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[Kulantan]

Quick question before I embark on building this thing.

If you create a tile of obsidian on a bridge does it just collapse and destroy the bridge imediately?

If not, my thinking is that you could build a device that could automatically fire multiple cave ins by holding magma on a bridge and dropping small amounts of water onto it from a pipe positioned above the bridge then retracting the bridge.

If this doesn't work then I'm thinking of facing a magma cannon and a water cannon at each other and seeing what happens.

"By Nazom Lord of Twilight! You mean this thing will rain both magma and rocks upon the heads of our enemies?"
"In theory, yes... that or flood the tower with magma."
"Start work immediately!"
  -Excerpt from the minutes of the Skindoors Defence Council,
    conversation between King Meng Palacehandle and Chief Engineer Rith Metalsystem

[Uber dwarf2.0]

if its retract able I think so however I don't think it'll cause a cave-in more than just blocks of stone dropping down

[Jim Groovester]

I think I might just know a way to do this.

Code: [Select]

Several levels in the air...
#####=======#####
magma+++_+++water
#####=======#####

# = wall
= = raised drawbridge
+ = floor bridge
_ = open space

Ideally, this design would create a block of obsidian at the empty space, and since bridges do not provide support, the block of obsidian would drop several levels. This would free up the empty space again, allowing for a new block to form.

It probably won't work, but it's worth a try.

[Shakma]

It will collapse and destroy the bridge.

The problem with obsidian droppers isn't just getting them to go, but that they need to be removed.  Once they drop you have to dig them out so there is not such thing as automatic. That's why ice has more potential for an auto-dropper, but it's bugged right now and won't work.

[Shakma]

Jim Groovester's design doesn't work because the obsidian will be attached to floors.  The best way I've come up with for a dropper is like so:

Code: [Select]

#M#P###
#M#p###
##+_###
Pp___pP
###_+##
###p#W#
###P#W#

#-walls
M - magma
W - water
pP - pumps
+ - floor
_ - open space


The pumps remove water/magma not flowing to the center open space (you need a ledge below to pick up 1/7 water/magma.  The two can combine at the center open space and will have no direct support.  Again, the problem is, it will form an obsidian stack as they drop and be a pain to remove.  I tried building 1/2 of this for ice and it works but the ice won't drop.  Ice is bugged.

[Jim Groovester]

Jim Groovester's design doesn't work because the obsidian will be attached to floors.

Irk. You'll notice on my diagram that where the magma and water combines is entirely surrounded by bridges, based upon the handy legend I made for it.

I tried to test my design out, but just as I was finishing the pump tower for the magma, as I had already finished the pump tower from the brook, Dwarf Fortress crashed on me.

Maybe another time. I think it will work.

[Grumman]

Jim Groovester's design doesn't work because the obsidian will be attached to floors.

Irk. You'll notice on my diagram that where the magma and water combines is entirely surrounded by bridges, based upon the handy legend I made for it.

Yes, but underneath those raised drawbridges, you have to have a floor, or you can't build them.

A better option is to build two 1*lots bridges one space apart, and input water onto the middle of one, magma onto the middle of the other.

[zchris13]

But the floor doesn't have to be under the bridge at all. Just next to the bridge.

[Quietust]

But the floor doesn't have to be under the bridge at all. Just next to the bridge.

If it's a raising bridge, then it must have floor beneath the entire edge along which it raises. Only retracting bridges can be built entirely over open space.

[Starver]

If it's a raising bridge, then it must have floor beneath the entire edge along which it raises. Only retracting bridges can be built entirely over open space.

Is it possible to build a raising bridge based upon a set of walls (i.e. no "official" floor underneath the raising side, just "tops of wall"-type foors) then remove the floor without the bridge collapsing?

If not (either because it doesn't like the tops of walls, which I doubt, or it doesn't like the removal of the walls, which is probable, just I've never tried it) then we may be out of luck on that front, but I was wondering about mixing the two fluids "mid-air".  Trickling them out of channels into a shaft.  Of course, they'd fall at the same speed and never meet (if the upper falling item didn't coincide with the lower falling item while it was still trickling away from its spout, which would then solidify at the end of the spout) and, anyway, the sploshing magma (if not water) would be a pretty dreadful thing to walk across the bottom of...

