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[uioped1]

I have a problem, and I hope you guys have a solution for me.  I have just finished construction of my awesome fountain, which pours from water into the center of my lava tube, creating great gouts of mist and steam, and hopefully soon happy thoughts in all the dwarves who have rooms lining the neck of the lava tube with windows overlooking the spectacle.

The problem is that the water hitting the exposed magma creates blocks of obsidian, which promptly sink, pausing the game with the dire warning "A portion of the cavern has collapsed."

Is it possible to turn this warning off?

[Duckmeister]

Use a utility like Dtil, it has a module that lets you turn that stuff off.

Look at the utilities section of the wiki to find it.

[Sinergistic]

Even if the warning wasn't there, you have another problem. You're lava tube is going to drain away to the very bottom level after a while, since the magma the water hits gets turned into obsidian, and then sinks to the bottom of the vent (which acts like a chasm).

[uioped1]

So I tried Dtil, which will unpause the game, but I still keep getting centered on the collapse, so that doesn't work.

So the act of a block of stone sinking in a fluid actually destroys the fluid beneath it?  That's not good!  I thought I remembered reading that there was some sort of displacement logic, at least for units of fluid falling.  Maybe that only applied to water though, since Toady wants to keep magma "chunky" in his words.  Even if there is displacement if what you say is true, there needs to be some sort of special case for items in fluid falling into a chasm, where a unit of fluid is created.  Pouring water into a lava tube shouldn't drain the magma...

Has the question of whether magma tubes refill from the top or bottom ever been decisively answered?  I remember once upon a time that was an outstanding question.  This could be a way to get that answered.

How fast will a magma tube refill?  I wonder if I could slow the rate of my fountain to the point where it would never empty the top layer of magma.  Any good ideas on how to slow the rate of flow?

Sorry for my never-ending stream of questions.

[beorn080]

IIRC, you lose a block of magma when it changes to obsidian. Eventually your top layer will have all dropped into the chasm as obsidian then the next layer will fall. Note that it will take a very long time since it is refilling as you do this.

[Sinergistic]

Water falling into a magma tube will drain the magma BECAUSE an entire block of 7/7 magma will turn to obsidian, and if this block of obsidian is unsupported, the block should fall to bottom of the vent, which acts like a chasm. So, you've just lost a little water and an entire block of 7/7 magma.

Magma vents/flows refill from the bottom, and they take a long time to refill even just the top layer. If you keep dumping water into it, the magma level is going to go down pretty quickly.

If you just want to avoid cave in messages long enough to shut off the waterfall, save and exit and turn of cave ins in your init file and then load back up, stop the water fall and let it drain out, then save and exit again.

[Jim Groovester]

Won't this setup cause lots and lots of lava mist to float around? And cave-in dust? Remember, when lava mist settles on ground, it turns into 1/7 lava.

This setup could be really deadly for your dwarves.

[ZergSpartan]

Won't this setup cause lots and lots of lava mist to float around? And cave-in dust? Remember, when lava mist settles on ground, it turns into 1/7 lava.

This setup could be really AWSOME for your dwarves.

Fixed it for you.

[BonSequitur]

I did this once, but for other reasons. I stupidly didn't realise that the lava vent acts like a chasm.

Pouring water over the edge of the pipe, however, is more or less the ultimate anti-fire imp measure.

[Footkerchief]

Remember, when lava mist settles on ground, it turns into 1/7 lava.

Really?  Can anyone else verify this?

[Jim Groovester]

Really?  Can anyone else verify this?

Ehh, I guess not. I looked at this movie and I guess lava mist doesn't turn into 1/7 lava. There's always lava on the ground at the edge magma pipe and I saw lava mist disappear over 1/7 lava in other fortresses, but I guess from that movie it doesn't.

My mistake.

EDIT: Looking at it closer, I can't make any conclusion on it. At 1:01 in the movie, the solid yellow lava mist before he unpauses seems to have some relation where 1/7 lava shows up on the surface at 1:14 and onward.

[uioped1]

Won't this setup cause lots and lots of lava mist to float around? And cave-in dust? Remember, when lava mist settles on ground, it turns into 1/7 lava.

This setup could be really AWSOME for your dwarves.

Fixed it for you.

My thoughts exactly

The lava tube started out in an inaccessible hole, with tall cliffs on one side into which I built my dwarf bedrooms, which I thought was greatly improved by a large waterfall.

My new thought is to build a second waterfall of lava above the first waterfall.  This way the lava will hopefully turn into obsidian before hitting the surface.  I'll probably still have the cave-in spam problem, but I'll be adding significantly more awesomeness into the mix, and will hopefully not drain my magma forges.

[Martin]

Does magma solidify when it falls a large distance? I have the potential for a 35 z-level magma falls on my current map. I'm not sure whether I'd prefer magma or having obsidian boulders raining down, but both are appealing...

[Dareon Clearwater]

Obsidian boulders raining down would be awesome, but they'd stack up and block the nozzles eventually.

[Faces of Mu]

What is the water/magma ratio to create obsidian and steam, and does it matter which falls into which?