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[Carpecanum]

Every now and then I get a decent embark with a Volcano on the surface.  The last two times in a row there has been a weird problem.  Rather than having "normal" lava surrounded by stone I have gotten Obsidian tubes shooting up with no support 5-15 levels above any other ground.  I can't build Magma Forges at the level of the lava.  In the past (for fun) I have made a sluice that lets lava flow beneath forges then empties either on the opposite side of my embark or drops into the first cavern level.  I would prefer not to destroy environments with my industrial waste. 

Is this something I just never encountered before or is it a change to the game, possibly a bug?

Also, if something is filled with lava, how long does it take for the lava to cool down (besides dumping it into water)? 

[Thisfox]

Sounds like an issue with your erosion levels.

I've piped my lava under my forges into a sealed chamber, then cut off flow to the chamber when at 5/6 level, and never had it cool down or harden, even many years later, so I think it just stays that way. I've also had it airlocked into a natural 7/7 level and left it forever like that too. So I don't think you are required to make it to flow off the map, if you're clever with airlocks (diagonal flow locks) and with floodgates and levers. Fill a chamber with magma, cut off the flow, and try it out

[PatrikLundell]

As Thisfox said, magma doesn't cool by itself (1/7 magma evaporates eventually, just like water). It's quite possible to bring two cartloads of magma from the magma sea, dump it into a single tile pit, and build a magma workshop on top of it, and it won't fail due to cooling.

The case where it matters whether magma "flows" or not is when you want to use magma to heat the environment, e.g. to melt ice. Supposedly (I've never actually tried it myself) you need some kind of flow for melting to occur. That flow can be e.g. a 5/7 depth of magma in a channel where the depth otherwise is 4/7.

[Carpecanum]

Thank you very much.  I had always assumed the obsessive "reality" of the game would cause lava to cool. 

[Immortal-D]

Thank you very much.  I had always assumed the obsessive "reality" of the game would cause lava to cool.

To be fair, that's not a bad assumption.  The game's physics simulations are as indepth as they are random.