But perhaps two short bridges extended to the middle without side-restraining walls..?  There'd be some (even significant) side-spillage, but the fluid that gets to the gap between the two would meet its opposing number.

And here I must stop speculating, as I've too little experience with deliberate obsidian generation to work out what would happen.  (I've also got to leave, for the weekend, and can't spend any more time waffling about it.)

[Starver]

If it's a raising bridge, then it must have floor beneath the entire edge along which it raises. Only retracting bridges can be built entirely over open space.

Is it possible to build a raising bridge based upon a set of walls (i.e. no "official" floor underneath the raising side, just "tops of wall"-type foors) then remove the floor without the bridge collapsing?

Yes.

On the edge of a megaproject digging area, I set up a line of walls, and on the level above some access floors to allow me 'building access' to place a raising bridge, based atop those walls.  Bridge built, and linked to a lever, I then removed the access floors (not necessary, but did so anyway) and could then remove the walls from below (leaving one at each end of the 'bridge base', but I suspect I only needed to leave one of them, and maybe have gotten away with none at all if there was still an adjacent supporting wall to the side to 'hang off of') leaving a fully functional lever-operated bridge that would nicely act as a "non-stick" wall-type barrier to help martial liquids along a similarly 'non-stick' bridge floor, to meet at a point where obsidian could be spontaneously created without any supporting landscape or structure.  The bridge raises and lowers without losing integrity (a further fear that I had, in that it would suddenly 'realise' that it was no longer supported).

The 'wall' bridges would be anchored either side of the 'floor' ones, pointing outwards (or being just one-tile thick and and raising either inwards or outwards, given that still gives a "wall" when raised).  The 'floor' ones (not needing differentiation by raising direction or retraction or lever linking, seeing as they are used "flat", unless also being used as "valves" for the magma or water) would be supported at opposite walls, going between the two wall-like barriers to leave the 'formation gap', thus:

Code: [Select]

###########
##       ##
..       ..      Shaft dug with two input routes
##       ##
###########


Code: [Select]

###########
##       ##
..|-| |-|..      Two short bridges built to nearly bridge the gap
##       ##
###########


Code: [Select]

###########
##+++++++##       On the level below, build walls to create
..|-| |-|..     
##+++++++##       floors sufficient to build upon.
###########


Code: [Select]

###########
##|-----|##       Upon these wall-tops, with build access from the existing
..|-| |-|..       bridges, build new bridges (set to raising towards/away from
##|-----|##       the centre, along their 1-tile thickness).
###########


Code: [Select]

###########
##|-XXX-|##       Deconstruct the now covered-over lower walls
..|-| |-|..       from under at least the middle three parts
##|-XXX-|##       of the bridge length, as indicated by "X"s.
###########       (And of course any other 'infrastructure'.)


Code: [Select]

###########
##|=====|##       Raise those bridges
..|-| |-|..       to form confining walls.
##|=====|##       (Probably not order-critical with previous step.)
###########

I had no magma/water at hand to easily test the operational aspects, but the construction method definitely appears to work.  I can't think how one would 'hold' a piece of obsidian in place, so it's not so much "reloading" as "produce-and-drop on demand.  Give or take the response time and flow-rate of the supply fluids.

[Jimmy]

For an elegant solution to the removal of the generated obsidian, I'd suggest construction over a bottomless pit.

[Starver]

For an elegant solution to the removal of the generated obsidian, I'd suggest construction over a bottomless pit.

After so much effort taken generating it, I'm not sure if this is relevent, but I probably missed something...

[Shakma]

For an elegant solution to the removal of the generated obsidian, I'd suggest construction over a bottomless pit.

After so much effort taken generating it, I'm not sure if this is relevent, but I probably missed something...

It would be a great game auto-pauser. 

The ability to remove walls under brigdes really makes an auto-dropper much easier to do.  Still the problem with ice not dropping and obsidian needing to be removed.  Can't hold a single block in place but could drop one square of magma over the waterfall and it would make just one block most likely.

[Starver]

I really must get around to bringing water and magma together.  I'm obviously missing something by respecting the environment!

(Says he who is currently removing a roughly 200 kiloblock chunk of landscape, and finally gotten a complaint from the elves regarding the necessary deforestation...)