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[Khym Chanur]

How long does it take (measured in frames/steps, not real-time) for magma sourced from a magma pipe to flow down a one tile wide tunnel?  I thought I was being clever when I dug a tunnel slightly over 200 tiles long to move magma from the magma pipe to where I wanted to have my magma powered workshops, but it's taking seasons for the end of it to fill up to 7/7.

[Amalgam]

Yeah, fluids in DF diffuse really slowly. I suggest building an array of several pumps to push the magma forward a little faster, but keep the channel the same width - from my current understanding of pumps the magma should behave like an infinite source of water and "spawn" wherever it needs to be filled. Several pumps = several times the pumping speed, at least from my experiments using hyper-dwarves.

[Amalgam]

Yeah, fluids in DF diffuse really slowly. I suggest building an array of several pumps to push the magma forward a little faster, but keep the channel the same width - from my current understanding of pumps the magma should behave like an infinite source of water and "spawn" wherever it needs to be filled. Several pumps = several times the pumping speed, at least from my experiments using hyper-dwarves.

EDIT: Actually, I didn't use a control for that experiment (I was just screwing around, gimme a break ) so I'm not sure it'll be any faster than one pump, but it certainly seemed faster than magma's natural diffusion rate.

[Cal]

In my latest fortress I was having the same problem, I was filling a moat with lava along with a spot for forges and a part of a mega-construction (4 story 'apartments' for nobles which have channels around the edges and will have windows in there before I fill it with magma) and was having the problem of the lower parts filling but the actual moat would get a bit then 'dry up'. I originally had a 1 tile wide, 1 z-level channel but I then changed it to a 3 tile wide, 2 z-level channel and that filled a LOT faster. I know magma doesn't respond to pressure like water does but just having more there seems to make it flow better.