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[Sweedumz]

I had thought that passing water or magma through a fortification would prevent creatures passing. Evidential I was mistaken. A fireimp just showed up in my magma forges. I have no idea how it got in.

While I suspect the fortification, I would like to know this wasn't the case. The only alternatvies I can see are
1)The imp spawned in the forge pit
2)The imp snuck in under the wall I built that essentially overhangs the magma pipe. In other words, there is a diagonal "gap" leading from the magma directly below the wall to the floor next to the all on the z-level above.

Could the imp have gotten in this way? What makes this possible? 

[Jim Groovester]

Both are likely false. While I've experienced a case of what you're describing, if there isn't a down stair adjacent to your constructed wall, I doubt the fire imp slipped through that little tiny crack.

Fortifications and fluids don't seem to mix very well. It's likely that the fire imp just slipped through the fortification while you weren't looking.

You see, I've got a theory that nobody else seems to believe, and that it's submerged fortifications don't prevent creatures from passing through them, and that they can freely path through them as if they were open, dug out tiles.

Everybody else is operating under this ridiculous 'Creatures get pushed through fortifications by water or magma' theory, even though water and magma don't push things at 7/7.

In either case, chalk it up to a bug with submerged fortifications, and move on.

[Sweedumz]

If fortifications don't filter creatures, then is there anything that does?

[Jim Groovester]

Grates do. Floor grates, that is. Any building that denies horizontal passage but allows fluid flow will have that problem. Vertical bars, vertical grates, fortifications.

The easiest thing to do would be to reposition your forges so that the impassable tile (the dark green one) is over the magma itself. Fire imps won't be able to jump out of the magma, and it still allows use of magma buildings.

If that's not an option now, keep it in mind for the future, and station a soldier or two down there in case the fire imps attack again.

[XSI]

If fortifications don't filter creatures, then is there anything that does?

In addition to speeding up the movement of magma, creatures can not get through pumps. You may want to use those instead if you want to keep some open magma near the forges. (Open magma is useful for dumping stone in you don't want, it melts and disappears)

And actually like Jim, I doubt fortifications help a lot, if anything, but that could be the paranoid part of me, since I always have fortifications, grates, and pumps(in that order) to stop things from coming up under my forges.

[Quietust]

Technically, fire imps can't pass through fortifications, though flowing liquids (including magma) seem to completely ignore fortifications when pushing around items and units.

[Albedo]

JG's point is that 7/7 liquids don't push, regardless of "flow" - only depths less than that do.

The "pushed through" paradigm sounded good at one time, but is most probably flawed.

Bottom line, there's a bug.  Fortifications should do the trick - or they once did (maybe that was the bug?*) - but they certainly can't be counted on now.

  (* Without a manual, I guess there's no way to be sure what was intended vs just accidentally observed.)

Maybe it's just superstition, but I still construct them.   

[HammerHand]

In a related incident, I once had a champion hurl a goblin through one of my wall grates and into a wall grate behind it.  I imagined it getting squeezed through all the little holes like some kind of cheese grater, but it was probably killed by the impact with the other grate, and ignored the first.

It seems grates and fortifications are not as reliable as we are led to believe, though they are usually effective.

[Mungrul]

Regarding creatures not passing through pumps, I can pretty much debunk that one.
I've got a water trap / pump-operator-trainer on my current fortress that has fish in the water tunnels that are only fed by hand operated pumps. The tunnels were completely sealed before operation began.
In fact, I have another constructed pipe feeding my obsidian factory cistern that also has fish in it, and again, is only fed by hand operated pumps.
Can't say if imps pass through pumps or not, as my fortified magma channels always work at filtering imps.

[Rvlion]

As I wrote down in another thread on this forum...
Predator water creatures (conformed with Sturgeon and Carp) move freely from a river through 4 Fortifications into my īnternal water supply.
Regular fish are officially vermin and thus spawn were ever they want. Read stories in community games/stories section about fish appearing in water drained from an aquifer layer.
Only 1 time have I seen magma creatures pass through Fortifications and this was when I was pumping magma from my "safe" zone connected to my magmapipe seperated by 2 Fortifications into my artificially created moat and thus the Imp was sucked through the Fortification inside the so called "safe" zone. After the Imp scared away my dwarf pumping crew (to lazy to make it automatic) it however soon past back into the magma pipe seemingly passing without difficulty

[kaypy]

You see, I've got a theory that nobody else seems to believe, and that it's submerged fortifications don't prevent creatures from passing through them, and that they can freely path through them as if they were open, dug out tiles.

I've been of the opinion that submerged fortifications do absolutely nothing for about a year and a half now. (Full, hence still magma + solid block of ~20 fortifications + completely unobstructed fire imp = pretty conclusive). These days I fill my forge and turn the inlet pipe into a solid obsidian block.

I haven't seen anything get through a floor grate yet, though.

[gtmattz]

Regarding creatures not passing through pumps, I can pretty much debunk that one.
I've got a water trap / pump-operator-trainer on my current fortress that has fish in the water tunnels that are only fed by hand operated pumps. The tunnels were completely sealed before operation began.
In fact, I have another constructed pipe feeding my obsidian factory cistern that also has fish in it, and again, is only fed by hand operated pumps.
Can't say if imps pass through pumps or not, as my fortified magma channels always work at filtering imps.

Bolded pertinent info...

You are most likely seeing 'vermin' fish, as they can and will spawn anywhere.

[Skorpion]

Just set up fortifications next to the magma pipe and station marksdwarves there to kill the fire imps.

[Albedo]

Regarding creatures not passing through pumps, I can pretty much debunk that one.
... cistern that also has fish in it, and again, is only fed by hand operated pumps.

There are 2 types of "fish" - creatures and vermin.  Creature-fish are serious, dangerous fish, like carp etc.  Vermin-fish are things like trout or cave fish, or turtles (same category). 

I'll bet you have "vermin-type" fish in your cistern.  (I'd be very surprised to hear otherwise.)  Vermin spawn, spontaneously appearing.  They didn't pass through anything. 

Sorry to rebunk your debunk, bu that's life in DF.

[2xMachina]

Argh, the damn frogman are walking through my fortifications. Heck, they're standing on the fortification squares. Stupid things keeps interrupting my pumping operation to flood irrigate my fort.

Already killed a lizardman, and a frogman. NOW, another 2 frogman appears, straight through 2, 3 fortifications. They had stood on the fortification tile, but has since moved into a blank tile. Gonna kill them again, and use DTIL to make the whole damn place fortifications so nothing can stand there. That'll solve the problem right? And you can still pump water from a fortification tile?