Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Marko]

Well I will say this thing does suck up a lot of resources, and took a rather long time for my 7 dwarves to put together (though I'm sure a well staffed fortress could probably get it together in a season, I'm sure.) You're going to need lots of iron (I think it's 3 bars per pipe section, 1 bar per corkscrew) and lots of bauxite of course. And as previously mentioned *LOTS* of power. If you don't have running water it's going to be rough even with fully powered windmills. Just powering a 10x3 area will suck up 200 power plus whatever is eaten up by gear assemblies and axles.

Also, for setup, I found it works best if the whole area is covered in 4/7 magma. This is enough so that the magma can easily be scooped up by the pumps, while at the same time can come rushing through pretty quickly when the pumps are turned off.

But it is definitely worth the cost as you laugh maniacally when you pull the lever and waves of magma come crashing down on anything in the path. And I can't help but think the pale look on the elven faces as they walk through it, realizing just how combustible everything they have is.

I can think of some tweaks for version 2.0 already.
First is to isolate the contraption with flood gates on both sides, separating the ramps from the flowing magma. Since you can't put a bridge under a ramp to make it fall away, you get stuck with a 1 deep puddle of hot death at the entrance way with the current model.

Second, if you're interested in getting the fourth source of iron, I'd put a 2 z-level drop between the bridges and the lava retention, with staggered iron bars or bauxite grates that magma can pour through, but goblin metal armor can get caught in, something like this:

Code: [Select]

---     Bridge
# #   1st Z-level below
-#-    2nd z-level below
- = solid floor
# = grate
A gap between them on the 1st level allows the magma to fall through to the level below. Then once the trap is reset some haulers can go inside and grab the gobbo armor for melting

A third idea I had was to attach a pressure plate into the corner far away from the intake pumps so when the magma gets low enough, the intake pumps are automatically turned on. This way you don't have to keep an eye on the thing, making sure you haven't lost too much magma from evaporation.

And last, but not least, create a horribly complicated mechanism so you pull one lever, that starts some water flow system that first closes the flood gates, then after a short pause cuts power to the pumps. Pause a short while, starts pumps up again, opens up bridge, closes bridge, then opens up the floodgates. If you can make a water system mechanism that can do that, you win a free cookie!  (otherwise, you need 3 levers to run the whole thing, and be careful not to open up the bridge while you have the pumps off, or your supply of lava will all drain away!)

[Martin]

Green glass block/pipe/corkscrew work great for magma. Don't need to burn up your bauxite or iron for that.

The catch grate for armor is a great idea. Without question the biggest challenge will be to keep dwarves from wandering to their fiery doom for the whole setup.

And the power requirements aren't all that bad. 200 is just 3 waterwheels. We need heat exchangers and steam turbines...

[Marko]

is green glass magma proof? I've seen a screw pipe not made out of magma proof materials melt before from extended magma pumping

And yeah, with water wheels powering it is no problem, but windmills with only 40 power a pop, plus all the power you lose trying to get it all hooked up, you're going to need a HUGE wind farm...

[Martin]

is green glass magma proof? I've seen a screw pipe not made out of magma proof materials melt before from extended magma pumping

And yeah, with water wheels powering it is no problem, but windmills with only 40 power a pop, plus all the power you lose trying to get it all hooked up, you're going to need a HUGE wind farm...

I've been building entirely green glass pumps for magma for ages. Never had a problem.

[PheonixIV]

So long as Magma never 'backflows' onto the pump you can build it out of Ice and it will function just fine.

It's only if a brick of Magma ever ends up on the actual pump square that it will burn.

[Martin]

So long as Magma never 'backflows' onto the pump you can build it out of Ice and it will function just fine.

It's only if a brick of Magma ever ends up on the actual pump square that it will burn.

Ah. Yeah, I'm pretty careful to make sure that never happens.

[Marko]

Well while doing a test run on this I had a non magma proof mechanism connecting the pumps, and a bit of magma got up there in an accident. I'd just suggest using magma proof materials if you can, you never know what might go wrong... especially if you have anybody traveling through it you don't want fried...

[Martin]

You can always seal up the pump house, too. You only need one opening for power and you can put walls around and a floor over top.

[Shoku]

I built a bunch of wooden pumps for a magma moat once but at least the top one deconstructed in about two seconds flat and that lead to the rest getting exposed.
Though another time a wooden pump lasted as long as I would have needed to fill that moat :/

[zchris13]

Wood takes heat damage at a temperature that is reached having magma next to the pump.

[Muno syoan]

On the magma cannon:

You have created an obscene perversion of the natural order.

Well done!

[Nightwind]

magma cannon needs bump so that somebody can explain it for me...

as I understand how the fire curtain works, and the "red sea" project, and even the one that sorts out the iron...

but not the cannon, even with the movie AND the map.

[alway]

I built myself a magma cannon on one of my maps. Uses around 1000 power to get all the magma from the pipe to the cannon, and eats through my magma pipe's reserves like crazy... But it is fun. I found the trick is to surround the kill zone with bauxite grates, letting the magma fall back down into a resevoir to either use for another throughput into the cannon or used for another project (such as building an obsidian tower). This way you don't waste the massive amounts of magma being pumped through. My cannon uses 3 pumps on each level, with the magma coming from a 3 wide tunnel from the pipe.

@Nightwind: The magma cannon works on the principle of magma's semi-pressurization via pumping. When a pump brings the magma up, it pushes the other magma in the tunnel forward if it is able to be moved forward. Using multiple pumps (in this case 3) to fill a single wide tunnel (the cannon's barrel) means the magma squirts out in large quantities and very quickly.

[QuakeIV]

You only need the brick to be firesafe, i'v tested it, with just one iron brick and the rest made outta wood, it works great!

[zchris13]

Pretty sure that it WILL work for a time.  Eventually any wooden parts take heat damage.