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[muldrake]

In my next fort, I'm considering making my quarters with glass/gem/window or some combination of the above and submerging them in magma.  First, will this actually work or will they melt?  And second, would building the walls as windows actually work?  Among what I'm contemplating are strictly crystal glass, clear glass, green glass, or windows made out of gems.  The magma would come from a volcano and would be the same I'd be using for magma forges/workshops.

[Fleeting Frames]

All constructions are magma-safe, so you can build it out of ice with no worries. Except for the windows, which require something that is solid at room temperature.

Main problem with using windows is that when they get broken (from, say, tantrum) magma floods in.

[muldrake]

All constructions are magma-safe, so you can build it out of ice with no worries. Except for the windows, which require something that is solid at room temperature.

Main problem with using windows is that when they get broken (from, say, tantrum) magma floods in.

That's almost a self-solving problem since I have very little use for tantruming dwarves.  I'd just need to be a bit careful not to have anything of much importance downstream.  I suppose a building destroyer could also be a bit of a nuisance but if I'm in a situation where there is even such a thing in my living quarters things have probably gone very far south already and it's the least of my problems.

[Bumber]

All glass is magma safe. Most gems aren't. (I don't know what the deal with diamonds is. They don't have a melting point, but they can catch fire, apparently.)

[muldrake]

All glass is magma safe. Most gems aren't. (I don't know what the deal with diamonds is. They don't have a melting point, but they can catch fire, apparently.)

The wiki has some fairly ambiguous statements about it, such that built glass is magma safe but even though any kind of glass is supposed to be magma safe, in fact they actually instantly get destroyed by it if they are non-built items like furniture in a stockpile.

Quoted directly for convenience:

Glass and magma
Glass behaves somewhat oddly with magma, despite being strictly magma-safe (with a melting point of 13600 °U ) - built glass furniture will survive indefinitely when covered with magma, but unbuilt glass items tend to disappear instantly when submerged in magma.Bug:10314

And the actual bug:  http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=10314

The bug specifies green glass but if I'm going to bother with something this extravagant, I'm going to be using crystal glass or clear glass at the very least.

[Leonidas]

Windows are transparent buildings, and as such can be torn down by building destroyers. They block water and creature movement.

Fortifications are transparent constructions, or carved directly into rock. They cannot be destroyed. They block most creature movement but not fluid.

Windows combined with fortifications can be very effective. I've used it to detect stealthed invaders, though overhead grates are better for that. For what you want, the best approach is fortifications on the outside to keep critters away, plus windows on the inside. to keep the magma out. The problem with your plan is bug 3327, in which swimming creatures can pass through fully submerged fortifications. The big question for your design, to which I don't know the answer, is whether a swimming buiding destroyer could deliberately swim into a fortification in order to destroy the window behind it.

If you don't mind some drama, build your fortress like the Titanic with sealable compartments in case of magma breach. Magma flows very slowly. You would have time to pull the switch. And if you do see a building destroyer sitting in a fortification tile and beating down a window, post the save here. I want to see it.

[muldrake]

The big question for your design, to which I don't know the answer, is whether a swimming buiding destroyer could deliberately swim into a fortification in order to destroy the window behind it.

Since I'm intending just to have naked glass walls, not fortifications, and I'm not sure about this either, my intention is to avoid the issue by simply not having building destroyers have access to the magma.  While I often just do the "dig from beneath a bridge" exploit to breach the magma, I'll probably actually install a magma safe floodgate, which I don't usually bother doing.

The two main things I need to worry about are magma crabs and fire imps/snakes which, so far as I know, are not themselves building destroyers.  If I somehow manage to get a building destroying magma swimming forgotten beast, I might be in a bit of trouble, but I'm probably in for a lot of fun if that happens no matter how it does.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time I discounted the possibility of an unlikely event, saying to myself, "what are the odds of that happening?" and then of course it does.

