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[ignatzami]

I'm in the process of building a 100+ z-level "head over tail" style pump stack. One. Level. At. A. Time.

It's incredibly slow, and incredibly frustrating. I'd love to be able to lay out all 100+ screw pumps (assuming I have all the materials) and let the dwarfs design, and build, them from the bottom up. I know they can't be built haphazardly but I'd assume it wouldn't be terribly difficult to have the dwarfs build them in the correct bottom-up order, and it would free me up to manage the rest of my fort.

[anewaname]

You can handle this by using a temporary macro. Macro'ing the building of constructions is a little different since you need to get the cursor into the right place before you start recording the macro, but once you record the steps to place two screwpumps, you just need to press Ctrl+p another 50 times and it will lay out the next 100 pumps.

- Get all your parts built.
- Go to the Stocks menu and forbid all blocks/corkscrews/pipes except the ones you want (important for magma stackpumps).
- Get the cursor in the right place by going to the top z, 'b'uild 'M'achine 's'crewpump, choose direction to pump from, then move the cursor into place where you want the first screwpump. Don't hit Enter....
- start recording with Ctrl+r
- Hit 'Enter' five times, then '>', then the key to choose the right pump direction
- Hit 'Enter' five times, then '>', then the key to choose the other pump direction
- stop recording with Ctrl+r
- run the macro with Ctrl+p
- Go to the Stocks menu and reclaim all blocks/corkscrews/pipes.

If this doesn't work for you, think it through. This process works.

[lethosor]

If this doesn't work for you, think it through. This process works.

While I haven't built pump stacks myself, it sounds like the order in which pumps are built matters (although your suggestion is helpful for queueing them all quickly):

I'd love to be able to lay out all 100+ screw pumps (assuming I have all the materials) and let the dwarfs design, and build, them from the bottom up. I know they can't be built haphazardly but I'd assume it wouldn't be terribly difficult to have the dwarfs build them in the correct bottom-up order, and it would free me up to manage the rest of my fort.

[ignatzami]

You can handle this by using a temporary macro. Macro'ing the building of constructions is a little different since you need to get the cursor into the right place before you start recording the macro, but once you record the steps to place two screwpumps, you just need to press Ctrl+p another 50 times and it will lay out the next 100 pumps.

- Get all your parts built.
- Go to the Stocks menu and forbid all blocks/corkscrews/pipes except the ones you want (important for magma stackpumps).
- Get the cursor in the right place by going to the top z, 'b'uild 'M'achine 's'crewpump, choose direction to pump from, then move the cursor into place where you want the first screwpump. Don't hit Enter....
- start recording with Ctrl+r
- Hit 'Enter' five times, then '>', then the key to choose the right pump direction
- Hit 'Enter' five times, then '>', then the key to choose the other pump direction
- stop recording with Ctrl+r
- run the macro with Ctrl+p
- Go to the Stocks menu and reclaim all blocks/corkscrews/pipes.

If this doesn't work for you, think it through. This process works.

Pumps would still need to be built from the bottom up, and won't build unless the pump below them is in place. I don't think a macro is the silver bullet you're making it out to be. I still need to record the macro and run in 50+ times (assuming it builds two pumps)

[Bumber]

There's a dfhack plug-in for planning buildings. Does that work for pumps? I don't recall if it lets you plan things unsupported, or if it just lets you do it without the required materials.

There's a command that lets you repeat a macro a specified number of times. Probably ctrl+u.

[lethosor]

Buildingplan doesn't work for machine components (or other buildings, like siege engines, traps, kennels, workshops, etc.). I don't remember exactly why, but I think it only supports buildings that correspond one-to-one with individual items (e.g. a bed building is built with a single bed item).

You are correct about ctrl+u. It's worth noting that it can be hard to stop if you run out of materials or overshoot, though.

[NW_Kohaku]

Have you tried minecarts?

They're a little slower, but much less manually intensive.  See the "impulse elevator" section here. You can designate a whole impulse elevator by macro all at once quite easily.  I should know, I do it for all my forts, now, because it's MASSIVELY easier to do things this way.

Minecarts are slower than a pump stack, but you can get 2/7 magma cartfuls every 20 or so ticks fairly reliably if you really set it up to run at full capacity, and if you aren't trying to Boatmurdered or something, and just want a magma forge or magma moat where the magma is preserved, it's well more than enough.

As an added benefit, they're also much friendlier to your FPS.

