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[Strant]

I need some help designing an underground magma workshop district.  I have tried before, with poor !!results!!.  Long story short, I confused down and up, among other things.

Here's a picture of my current design.


That blue dot is where the screw pump is going to be.  I'm almost certain that I shouldn't be channeling directly into the magma pipe.  Should I mine 1z level down instead?  How do I get my miner down?  How do I get her back up?  Does magma move diagonally at the same speed as orthogonally?  Where should I put grates and floodgates, can I make them out of normal stone or glass?  Should I?  Is there any danger to walking over a magma channel on a grate? if a magma workshop is over a magma tile but the magma tile is covered by a grate will the workshop function?  Do I have to worry about magma critters?

Really any advice about magma workshopping would be great.

About my design:  This is a modified version of my design for the rest of my fortress.  There's 4 8*8 rooms in each section, each section is separated by 3 wide hallways.  Each room has 4 doors on each side(48 per section), which keeps my mason employed.  In the magma design, each room has channels around the outside along with channels to pass magma to each other.

[Rijjka]

Someone much more tallented then me will give you a far more dwarvenly option. But don't even worry about the screw pump. The magma needs to be below your workshops. So go a level down, hollow out a resivor, and maybe turn mining on for a peasent to go breach the wall to the pipe, because he'll probably burst into flames and die.

You will want to install a flood gate or something before hand, with bauxite mechanisms, to seal off the magma after it's flooded the resivor, lest you have fire imps pop up in your forges and make the game more Fun.

Course there is a option that doesn't involve a toasty miner. Go check all up and down the pipe, because it widens and narrows from level to level. Build your workshop on one of the layers thats by the pipe when its narrow, and then rather then have a soon to be flaming dwarf breach the magama wall, you can have a miner in the uper level ust channle down where needed.

[Kanddak]

That's going to flood your fort with magma. The magma will come up to the level of the screw pump.

If you get rid of the pump, it won't flood you, but it will fill slowly. Remove the last two tiles of channel designations and get an engraver down there with a staircase; then carve a fortification in the 2nd tile next to the magma, evacuate the engraver, channel the last wall to admit magma from the pipe, and build a floor over that channel. The fortification will keep imps out.
If you move the pump and its intake channel down one level, that will also work nicely. In that case, put a grate over the intake channel to obstruct imps.

Now, about your other questions.

Does magma move diagonally at the same speed as orthogonally?
Yes. Magma moving on its own power - local diffusion - will move any direction at the same speed. However, pumps will teleport magma only along orthogonal paths, so an orthogonal pump-fed channel will fill more quickly than a diagonal one (which will have almost no improvement over a channel without a pump).

Where should I put grates and floodgates, can I make them out of normal stone or glass?
Anything that is not submerged in magma can be made of any material. (Except that wooden screw pumps will catch fire.)
Stone will melt if submerged; glass will be fine. Remember that you need magma-safe mechanisms for anything that will be submerged in magma, because the mechanisms will otherwise melt and cause the building to deconstruct.
However, the design you're showing really has no reason to use a door or floodgate - and, incidentally, doors are better for almost every purpose. Floodgates are pretty much vestigial remnants from the 2D version.

Is there any danger to walking over a magma channel on a grate?
Not in the least.

if a magma workshop is over a magma tile but the magma tile is covered by a grate will the workshop function?
That situation is impossible. You can't build two buildings (a grate and a workshop) in the same tile.

[slink]

The way that I make my magma workshop districts is not neat, but it is functional.  I scan up and down the magma pipe until I find a place where the the pipe at one level is much skinnier than the pipe on the level below.  If there is not place where "much" applies, just choose the best.

Then I clear a large area around the skinny section of the pipe.  This includes dumping or otherwise relocating all the dug stone (I save obsidion in a stockpile).  This will be tedious because the silly Dwarves will be constantly surprised and alarmed by the warm floor as they dig.  They get over it once the stone is dug.  Don't dig into the wall of the pipe by mistake, in the confusion of flashing asterisks during dig commands.  You can probably wall it in quickly enough to avoid a flooded fortress, but you will have lost a miner and his equipment.

Then I build the workshops one at a time, so that there is minimal time spent with an open hole to the magma.  Gather your anvils nearby before you start.

1.  Channel the hole the workshop, checking the level below to make sure that the hole is over magma.  Magma won't flood out holes due to pressure from above, so that is safe.

2.  Place the workshop with one of the dark Xs over the open hole.  This prevents imps and the like from swooshing up though the workshop and incinerating your Dwarven worker as he makes things.

3.  Repeat.

Now you have your magma furnaces and forges clustered around the magma pipe.  You can make stockpiles in the adjacent empty space for things such as Goblinite and other ores, sand bags, and metal bar stock.  A Goblinite stockpile is made with an Armor stockpile set to Unusable only and no Other Materials, and prevent bins.  This makes it easy to set them all to melt with a block command, as your Dwarves gather the ore from the traps at the fortress door.

