make sure to have a few exits so dwarfs have a escape route

all i have between outside and the cave river is the trade depot, storage rooms for trade goods and all the junk left over from sieges and traps,

[Salmeuk]

Thanks for all the replies, this has helped me get a sense of what to do.

[KrunkSplein]

The rule of thumb I use is to mine out the edge of the magma for space for forges and whatnot, but you want to only have one route from your main fortress to the forge area.  That way you can trap it all to hell.  Half the time I never even notice I'd been attacked, I'd just be scrolling over to the smelters and notice a dead imp on a weapon trap.  For me, seasonal floods have proven more deadly than magma critters.  Heck, sparring accidents have proven more deadly.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

quote:Originally posted by Ben:
<STRONG>

I tend to do the same, but without the quarters for the simple reason that dwarves don't sleep often (but for a long time) and went you have the economy going there is an annoying habit of non-smelter dwarves claiming your outpost rooms and the smelter dwarves claiming main fortress ones.. which does no-one any good at all.</STRONG>

Wouldn't checking the salaries and distributing quality rooms accordingly help? If you make sure your smelters are already legendary or at least high salary, making splendid rooms in the outpost should keep the poor masses from pouring in ... or so I would think.

Deathworks

[SnowWhite]

I dig for the magma quickly for exactly the reason you mentioned; using wood for charcoal uses up all the wood.  Magma forges and smelters are much more efficient.

I end up with two to five magma smelters for bars (depending on how many smelter dwarves I have), and I create separate magma forges for each metal-smithing-specific labor so I can get my metalsmiths each specialized in one area.
- Make furniture, bins, barrels to train up a Metal Smith
- Make crafts (Other) and sometimes coins to train up a Metal Crafter
- Make weapons and bolts (but not crossbows) to train up a Weapon Smith
- Make armor to train up an Armor Smith

Unfortunately, I seem to have bad luck getting metalsmiths to actually *work*.   One fortress, I had three or for metalsmiths and over five years they only made about three metal items.  This fortress is pretty good, all but my legendary Metal Smith do a reasonable amount of work, and I have plenty of wood for bins, barrels, and traps so she isn't critical.  The funny thing is, I can't get *anyone* to make ash, even with Wood Burning labor turned on, the wood furnaces (2) set to admit everyone of every skill, a pile of wood next to the ashery, and the same dwarf set to make potash and ash so maybe we he can't make potash because there's no ash he'd get the idea to move his little dwarf butt into a wood furnace to make some, but no....  [sorry, the preceeding off-topic rant was brought to you by too much coffee]

[ August 21, 2007: Message edited by: SnowWhite ]

[Deathworks]

Hi!

I guess I am playing really slowly (granted, I am always playing on well-forested maps), but charcoal production has never really threatened the availability of wood from the outside, thus far. (Although there were times when my wood cutters had to take quite a walk).

But then, I like my fortresses to evolve slowly.

Deathworks