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[loser]

I just finished my water tower and am about to start on the magma tower.

I also recently learned from this amazing thread that pumps can cause pressure-like behavior in magma. 

I want to both harness that and avoid it, in different circumstances.  And I believe I can do so because that wonderful thread also informed me that pressure does not transmit through diagonal gaps.  Therefore, if I have baffles dividing my magma tower in half and the outlets are split between the two halves, then I'd have normal magma and pumped magma available as I need them.

This is about what I'm talking about

Code: [Select]

  ╔┼═┼╦═┼╗
 ╔╝+++0++╚╗
╔╝+++++0++╚╗
┼+++╔┼╗++++┼
║+++║+║++++║
║+++║%║++++║
┼+++║%║++++┼
║+++║·║++++║
┼+++╚═╝++++┼
╚╗+++++0++╔╝
 ╚╗+++0++╔╝
  ╚┼═┼╩═┼╝Only the five rightmost doors will be kicking out normal magma while the other seven will be kicking out pump 'pressurized' magma.

This image is, of  course, a single-floor simplification of what would be a much larger, multi-floor design.  For one thing, the output from the pump-stack would be at the top and the outputs from the tower itself would be at the bottom.

Also note that those baffle-columns would have to run from the bottom all the way to the top.

Does this seem right to the rest of you?

[Jim Groovester]

I don't see any immediate problems. That's pretty clever, actually.

[Firnagzen]

Confirm. Looks perfect.

Give some thought as to how you'll be opening those doors, though. I see two ways, levers, or sacrificial recruits.

[brenoink]

Shouldn't the unpressurized one be the one with more doors, since it flows slower?


Other than that, this is a great idea.

[Jim Groovester]

That's not how pump induced pressure works. I'd suggest taking a quick look through the thread linked in the OP to understand how pressure in Dwarf Fortress works.

Unlike the real world, it's not a matter of flow rate in and flow rate out, weight of fluid, etc. It's more a matter of where a screw pump can deposit a block of liquid, or where water on top of water can deposit itself.

Give the thread a read, it's useful to know in the case you want to do vast waterworks and don't want to flood your fort.

[loser]

Give some thought as to how you'll be opening those doors, though. I see two ways, levers, or sacrificial recruits.

Before the tower is filled, all outlets will be linked to levers.

I learned the "And now how do I get at it?" lesson in previous forts.  In my current fort there are sixteen hatches at the bottom of the original cistern, sixteen hatches and six doors at the bottom of the water tower, and the only place that can't be drained is the room were the underground river water falls from midair.

[Kanddak]

It's a workable idea but sort of pointless. You almost never want to just let fluids flow around under local diffusion, it takes forever. To regulate fluid elevation and prevent overflows, just keep your system pressurized throughout, using a regulating pump at the very end of the output to set the exact z-level you want fluids at.

[Rowanas]

I can see the use. He's probably using the pressurised section as the feed for an anti-goblin/elf device, while the non pressurised might be used for obsidian farming.

[loser]

It's a workable idea but sort of pointless. You almost never want to just let fluids flow around under local diffusion, it takes forever. To regulate fluid elevation and prevent overflows, just keep your system pressurized throughout, using a regulating pump at the very end of the output to set the exact z-level you want fluids at.

I think you're right that regulating pumps in every output would be a good solution.  But it's not one I've planned for.

Plus that means even more magma-safe pumps and apparatus to transfer power to them.  No, I think that might be more complicated in many situations.

Currently, I just want to have both options available to me when the magma tower is completed & filled.  And from the sounds of it, everyone thinks I'll have just that.

To be clear, even though magma that has been pressurized locally to the appropriate level would work, depressurized magma is useful for the dump/incinerator, for the obsidian farms, for the feeds to magma shops, and maybe a few other things I'm not thinking of right just now.