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[RandomNumberGenerator]

Alright, well after becoming very annoyed with traditional metalworking, I decided to give magma metalworking a try. I found a magma pipe next to a river in a swamp, and started getting everything set up. On the 3rd level down, when I finally hit rock, I started doing exploratory mining to find it so I could plan my fortress around it. Unfortunately, I actually broke into the cavern above it, and I risked creatures coming into my fortress, as well as loosing access to a valuable iron ore vein, so I tried to cap it off...





...leading to this. Luckily the doors I installed have stopped it from coming into my actual fortress, but it seems I just blocked myself from ever using around 50% of that ore vein, as well as anything else I would want to use that general area for... Oh, and another question about magma; if I was to mine through the newly created obsidian on the level below, then create a one-tile wide channel in the floor leading to the magma, could this be used for magma forges without risk of attack?

[Truean]

This is a huge job. Sure you wanna do it? The effort might not be worth the reward.

Step 1: Create a watertight seal. You've done that with Doors. Good job.

Step 2: Hide stones. Press in order "d" "b" "h" over the areas that are flooded and have stone on them. This is particularly helpful if you have the "show water levels in numbers" option on. Knowing how deep you're in is good.

Step 3: Screw pumps and Drainage.

You will need multiple screw pumps set to put the outflow water into a drainage system which could lead to a bottomless pit or through fortifications off the map edge.

The idea would be to get a part of the river bed dry and they wall that off by pumping out more water than is coming in. This is because a river is an infinate source of water. You need to make this a "finite" source of water by damming it off. That makes pumping the water out of the effected area possible, because otherwise more would just rush in.

FYI Screw pumps = A block, an enormous corkscrew and a pipe section. All can be made from wood. Pump towards the dark side of the green square when you place them.

[Scarpa]

It's not that daunting of a job, IMO. It's a good lesson on using machines.

Go upstream of the river breach a few tiles, and then put a couple waterwheels in powering a line of pumps across the river. Have the pumps drain off the map via carved fortifications in the edge wall. This will effectively re-route the river and then you can work on draining the rest.

I just did something similar, here's a couple pics to illustrate:

With the drainage system off, you can see the lever and gear assemblies controlling pump operation, and the empty drainage channel.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After turning it on, you can see the river downstream of the pumps is now nearly empty and the drainage channel is full.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[RandomNumberGenerator]

Heh... I attempted to drain it, but I think I messed up(again). I build the fortifications underground to drain it off the map, but they didn't seem to do the job(I had 4, should I have carved more?) and I ended up flooding the area. Dwarf Fortress sure is hard on newbies...

So I decided to just abandon that fortress and make a new one. I just tunneled into the new magma chamber, which looks even more promising with a lot of iron ore(much more than the other one) and platinum. Down in the bottom right corner is chalk, which means I have everything needed to make steel. In addition, the new map has sand, so I can get a glass industry going. I just need advice to make sure I don't screw up this one as well:

This is currently Z-3. The brook on the map is Z-1, about 20 tiles to the north. My fortress lies around 30 tiles to the west, connected by the now sealed off tunnel. I think my mistake on the last map was I build a channel instead of just a tunnel, so the water went over the floodgate after I closed it, but I'm not sure. Any advice is appreciated.

[Stargrasper]

Yeah, DF is pretty rough on newbies, but much MUCH nicer than many games, especially because of the forum community and wiki(which you should definitely spend some time with).

First of all, you're talking about a magma pipe, why are you talking about water?  Looking at this thread as closely as I can, I just can't figure out what you're getting at with that.

On to handling magma, you should dig tunnels going to where you want the magma to be(ie, under where you intend to put the magma buildings).  You're implying that you know what you're doing with this.  Make it close by the pipe just so it doesn't take an eternity for the magma to get where you want it.  You probably want to put in a magma-proof fortification or something to block fire imps.  Or prepare traps to catch them(advanced option, don't do it unless you're confident).  That last wall between your tunnels and the pipe, channel out from above and then seal off.  You're pretty well set at that point.

See the various tutorials around.  The tutorials at the top of this forum.  They both cover magma.  Look for tutorials/advice/information on the wiki, as well.  Specifically, look at magma and workshops.  There are actually plenty of resources out there to help you.  Take a look and they'll turn up...or wait twenty minutes.  The super-experts are pretty active.  One of them ought to turn up and help if you're having trouble with anything I said.

[Talith]

saving often and  ctrl + alt + del is the key.

[RandomNumberGenerator]

The reason I was talking about water is I tried to solidify the surface of the magma pipe with it, so I could mine the ores around it without fear of my dwarves being attacked. I was also hoping after I turn the top to obsidian, I would be able to build my magma forges/smelters/furnaces on top of the pipe, rather then off to the side, eliminating the need to channel magma completely. However, I messed up with channeling the water and flooded the entire chamber, removing the possibility of both mining the ores and building magma forges on top of the pipe. This lead to my questions:

1) How can I channel water into this to solidify the magma into obsidian without flooding it, so I can mine the ores later?
2) If I turn the top of the magma pipe into obsidian, will I be able to build magma workshops ontop of the now-solid surface, or will I still need to channel magma?
3) If I can build magma workshops on top of the pipe, is there any danger of imps/firemen comming through the holes in the chamber and attacking my dwarves?

[Firnagzen]

Question: Is it just me, or is that magnetite and chalk in the magma pipe wall?

[forsaken1111]

Question: Is it just me, or is that magnetite and chalk in the magma pipe wall?

It is... he even commented on that, if you read his post.

[Skorpion]

1) How can I channel water into this to solidify the magma into obsidian without flooding it, so I can mine the ores later?
2) If I turn the top of the magma pipe into obsidian, will I be able to build magma workshops ontop of the now-solid surface, or will I still need to channel magma?
3) If I can build magma workshops on top of the pipe, is there any danger of imps/firemen comming through the holes in the chamber and attacking my dwarves?

1. Narrow (2-3 tiles wide) channel for the water, set to flow in at the side of the pipe so the obsidian is anchored. BUILD FLOODGATES BEFORE YOU OPEN THE FLOW. This is important; you want to be able to control the amount of water.
I advise adding water in stages, shutting off the flow as soon as it hits the magma pipe. It's better to go slowly and take a while than to have to remove water from it AGAIN.

2. As long as the obsidian is a single Z-level deep, yes.

3. Not through impassable tiles.

[RandomNumberGenerator]

3. Not through impassable tiles.

Looking at the DF wiki, I'm guessing the dark green X's are impassible and the light green ones are passable? So the holes should be positioned below the dark green ones to prevent magma creatures from coming through?

[forsaken1111]

3. Not through impassable tiles.

Looking at the DF wiki, I'm guessing the dark green X's are impassible and the light green ones are passable? So the holes should be positioned below the dark green ones to prevent magma creatures from coming through?

Precisely.

Although another option is to build a couple vertical bars in the magma tunnel before you loose the magma, thus keeping creatures from coming in at all. (Hopefully)

[Skorpion]

That's an example of channeling for forges and smelters. Not shown is the fortifications filtering the flow, because they vanished for some reason. Still there, just invisible.

[forsaken1111]

Not shown is the fortifications filtering the flow, because they vanished for some reason. Still there, just invisible.

From my experience, if you don't have flow numbers on the magma would be slightly darker where there are fortifications or something else hidden,

[Skorpion]

Indeed, but then I wouldn't be able to monitor the magma flows in real-time.