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[Sabre_Justice]

Okay, I've started to tire of my first successful fortress, and the King I'm working for happens to be an elf so I figure rather than deal with the shame I'll prepare for a glorious death of magma and madness sometime down the line.

So, I've got a magma pipe and I'm pretty good at working with it, but how would I go about making sure I can cause sufficient flooding to kill as much stuff as dwarvenly possible after pulling one lever? I've got no natural bauxite on the map so I'm gonna have to go easy on the floodgates, and I assume the most efficent route would be to create magma reservoirs near where I want it to flow, to make sure it gets going as quickly as possibly.

Other things I could take advantage of include a caged Fire Imp and a lot of Fire Snakes (well placed cage traps work wonders), I want to leave as much glorious destruction as possible.

[ManaUser]

Interestingly, any floodgate can hold back magma, as long as it remains closed, even wood. Once opened it would melt/burn, but that's not much of a concern in this case, is it?

[Reese]

well, my suggestion would be to set up a large magma reservoir above the highest point you want to flood and use a pump to pressurize it for quick spreading... think large, atleast a 10 square cube (1000 units of magma) and better if you can make it 20 or 30 on a side (working within the, i believe, 10 square ceiling above ground) unless you want to go to the trouble of calculating just how many squares of magma you need to flood your fortress completely and makigna  resevoir for that exact amount...

ooh, better yet, roof over the sky and put a rim around it one or two Z levels high, then fill that with magma(you will need to use multiple compartments to avoid evaporation), hold the roof with a single support linked to a lever in the main dining room where a tantruming dorf can easily access it. FUN!

In almost all instances you can use a magma safe metal pumps or a small amount of imported bauxite for mechanisms linked to metal floodgates, and any final floodgate, as ManaUser said, need not have anything magma safe associated with it since you won't be planning on closing it again.

[Albedo]

Reese has the right idea, depending on the scope of this project.  Put a reservoir up above the target area, preferably with a good spread of "drains" to rain magmy death down in a nice broad pattern.

Just in case you want a "shut off", put a small (1 tile if you do it right) reservoir of water above any outlet, with a hatch on a lever - open the hatch, water comes out, turns the pouring magma into an obsidian plug - it's done.  Channel it out again, the pour can start again.

[Hamster Man]

Don't worry about the pump, either, even though you don't have any bauxite. Although it will continue to function even if made out of wood, it WILL eventually break down if not made of fire-safe materials (or so I've been told). If you have magma-safe materials, even better - Green Glass is my favorite for that sort of thing.

[Magua]

Glass is not magma safe, but glass pumps can still be submerged in magma and be just fine.

In general, anything that doesn't have magma in its actual square will be fine.  I have heard that wooden pumps may deconstruct after awhile, but I've never seen it with my eyes.  I have seen rock pumps last for years -- as long as magma doesn't actually get into the walkable tile of the pump.

Still, usually, there's more than enough iron to make everything you need out of in dealing with magma, *except* for the mechanisms.  That's where bauxite usually comes in.  But if you don't care about off switches, you don't care if the mechanisms melt after the doomsday device has been engaged.

[HAMMERMILL]

Magma is nice and all, but it takes forever for it to burn everyone to death.

I like the "earthquake machine" self-destruct mechanism more myself.

Just undermine your fortress and carve it out so your entire fortress is resting on a single support connected to a lever.

Pull the lever, rocks fall down and everyone dies.

[Quietust]

Magma is nice and all, but it takes forever for it to burn everyone to death.

I like the "earthquake machine" self-destruct mechanism more myself.

Just undermine your fortress and carve it out so your entire fortress is resting on a single support connected to a lever.

Pull the lever, rocks fall down and everyone dies.

I plan to do exactly this with my current fortress, soon to be a cast obsidian tower. There's still a few details to be worked out, though, particularly the magma channel between the magma pipe and my forges (will probably just seal the magma in via bucket brigade, then let the rest spill out and evaporate below).

[Kietharr]

I find the collapse method to be much more efficient in getting rid of old forts when doing outside construction or obsidian casting for a main fort. I stopped bothering though, I just collapse the main entryway then link the inner fort with my tower/construction and use it as longterm storage space, or as a base area for pump controls especially considering I usually put my starting fort near the water and magma.

Sometimes I also fill the old fort with caged goblins and other enemies, seal it off, then free them via remote lever and send my army (and nobles) in to have some fun, dwarf style.

[UristMcGunsmith]

Collapse the whole fucking fort. Post video.

[Sabre_Justice]

Actually, given that I've got some decent artifacts and gear, I might leave the fort just devastated enough to be beyond salvage but enough to be fun to explore. The place will be a maze of mining tunnels and poor planning with magma traps around every corner. The earthquake machine idea is nice, but it might not work given the fort's kinda built around the magma funnel.

I've got some goblin prisoners lying around, I might put them in key locations and watch the fun. I think I'll wait til the King arrives to kill everything though, and even then I'll build a magmaduct directly to his location.

[Hamster Man]

Built around a magma funnel? Oooooh...

Maybe what you should do is channel out the entire bottom floor, and with floodgates and careful timing, flood the entire bottom area except for the area around your single steel pillar (to be magma-safe).

Now you can collaspe the entire world... INTO magma!!!