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[Vanguard Warden]

I've got a new idea for a fortress that basically involves making a bottomless pit or magma pipe habitable. The base feature will remain intact, just restructured and reshaped to a more artificial appearance (uniform levels, square pit, etc.) all the way down to the bottom, with bedrooms, workshops and such things built into the walls of the tube. I'm just having trouble deciding which feature to adapt to my needs. Both features provide me with a pit at the bottom I can dump trash/enemies into as well as a lot of open space for the pit in the middle to spare me a lot of digging.

If I use a bottomless pit I'll have more open space to work with than a magma pipe, but I'll have to deal with the pit-creatures and cave-spiders all over the place. If I use a magma pipe I'll have more localized access to magma, free obsidian in the walls of the pipe and my site won't need a bottomless pit. However, I'll have to drain the magma down before I can start working, I won't have as much space to work with as most bottomless pits(smaller footprint at the bottom z-level), I'll have to deal with fire imps, and I'll need the site to have the chasm-end of an underground river nearby so I can drain magma and water away.

So, any thoughts?

[Thingmabob]

I've got a new idea for a fortress that basically involves making a bottomless pit or magma pipe habitable. The base feature will remain intact, just restructured and reshaped to a more artificial appearance (uniform levels, square pit, etc.) all the way down to the bottom, with bedrooms, workshops and such things built into the walls of the tube. I'm just having trouble deciding which feature to adapt to my needs. Both features provide me with a pit at the bottom I can dump trash/enemies into as well as a lot of open space for the pit in the middle to spare me a lot of digging.

If I use a bottomless pit I'll have more open space to work with than a magma pipe, but I'll have to deal with the pit-creatures and cave-spiders all over the place. If I use a magma pipe I'll have more localized access to magma, free obsidian in the walls of the pipe and my site won't need a bottomless pit. However, I'll have to drain the magma down before I can start working, I won't have as much space to work with as most bottomless pits(smaller footprint at the bottom z-level), I'll have to deal with fire imps, and I'll need the site to have the chasm-end of an underground river nearby so I can drain magma and water away.

So, any thoughts?

I would choose the pit. A bunch of Champions should be able to deal with all the monsters down there.

[Dorf3000]

The bottomless pit is much, much easier to settle into.  The magma pipe will give you constant FPS drain if you keep it drained without capping it, the pit creatures aren't all that tough if you have marksmen, and you'll have fire snake vermin everywhere which produce nothing worthwhile.

[smjjames]

Its not so much a question of should I, but CAN I, draining a magma pipe is a major undertaking while building in a bottomless pit is very easy.

A bottomless pit also has a chance to have a GCS in it.

@Dorf3000, its the magma pipes/pools which have the fire snake vermin, not the pits/chasms. You may have cabe spider vermin in a pit though, covering everything with webs.

[Vanguard Warden]

Its not so much a question of should I, but CAN I, draining a magma pipe is a major undertaking while building in a bottomless pit is very easy.

A bottomless pit also has a chance to have a GCS in it.

@Dorf3000, its the magma pipes/pools which have the fire snake vermin, not the pits/chasms. You may have cabe spider vermin in a pit though, covering everything with webs.

I think that's what he meant, is that the magma pipe would have fire snakes all over. I honestly didn't know about fire snakes. They're a simple enough problem to handle with a dedicated division of animal trappers. I'd also rather have my dwarves randomly set on fire than inflicted with a permanent stun effect as it sounds far more entertaining, and I can get spider webs from the chasm-end of the underground river I'm going to need anyway. I'm not planning to start my fortress until the next update comes out, so lots of stuff is subject to change (especially the medically related) until then.

I was primarily concerned with aesthetics, not difficulty, which is why I'm also building the whole fortress without a central staircase. Which is more conceptually pleasing, a bottomless pit-fortress or a magma-pit fortress?

[Lord Dakoth]

I've tried building into a bottomless pit, and it never worked. Whenever I tried to designate it, I got the "Blocked" error.

So you might be doomed to build in a magma pit.

[Quietust]

I've tried building into a bottomless pit, and it never worked. Whenever I tried to designate it, I got the "Blocked" error.

That could be because you were trying to build downward, which isn't actually possible. In order to build anything inside a bottomless pit or magma pipe, you need to dig all the way to the bottom and build floors out from the edge.

[Skorpion]

Pick a site with both. Floor over the pit at the bottom. Empty the magma pipe into it. Build a fort into the empty magma pipe, and divert any future magma into the pit with the rest.

[mal7690]

I would drain the magma pipe, build the fort IN the pipe, and stop draining it.

But the bottomless pit would be a lot easier to do.

[Vanguard Warden]

I would drain the magma pipe, build the fort IN the pipe, and stop draining it.

So that my fort drowns in fiery death? I already had that in mind for a doomsday lever. Magma pipes take forever to refill normally, though my opening of the bottleneck might speed it up a bit. I already ran a test-run of the scenario earlier, and everything worked out okay. My pumps kept getting destroyed for unknown reason when the same pumps can usually handle magma fine when not utilized to drain a magma pipe from the bottom, which was odd, but simply digging a three-tile wide drain tunnel is fast enough to drain the pipe as long as the chasm is near enough. Fire snakes didn't seem to be a problem either. They stopped spawning on floors after I drained all the magma away (or I just never payed enough attention to catch them), so it seems they require nearby magma to spawn. Fire imps and such were no danger as long as I worked two or more z-levels above the current magma level.

Now I just need to find a really good site quickly after the release.

[expwnent]

I think he meant seal the fort first. That way, you have your fortress surrounded by magma. So that rivaling nations can't tunnel in or something.

[Yuck]

Get a site that has both and switch them around.
Floor the bottom of the pit and empty the magma pipe into it.
Settle in the empty pipe.

[slink]

Fire snakes don't set your Dwarves on fire, but they do destroy bins.  I kept getting messages that a some Dwarf's masterpieces were being destroyed when no bolts were being fired, which is the usual way in which I lose masterpieces.  Eventually I put these messages together with the fact that inexpicable stacks of unbinned items kept appearing in the stockpiles nearby my forges and realized that the fire snakes were destroying the bins.

[Vanguard Warden]

Do they just destroy the bins outright, or do they destroy them because they're made of wood? I'd be willing to convert all my bins and barrels to iron if the goblins brought me enough.

That also might explain what kept happening to my pump.

[Amalgam]

Building a fort in a magma pipe is exceedingly dangerous, and not just for the obvious reasons. Pipes will randomly spawn globs of lava just above the lava's current level, and can do so through floors IIRC. I'm not sure if it will spawn above walls though. You would most likely have to find a way to keep the magma at a safe level so it doesn't teleport into your fort, unless you can block it with walls.