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[timotheos]

I plan on setting my main fort down by the magma see, but I also plan on making as much as possible out of glass. Including a large surface tavern & temple out of glass blocks.
Getting the sand (and any trade goods I buy) down will be done by a mine cart tipping them down a 120z shaft.
What though is the easiest way of getting the empty bags back to the surface? And the glass blocks?
I was thinking some sort of mine cart track but I've only used mine carts for quantum stockpiling before and I'm not sure if you can mix bags and blocks or how you get the cart back to the bottom again and is a powered track better or worse than a guided one over 120z levels?

[PatrikLundell]

One problem with a shaft is that it's lethal to any dorfs clearing out the dumped stuff below. That can be handled with the same kind of mechanism as a silk farm uses, i.e. a lever controlled bridge to collect the stuff.
I'd rather use a mine cart route where the down shaft drops the cart onto a ramp and then rolls to a destination trap stop to dump items. It can then either continue up along a spiral impulse ramp driven path around the down shaft, or go to a second track stop where dorfs load it with stuff to be sent topside.
The footprint of this kind of spiral path is 3*3. I use an impulse ramp on the straight stretch and then a "normal" ramp at the curves, resulting in two ramps per level. Miners have a tendency to get stuck while building the ramp, so having a second miner to rescue the first one is recommended.

I've actually never used guided tracks, but one problem with a long upwards one is that the dorf may tire, in which case I think the cart will run over him. That can also have negative consequences at the bottom, of course...

The best is if you can get hold of sand close to the magma sea. Check what kind of soil the caverns have, and also try the trick to expose SMR (digging down into it to get an unusable ramp covered by SMR), build a floor on top, and then remove the floor. I think the soil exposed will be the same type as the one in caverns, but it won't grow over, and can be located closer to the glass furnace.

[Salmeuk]

if you wanted to go the heavy earth engineering route, I'm pretty sure you could cave-in some sand from the surface all the way down. Excavate at least a two-z level chuck of sand, then dig a shaft all the way to your fortress. Activate the support lever, and you've got underground sand! This wouldn't even take much time, since you only need 1 tile of it.

Code: [Select]

From Above:

XXX
X0X
XXX

From the Side:

X0X
X0X
XXX

X = open space
0 = sand tile

Also, be warned that digging shafts still requires a little micro. You can't just channel 40 z-levels without some issues - I tend to either 'D'ig out the shaft first, then channel in parts, or I channel it out level by level. While tedious, macro's help.

[Daris]

I successfully generated sand on accident in a .40 fort by muddying a stone floor, waiting for moss and crap to grow there, building a constructed floor over the mud, and then removing the constructed floor.  My intention was to get rid of the mud so that 'shrooms would stop growing in that spot and messing with my plumbing, but instead I wound up with a tile of sand.

I didn't try to duplicate it (I had plenty of accessible sand tiles already) and I have no idea if it carries over to the new version.

[greycat]

You might also consider moving the magma up closer to the sand.

[kopout]

I successfully generated sand on accident in a .40 fort by muddying a stone floor, waiting for moss and crap to grow there, building a constructed floor over the mud, and then removing the constructed floor.  My intention was to get rid of the mud so that 'shrooms would stop growing in that spot and messing with my plumbing, but instead I wound up with a tile of sand.

I didn't try to duplicate it (I had plenty of accessible sand tiles already) and I have no idea if it carries over to the new version.

I don't know about carry over but I can confirm that this works reliably.

[gestahl]

If you do the impulse spirial, you need to dig 3 tiles but designate 4 of track.
NNNN
FIRW for Floor, Impulse ramp, Regularramp, and Wall. You designate WE track from F to W inclusive, then a NS from R to the North wall inclusive.

Also, don't try to have the drop chute in the middle if you drop the carts back down. They'll keep lateral momentum the whole way down and shoot into the nearest cat.

Sorry for the formatting, on mobile.

[PatrikLundell]

The muddy floor->build->remove trick is not reliable, as it sometimes yields soil and sometimes just the bare stone back. I also suspect, without any proof, that the soil yielded would match that of caverns and SMR build->removal, but it might be worth trying. I haven't tried that trick in 0.42.X, though.

@gestahl: Yes, the 3*3 footprint is for the actual track, but as pointed out, a wall is needed beyond each turn. I tend to have the whole 3*3 completely encased by walls, though, even if it's not strictly needed.
Regarding the cat, getting rid of vermin is a good thing (the only good cat is a flat cat...). You want some momentum to roll off the ramp at the bottom to reach the track stop. If designing the whole construction properly, you should have 4 pressure plate controlled doors activated by the cart to block access to the tracks, or you risk roadkills in the form of cats and diplomats and stressed dorfs trying to meet with/yell at the appropriate noble, with follow up roadkill from those trying to clean up the mess from previous roadkills.
However, you need some care with the top entry to the chute, as it's easy to get the cart to land on the up track and return back up rather than fall all the way down.

[timotheos]

Thanks guys I hadn't though of caving in a chunk of sand, I think i'll give that a try. If that fails I'll just use the shaft it makes as the ramp.

[taptap]

The result of mud / floor over / remove depends on the amount of mud on the tile. Even if you move sand down, while you have the rest of the fort elsewhere, you would still have the problem of bag hauling (or use yarn for one application, silk for another), although this does not affect the OP. Move the sand down.

Caving in may not work as people expect. Layer soil transmutates, when caving in. See: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=1206

I would like to encourage people to try their own or more modern minecart elevators than the minecart spiral (which is a nightmare to designate).

[PatrikLundell]

I wouldn't use a cave-in chute for a mine cart spiral, unless the cave-in is the central tile only, since it's a lot easier to dig the ramps than to build new ones in a 3*3 hole.

For the cave-in, I'd try to drop two layers if possible, in the hope the top one defeats transmutation.

Designating the spiral is indeed a pain, as is designating the track carving. The small footprint makes it likely you can find some unbroken 5*5 column of rock all the way past the caverns down to the sea, though. It doesn't help that I'm unaware of the more modern elevator designs either...

[greycat]

It really is a lot easier to move a few tiles worth of magma up to the sand (one time) than to set up an entire infrastructure for continual bidirectional 100-Z-level transport.

Although, to be fair, the latter has a lot more potential for Fun.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Next fort, I'll just have the fort by the magma sea.

[taptap]

Designating the spiral is indeed a pain, as is designating the track carving. The small footprint makes it likely you can find some unbroken 5*5 column of rock all the way past the caverns down to the sea, though. It doesn't help that I'm unaware of the more modern elevator designs either...

Look right here (basically looking into his - guess who I am talking about - contributions on all DF related sites is totally worth it): http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-2653-minecartescalator

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

If you do the impulse spirial, you need to dig 3 tiles but designate 4 of track.
NNNN
FIRW for Floor, Impulse ramp, Regularramp, and Wall. You designate WE track from F to W inclusive, then a NS from R to the North wall inclusive.

Also, don't try to have the drop chute in the middle if you drop the carts back down. They'll keep lateral momentum the whole way down and shoot into the nearest cat.

Sorry for the formatting, on mobile.

What do you mean by "lateral momentum"? Minecarts in free-fall travel on a roughly parabolic shape, so any lateral momentum would cause the cart to go onto the spiral ramp again.