The only time I have used a pump on magma was for an obsidion factory.  I once tried to make a large layout like yours, based only on natural flow, and it was RL days before the magma filled it all.  That was when I developed the method above.

[Strant]

Flood my fort?  I don't think so,  I've taken precautions.  This entire area is one level *below* everything else.  Because the magma won't climb stairs, right?
Temporarily flooding this level with lava shouldn't be a problem.  I add in a few walls so my pumper doesn't get hit (and optionally, can leave) and the lava should settle or evaporate.  The lave won't go anywhere once it's pumped so there shouldn't be any problems after that.

Also, do I have to worry about fire imps and such with my setup?  Also, I still don't get how to get people down and up from channels.  Do I just build a down stairway over a channel and then an up stairway in the channel?

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

This is what I use for my magma area. what I did was tunnel under my area in a pattern of line, nothing, nothing, and repeat so that I just have to channel a spot and the will be lava there. the 2 spots where the pattern is off is because right above it is my magma forge. what you can't see is that there is also 2 magma smelters on either side. to keep fire imps out the area that the lava enters through is a fortification and just in case that doesn't work I only make a hole where the no walk place is on the magma building I want to make.

ps: if the pump is on the same level as the rest of your fort it will flood it because pumping makes lava act like really slow water, pressure and all.

[Kanddak]

Flood my fort?  I don't think so,  I've taken precautions.  This entire area is one level *below* everything else.  Because the magma won't climb stairs, right?
Temporarily flooding this level with lava shouldn't be a problem.  I add in a few walls so my pumper doesn't get hit (and optionally, can leave) and the lava should settle or evaporate.  The lave won't go anywhere once it's pumped so there shouldn't be any problems after that.

Ok, fair enough, it will flood your magma workshop level with magma. But "I'll just flood it and let it evaporate" is a pretty inefficient way to do it when you have much better options.

Also, do I have to worry about fire imps and such with my setup?

Yes.

Also, I still don't get how to get people down and up from channels.  Do I just build a down stairway over a channel and then an up stairway in the channel?

Well, you can't do it in that order, because you can't construct down staircases over open space. Dig a staircase instead of a channel on one tile. Or alternately, dig an access stairwell leading to a tunnel into the side of the channel, closed off by a door.
You obviously have some understanding of how to get dwarves up and down staircases. It sounds like you're conceiving of "channels" as some kind of special fluid-transmitting tile, rather than merely a designation that removes floors and leaves an open hole into the z-level below. I've heard it worked something like that in the 2d version, so that might be what's confusing you.
The wiki article on mining might help, although the wiki article on channeling itself seems kind of confusing.

Or maybe this will clarify things: http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1683-safemagma-pipepiercing

[2xMachina]

Not sure about magma, but I can tell you that creatures will pass through fortifications for water. Heck, I have like 5 creatures standing ON the fortification tile. Precautions like diagonal flow, and multiple fortifications have not filtered them.

Code: [Select]

=====
=fff=
=f=f=
+===+

+ is river floor, = is wall, f is fort. And I've the bloody crocs, snakemen and lizardmen on the fort tiles.

[Frogwarrior]

No matter how much I see it, putting words in !!exclamation points!! always cracks me up.

Anyway. I've developed a pretty safe method. No miners ever need to die, no chance of fire imps rising from below your workshops.

I have it in use in my current fortress on the DFMA here. Workshops are on level 16, magma piping on level 15, at the far north (sadly, I don't know how to do these "point of interest" things whatever they are...).

Basically, you find a level of the magma pipe that is smaller than the one immediately below it. Your workshops will be on this level, using magma from the larger one below.
Dig a ramp under where an impassable tile of one workshop will be, channel out the others, and dig around on the lower level to connect the plumbing. Then, dig from this plumbing to a spot right next to the magma on the lower, larger level. On the higher level, dig out to the same spot. Since the higher level of the magma pipe is smaller, you have not reached the magma and can safely dig a channel which will breach the wall in the lower level. Then, seal up the channel on the top level with a floor or wall to prevent fire imps from getting out.
Ta-da! Safe magma workshops.

[Volatar]

Not sure about magma, but I can tell you that creatures will pass through fortifications for water. Heck, I have like 5 creatures standing ON the fortification tile. Precautions like diagonal flow, and multiple fortifications have not filtered them.

Code: [Select]

=====
=fff=
=f=f=
+===+

+ is river floor, = is wall, f is fort. And I've the bloody crocs, snakemen and lizardmen on the fort tiles.

To the best of my knowledge, creatures cannot pass through fortifications. I used the fortification method in my last fort to pipe my magma. The only creatures that got through my fortifications were fire snakes that spawned on the other side of them. Creatures can spawn a good bit outside underground rivers and magma pipes. I had fire snakes spawning outside the pipe on a level where I had dug out all around the pipe to farm some obsidian before I ever breached it anywhere. Those creatures in your fortifications must have spawned within the fortifications.