[anewaname]

Pumps would still need to be built from the bottom up, and won't build unless the pump below them is in place. I don't think a macro is the silver bullet you're making it out to be. I still need to record the macro and run in 50+ times (assuming it builds two pumps)

Macro'ing pumpstacks works fine. There is no "need to build the screwpumps-starting-from-the-bottom-and-working-up. The screwpumps can be built in any order if you dig out the pattern below. It works because there is orthogonal access to build the pumps from anywhere, and because the magma will overflow from pressure. The dwarfs will build the screwpumps in any order they like and there will be no cancelled builds due to pathing.

You designate for digging like this on Z+0:
  X
  D
RDD             R= 'r'amp, D = 'd'ig, X = 'i'updownstairs

and like this for Z+1
  X
 D
 DDR
Then once the digging is done, macro the mass-build of the screwpumps on the "DD". Dumping the loose stone is probably a good choice but not required.

[gchristopher]

The focus on build order is overrated IMO.

If you're building a pump stack, place a few gears adjacent to several points along the stack. Each of those will support a pump, which will then support a pump above and below it.

Then you can have dwarves building several pumps in the stack in vertical sections until they all meet up and the entire stack is complete.

[Zammer990]

Really, I think a better solution would be to have a more friendly way to pump water upwards, either with pipe sections like axles are placed currently, or the ability to pressurise liquids using pumps up tubes (current pumps can pressurise water, but only up to their current z-level).

[NW_Kohaku]

Really, I think a better solution would be to have a more friendly way to pump water upwards, either with pipe sections like axles are placed currently, or the ability to pressurise liquids using pumps up tubes (current pumps can pressurise water, but only up to their current z-level).

... Or carts, which are very easy to use and take up much less FPS...

[Bumber]

Really, I think a better solution would be to have a more friendly way to pump water upwards, either with pipe sections like axles are placed currently, or the ability to pressurise liquids using pumps up tubes (current pumps can pressurise water, but only up to their current z-level).

... Or carts, which are very easy to use and take up much less FPS...

For any significant flow they're going to be worse.

[Zammer990]

Really, I think a better solution would be to have a more friendly way to pump water upwards, either with pipe sections like axles are placed currently, or the ability to pressurise liquids using pumps up tubes (current pumps can pressurise water, but only up to their current z-level).

... Or carts, which are very easy to use and take up much less FPS...

Problem with carts is you're either abusing impulse ramps, which we can assume won't last forever in DF, rollers, requiring just as much work generating power as a pump stack, or a dwarf per minecart.

[NW_Kohaku]

For any significant flow they're going to be worse.

Considering the severe FPS problems that magma pumps stacks cause, I guarantee that's not the case. Minecarts use significantly less processor time than liquids do, since each cart follows a fairly simple script of direct action, as opposed to having liquids flow around randomly and have to seek over all available space.

Problem with carts is you're either abusing impulse ramps, which we can assume won't last forever in DF, rollers, requiring just as much work generating power as a pump stack, or a dwarf per minecart.

Tell that one about how exploits are bad and won't last forever to the dwarven perpetual motion devices powering your pump stacks.  Even without that, how many years are you going to keep this fort, anyway, for the notion that they might eventually be changed to matter?  (And if it does change, it'll likely be after a save break version...)  Besides, it demonstrably takes less effort to build rollers (even if you wanted to) than pump stacks, since you can still make them all with macros, and just need a giant vertical shaft of axles to power all the rollers connected to the same perpetual motion devices as before. 

What, have you never used minecarts before, and are scared to try?  Did you read the wiki article I linked to?  It's seriously two tiles of ramps (easily made through the "dig" command if you mine it out from the top) followed up by straight mine track per floor for the "up" path, and you can simply dig a hole for the "down" path.  This is as simple as DF gets.

[Bumber]

For any significant flow they're going to be worse.

Considering the severe FPS problems that magma pumps stacks cause, I guarantee that's not the case. Minecarts use significantly less processor time than liquids do, since each cart follows a fairly simple script of direct action, as opposed to having liquids flow around randomly and have to seek over all available space.

Except each cart only carries 2/7 magma, still involves fluid movement at both ends, and causes heating calculations as it moves through tiles.

A pump stack shouldn't have any space for random flow. A proper bottom-up pump stack keeps the stack in same state (7/7 magma) each tick, avoiding constant heating calculations (the cause of the FPS hit.)

Even without that, how many years are you going to keep this fort, anyway, for the notion that they might eventually be changed to matter?  (And if it does change, it'll likely be after a save break version...)

This is moot in a suggestion thread. The need to pump magma up isn't going away.
What I expect to actually happen long-term, is that Toady will end up adding pipes that pressurize fluid based on the number of pumps in the system. Pipes themselves are already on the dev list.