[Leonidas]

You could build drawbridges outside the windows. That's the better design. Then you could pull them up if anything went wrong, and you can still access your windows for maintenance. It would block a little bit of your downward view, though.

[muldrake]

You could build drawbridges outside the windows. That's the better design. Then you could pull them up if anything went wrong, and you can still access your windows for maintenance. It would block a little bit of your downward view, though.

I don't want that, though.  I want dwarves to have bedrooms completely and absolutely surrounded by magma and the walls are pure crystal glass, so they can know they are sleeping in an absolutely palatial bedroom that is also completely surrounded by magma.

[gchristopher]

For what you want, the best approach is fortifications on the outside to keep critters away, plus windows on the inside. to keep the magma out.

Wouldn't the fortification permit magma-capable swimmers to pass through once it was flooded with magma?

Re OP: I have built a fortress like you describe, but I built glass walls with glass floors as the ceiling, flooded the map with magma and then used my imagination, even though from a game-mechanic perspective, those glass buildings are not actually transparent. The other silly part of this approach is that the walls and floors will not melt regardless of their materials. I even built the towers rising from the magma lake out of ice boulders.

[Leonidas]

Wouldn't the fortification permit magma-capable swimmers to pass through once it was flooded with magma?

I see two separate questions:
1. Can a magma swimmer pass through a submerged fortification under any circumstances?
2. Will a magma-swimming building destroyer path himself into a fortification tile for the purpose of destroying an adjacent grate or window?

I'm skeptical on the second one. I would love to see a saved game demonstrating it.

[Fleeting Frames]

There's stuff like magma men that are magma-sea-dwelling building destroyers so you may not need a FB, but there's the question whether it counts as valid path to window if they have to stand in magma to do the task. It's not something I have gone out of my way to test - I always build the buildings facing magma sea so that they'd be safe even if there was 0 magma, so....

That bit with green (and, indeed, crystal and clear glass too) is tad surprising feature, but can confirm in 47.04 arena. Interestingly, it seems to happen when magma flows away from the tile rather than into the tile, at glance.

Though if your quarters are flooded with magma, it's bit of a moot point. Magma may not have pressure, but you'll still not react fast enough*; it's not going to be any slower than a river: https://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1728-magmaflowspeed

*and even if you include pressure plates triggering on magma to bar the hatches, it might be still somewhat difficult to reclaim, depending on what method you used to drain it before.

[Bumber]

That bit with green (and, indeed, crystal and clear glass too) is tad surprising feature, but can confirm in 47.04 arena. Interestingly, it seems to happen when magma flows away from the tile rather than into the tile, at glance.

Maybe something to do with the fluid item-pushing code?

[PatrikLundell]

Note that building destroyers have to stand two tiles away from the building to be destroyed, with next to the building being too close (and, at times, seems to trap the building destroyer there, unable to either destroy the building or move away to the correct range). I don't think it has been tested to see if a building destroyer can destroy things though a swimmable fortification. Also, it seems building destroyers need something to stand on at the correct distance, making vulnerable buildings safe if placed up in the air with no place for a BD to stand. As far as I understand that protects against flying BDs as well, and I would assume the same logic applies to swimmers.

[Leonidas]

Note that building destroyers have to stand two tiles away from the building to be destroyed, with next to the building being too close (and, at times, seems to trap the building destroyer there, unable to either destroy the building or move away to the correct range). I don't think it has been tested to see if a building destroyer can destroy things though a swimmable fortification. Also, it seems building destroyers need something to stand on at the correct distance, making vulnerable buildings safe if placed up in the air with no place for a BD to stand. As far as I understand that protects against flying BDs as well, and I would assume the same logic applies to swimmers.

Yes. Since it's presumably a bug to allow creatures to pass through submerged fortifications, it's anybody's guess how exactly that bug works. There are many possibilities.

DFHack has a teleport command. If someone has a mature fort with an FB on screen, then it wouldn't be too difficult to test some theories on this.