[DeathOfRats]

To the best of my knowledge, creatures cannot pass through fortifications. I used the fortification method in my last fort to pipe my magma. The only creatures that got through my fortifications were fire snakes that spawned on the other side of them.

Technically true, but incomplete (according to conventional DF wisdom. If there's proof otherwise, please show it). Explanation follows:

First, let's separate creatures and vermin. Fire snakes are vermin which spawn near magma pipes. Vermin don't exactly move, they teleport, so fortifications are going to do absolutely nothing against them.

Alright, creatures. Fire imps, firemen, and basically all sort of critters that have multiple body parts are creatures (including your dorfs). You're right that creatures cannot moved through fortifications. However, they can be pushed through by flowing water and magma. How they manage to squeeze through the fortification in a form other than puree is still under research.

What this means is that a fire imp might squeeze in through the fortification while the magma channels are being filled, if the imp gets sucked into the channel. Once they are full to 7/7, there's no more flow, so a fortification is enough to keep you protected.

[denito]

No matter how much I see it, putting words in !!exclamation points!! always cracks me up.

Anyway. I've developed a pretty safe method. No miners ever need to die, no chance of fire imps rising from below your workshops.

I have it in use in my current fortress on the DFMA here. Workshops are on level 16, magma piping on level 15, at the far north (sadly, I don't know how to do these "point of interest" things whatever they are...).

Basically, you find a level of the magma pipe that is smaller than the one immediately below it. Your workshops will be on this level, using magma from the larger one below.
Dig a ramp under where an impassable tile of one workshop will be, channel out the others, and dig around on the lower level to connect the plumbing. Then, dig from this plumbing to a spot right next to the magma on the lower, larger level. On the higher level, dig out to the same spot. Since the higher level of the magma pipe is smaller, you have not reached the magma and can safely dig a channel which will breach the wall in the lower level. Then, seal up the channel on the top level with a floor or wall to prevent fire imps from getting out.
Ta-da! Safe magma workshops.

I'm curious why the need to transport the magma so far from the tube?  What I've started doing is something much simpler:  like you said I find a section of the magma tube smaller than the one beneath it.  But instead of digging ramps, tunnel, etc., I just mine out rooms right next to the tube on the narrow level, so that I only need to channel out a single floor tile to reveal 1 square of magma.  Then I put the workshop on it so that that open magma is covered by an impassable workshop tile.

It seems to keep the fire imps out so far; maybe the problem is that fire vermin will teleport near my workshops?  I haven't seen any in the forge yet, although I have seen fire snakes wandering around anexploratory mining shaft on a lower level that tunneled too close to the magma tube.

[2xMachina]

I've seen fire snakes nowhere near a magma pipe...

Just seen 2, high up the mountain, when I've not yet even found the pipe/pool (using Dwarven Dream, so I know where the pipes are. And it's very far from there). That said, I once had a snakeman spawn in the middle of my fort, so... my spawning might be screwy. Also, olms spawning on dry land lol.

I'm still not sure how to clean up the bones that's on the fort tile... Unless I deconstruct all the forts, the bones are stuck there.

[DeathOfRats]

Heh, yeah, you might have a duplicate entry in the raws or something. That always screws things up.

[SquirrelWizard]

okay sans pump magma can flow pretty slowly...

This in itself is a good reason not to make a massive magma resevoir. It will take forever for the magma to reach a stable enough level for any magma shop to work.

A better way to make your magma resevoir is to use a grid of corridors to channel the magma through, which results in less space for the magma to flow into; which results in a quicker fill time. there are two styles of magma shops, one has an inaccessable tile in the middle of its northern end, and the other has two inaccesable tiles, one midwest, the other mid east. with this in mind you can setup a grid that will accomidate your shops regardless of waht you decide to build. the grid I made was...

Code: [Select]

Z0 (workshop area)
WWW+WWWWWWW
W+_++_++_+W
W+++++++++W
W+++++++++W
W+++++++++W
W++_++_++_W
W+++++++++W
WWWWWWWWWWW

Z-1 (Magma Resevoir)
<-- Magma Pipe + Fortification that way.
WWWWWWWWWWW
++++++++++W
WWW+WW+WW+W
WWW+WW+WW+W
W+++++++++W
WWW+WW+WW+W
WWW+WW+WW+W
WWWWWWWWWWW

+=floor
W= Wall (in this case smoothed, because I felt like it)
_ = channel, where the inaccessable part of the shop goes.




this is an example of how my shops are set out, the upper shops are the north inaccessable shops, and the lower shops are the east/west inaccessable, with the channel on the east side (you could
make it on the west side, it just means you have to set up the resevoir grid differently.) With this setup you can have your shops any way you please (each 3x3 part of the resevoir supports either.)