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[Hortun]

My dwarves dug into the open area at the top of a magma pipe. I built a few magma workshops along the edge and designated to floor over the remainder of the pipe so that the imps wouldn't escape and burn up all my dwarves. Until the floor is finished, I have a military squad stationed there to protect my furnace operators and smiths from imps. Unfortunately, an imp came out and knocked a dwarf into the vent and all his nice steel gear is at the bottom.

Steel stuff really isn't worth retrieving, but out of curiosity, is there any way to retrieve it from the bottom in case I drop some adamantine stuff in there? Also, normally I just channel magma through a fortification in the side of the vent to prevent imps from coming through. Will flooring off the top help in this situation? Can they come through the workshops on the edge?

[Razoric480]

It fell in the magma? Well, you could empty the pipe, then hope your dwarves are fast enough to gather the equipment before the pipe hits refill.

That's about it, really.

[SquirrelWizard]

I dont think you can retrieve stuff once it falls into the pipe unless it catches on one of the upper levels, the bottom of the pipe constantly spews lava upwards, and you can drain the pipe but it might be extremely !!risky!!.

as for capping the pipe. there are two methods of quickly capping the lava pipe. The Easy way and the super easy way.

The easy way is to build a drainage system that drains the magma into a giant resevoir lowering the level in the pipe which prevents any imps from leaving it. (imps swim in magma, if the level is too low they cant exit the pipe.)

The really easy way is to cap the pipe with water. Basically go a floor above, make a floor/bridge structure, rig to collapse/retract, fill the structure with water and let her rip. This is a similar process when it comes to making an obsidian factory. (note obsidian factories use bridges for continued operations)

As for workshops.

in each of the workshops designs there are dark green X's these represent impassible tiles which, if placed over a hole in the floor over magma, will seal off the hole. You only need one tile accessable to magma, so with smelters you'll want your northern tile accessable and with forges you'll want either your east or west tiles open.

and for future fortresses.

you dont have to build right ontop of the pipe for magma access. with planning you can carve out a magma resevoir and breach the pipe for magma access. when doing this you can craft/designate a fortification to be placed, and with taht you can prevent the imps from coming through (supposedly) I'd still practice using the inaccessable spaces on the workshops to your benifit. Better safe than !!sorry!!

[Skorpion]

Hmm... Does encasing stuff in obsidian destroy it? There's a LOT of metal in a section of my magma moat I'd like to retrieve.

[SquirrelWizard]

I'm not to sure but I think I may have read somewhere regarding corpses in obsidian that it enforces a quick decay so you would end up with bones and metal (I dont think bones melt imediately) stuck in the obsidian which would become free when mined. At least thats what i think I heard, it would have to take more test/research for me to be sure (I'll see if I can try it on my next ambus/siege whenever that happens... its slowing down a bit)

[Hortun]

Yeeeeah, that sounds like a huge pain in the ass just to retrieve a couple pieces of armor. I'll save that effort if I manage to make an artifact adamantine warhammer or something and throw it in.

And the obsidian factory way of sealing it off sounds a lot faster and easier than constructing a billion squares of floor over it. I'm going to start that now.

And one other unrelated question while I'm here. This fortress was reclaimed from before. My old fortress dug straight down to the pipe and started around there. Fire imps picked them off until I had two injured dwarves and abandoned. My reclaim team was huge, though, since I made bunches of obsidian swords and a few aluminum bars before the fort fell. The reclaim team killed the two imps running around the fort and an additional ambush, and I set them off to expand the fort to hold all the new inhabitants. The thing is, one reclaimer died falling in the vent with an imp and now they're all throwing tantrums and punching each other and tearing my workshops up. I might have to just abandon this fort altogether and start a whole new one elsewhere due to these tantrum spirals. Is there a way to prevent this other than having no one die in reclaiming?

And thanks for all the help with the current situation!

[Neruz]

Reclaimers are all friends with each other, so no there is no way to prevent a tantrum spiral other than to have none of the reclaimers die.

[Derakon]

You can try to get their happiness levels up before getting them into any dangerous situations. No guarantees, though, since losing a friend is a pretty nasty bad thought.

[SquirrelWizard]

okay i just threw a goblin into my obsidian factory. Here are the results

First, all organic based matter (IE clothing and the Goblin itself) went up in a cloud of smoke, before water could be applied.

after formation of obsidian, all non meltable stuff survived and reappeared when mined out.

[Smew]

A few clarifications on the bottom of magma pipes:
A forum-goer did tests on magma pipes a while back, he found that the bottom tiles of the pipe were pathable and walkable, so yes, if you were to drain your ENTIRE magma pipe, you could any armor out.
The only issue with this is that magma will continually appear(magma in pipes doesn't flow up, it simply appears on the level it needs to be on.), causing a magma shower for your dwarves, albeit at a small pace.
If you needed/wanted to drain the pipe anyway, this would be the way to do it.