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[EliDupree]

(I'm still on 40d, by the way.)

I've just built a crude but functional design for creating a pillar of obsidian by dropping lava and water after each other.

I built 16z above-ground pump stacks (the maximum height on my map) for both water and magma, and built two 9x9 retractable bridges surrounded by walls, one immediately on top of the other. I flood the lower bridge with 2/7 magma, the higher bridge with 2/7 water, and then open them both about 50 frames apart from each other (not at the same time so that they don't hit each other in midair, which creates steam but no obsidian.)

It requires a bit of building and mining to fix up irregularities, but it's much more convenient than building and carefully filling a 16z mold, as long as you're not building near an area that sees active use.

On a related note, it appears that if you try to create obsidian on a magma-proof road (adamantine roads, yo!), nothing appears on that tile, but the obsidian floor on the tile above still appears, potentially hanging in midair.

[inteuniso]

(I'm still on 40d, by the way.)

WHY?

Anyways, sounds cool. Interesting idea.

[EliDupree]

(I'm still on 40d, by the way.)

WHY?

Waiting for the linux-native version.

[Encased in burning magma]

(I'm still on 40d, by the way.)

WHY?

The linux/mac folk wait while toady lazily sleeps.
Also, some wait for a faster version with zoom, resizing, multiple binds, macros, better fps...

[Tarran]

(I'm still on 40d, by the way.)

WHY?

The linux/mac folk wait while toady lazily sleeps.
Also, some wait for a faster version with zoom, resizing, multiple binds, macros, better fps...

Toady would rather not waste time to get a mac/linux version when he is going to release a (less bug filled) new version in the near future.

And you can use emulators you know.

[darkrider2]

anyway... could we re-rail this? (personally I'm still waiting for a less bug filled version)

EliDupree has a pretty good invention here. Although the scaffolding is now a bigger pain in the ass than building the walls straight up, EliDupree did manage to incorporate the obsidian farm and wall construction into one method. Now if only we were to build an obsidian farm using this method.

And since you can mine through obsidian after its created, we could literally make a whole new mountain to carve our fort out of!

[Vicid]

This is my dream mega project

[EliDupree]

And since you can mine through obsidian after its created, we could literally make a whole new mountain to carve our fort out of!

Aww, it's almost actually easier to do THAT. All you have to do is flood the world with magma, then pour water over it, rinse, and repeat! (Make sure to protect the river source tiles, though.)

I've thought of several ways to make a nice obsidian farm out of this, but honestly, I view obsidian farming as rather pointless. Blades are limited by wood, value is so easy to create in so many other ways, and it isn't remotely interesting aesthetically (since it's just another gray stone.)

[Graebeard]

How do you time the bridges to open 50 frames apart?  By hand?

[Paul]

Heh, I had an obsidian farm going in an old fort a long time ago (older version, can't remember which) where I just hand pumped the magma right out of the shaft into a channel where it flowed a few spaces down near the river into a big mold dug out in the dirt with rock walls built around it (to funnel the water) and then had my dwarf run over to the other pump by the river and just pump a little water using another hand pump straight out of the river and into the magma, solidifying it. The excess water just flowed back in the river afterward and I sent my miner in to dig out the obsidian. Simple, functional, and it produced enough obsidian to meet all the mandates of my obsidian crazed noble.

I also did the giant obsidian tower a long time back, but I decided against making an obsidian tower fort because I didn't like the way it was all still "above ground" even with 20 levels of hardened magma on top of it. Did that ever get changed? I haven't tried since.

[GetAssista]

I've just built a crude but functional design for creating a pillar of obsidian by dropping lava and water after each other.

Why bother with dropping magma layer and all that timing issues when you can just pump magma into the scaffolding and drop water layer from time to time.
I speak from experience because I cast out 110z high 25х25 obsidian tower as a megaproject some time ago.

While carving it out into Orthank though I got bored..

[EliDupree]

How do you time the bridges to open 50 frames apart?  By hand?

Yeah, I did it by hand for this.

It's relatively easy to automate, though. Build a dog-running-in-a-loop repeater and link the two bridges to pressure plates five tiles away from each other.

I've just built a crude but functional design for creating a pillar of obsidian by dropping lava and water after each other.

Why bother with dropping magma layer and all that timing issues when you can just pump magma into the scaffolding and drop water layer from time to time.

Dude, the entire point of this design is that you never have to build scaffolding in the first place.

[Fossaman]

This concept intrigues me and I wish to learn more.

How bad were the irregularities on the outside of the column? Are we talking one or two squares of stray obsidian here and there?

And why the 50 frame delay? I would have thought that opening them simultaneously would work just as well.

[EliDupree]

This concept intrigues me and I wish to learn more.

How bad were the irregularities on the outside of the column? Are we talking one or two squares of stray obsidian here and there?

It varied by how close I got the delay to the right amount. Too long, and a bunch of the magma went to 1/7 and evaporated - a problem which compounded over several runs - and I had to mess around a lot to get it back in shape. Automating it should fix this.

Once I got the timing more in order, I wasn't getting any stray obsidian. I occasionally end up with some tiles missing from what's supposed to be cast, though, which is, IMO, a worse problem. I would assume that getting the timing right could make it near-perfect, with just some freak "magma pours off the edge to 1/7 and then evaporates within the same 50 frames" type losses.

Of course, the system also just pours a bunch of stray magma over the sides, which may be a problem depending on where you're working.

And why the 50 frame delay? I would have thought that opening them simultaneously would work just as well.

Not all the tiles in a sheet of fluid (water or magma) fall at the same moment. They fall in a pattern that makes it cover a total of about three Z-levels, which means that some of the tiles will meet in midair - which destroys the water and not the magma - if you open them simultaneously. You could open them simultaneously if the water bridge was 3-4 Z-levels above the magma one.

I don't know exactly how close 50 frames is to the right number if you're working with bridges one z-level apart.

[GetAssista]

Dude, the entire point of this design is that you never have to build scaffolding in the first place.

Haha, I missed the main point Fail on my part