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[Mr. Accident]

I'm thinking I should probably file a bug report for this, since I can't seem to find a similar issue already in the repository. But it's kind of a funny story on its own, in a sad sort of way.

Basically I decided to flood the ocean with magma. A very dwarvenly plan, yes? To this end I located a volcano close to the ocean shore and started a fortress there. My dwarves labored for many years building an enormous magma reservoir, along with a magma-safe pump system to fill it.

Their toils were not without tragedy. About halfway through I realized it had been a mistake to build my main hall right over the caldera on a map where it rains all the time. Dorfs would go out in the rain and then return through the main hall for a drink, whereupon their flesh would melt off and they would bleed to death. I think I lost about sixty souls this way. Then, when the mighty apparatus of Project: Fuck the Ocean was nearing completion, a fire-breathing she-dragon appeared and proceeded to horribly rape the entire fort, slaughtering about fifty of my hopelessly untrained militia (and biting a couple of babies in half) before a lucky stroke with an axe took off her head. Then, as if that weren't enough, I was attacked by wild horses who kicked several dwarven children to death.

So it was a long, hard slog, and I just barely recovered from tantrum spirals on more than one occasion. I was very glad to finally top off the magma reservoir and put the last gear assemblies in place.

Now, my plan all along had been to build the reservoir and the pumps, place a few levers controlling the whole thing, and then abandon the fort and return to it in adventure mode. In this fashion the magma would be allowed to flow into parts of the ocean which were beyond my initial embark rectangle. (The volcano and the ocean shore were riiiight next to the edge of the local region, unfortunately, so I couldn't expand my embark rectangle in that direction.) So I abandoned the fort and undertook the journey to find it and pull the doomsday lever.

Imagine my horror when I found my way to the reservoir, pulled the lever to activate the pumps, and was greeted by a gushing torrent of nothing but cool, clean, disgustingly wholesome water.

What the hell?!? 

Closer inspection revealed that not all the magma was gone -- just the stuff that had been in "outside" tiles. The reservoir had been partly dug back into a hillside, and the subterranean magma was still there. It had formed an obsidian barrier at the interface. So, apparently, when you abandon and then return to a fort, any magma that is outside gets turned into water.

I checked it in fortress mode too -- I did a Reclaim and the same exact thing happened. Seems like a bug to me, but maybe there is some reason or underlying cause for it? Anyway, it's frustrating. All that effort, all that horrible, horrible Fun, and with no end result except mass slaughter and chaos! ...Well. I guess when you put it that way, at least it wasn't a complete waste... 

Has anybody else run into this?

[Eagle_eye]

and that is why I do this:               

                                                W       MMMMMMMMMW
                                                W   WWMMMMMMMMMW
                                                WHW
                                                W  W

M-magma
W-wall
H-hatch/bridge

[Yiab]

Never tried anything like this myself, but it seems to me that all you need to do now is reclaim the fort and reshape your reservoir to be entirely underground, with an empty (i.e. liquid-free) pipe to get the magma to the ocean. Then when you reach it in adventure mode, it should still all be magma. You could call it Project: Fuck The Ocean 2: Magma Boogaloo. (I love your choice of project name, by the way.)

[Mr. Accident]

Well, I'd have to move the reservoir completely, since only natural floors seem to prevent the magma from turning to water. Several parts of the container were covered with constructed floors, but those were still aquefied.

I'll just look for a better map and try again. The second attempt should be on an even grander scale, I think. Onward, for science!

[Hyperturtle]

Magma Boogaloo.. another child of the 80s I take it?

[Kazang]

I would imagine that would be to do with the way the outside status is permanent once it has been uncovered.

[Brandon816]

In regards to the original premise of "Project: Fuck the Ocean", I remember seeing a video recently where a person put some kind of flammable bars into nonflammable bins, set the bars on fire (I think using magma), and then dropped the bins into the ocean. The bars would continuously burn, causing the ocean to dry up indefinately. You might want to look into that.

Edit: He used lignite blocks in iron bins, and set the blocks on fire by flooding the tiles that the bins were on with magma.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1124-itwinssohard

[numerobis]

Were these water-infested tiles under the ocean?  Another player and I filed a bug about how tiles under the sea fill with water after a reclaim, even if there's no path from the sea to the now-flooded tiles.

[denito]

Were these water-infested tiles under the ocean?  Another player and I filed a bug about how tiles under the sea fill with water after a reclaim, even if there's no path from the sea to the now-flooded tiles.

Had the same thing happen to me with a lake.  I spent about a week (real time) digging a giant cubic cistern under the lake to drain the water into.  Just as I was finishing the dig, a goblin siege wiped out my dwarves.  When I reclaimed, the entire cube was flooded with water AND the lake was still full too.  I wanted to cry.  I had to make a giant atom smasher room under the cistern with 8 bridges to crush the water, and even that took another whole day.

[Eagle_eye]

perhaps its a feature to stop people from flooding the world with magma?

[Zaerosz]

Why would Toady do something like that?

[Eagle_eye]

so we actually try and play what he designed, instead of using it to relieve stress by destroying the food web???

[Mr. Accident]

Were these water-infested tiles under the ocean?  Another player and I filed a bug about how tiles under the sea fill with water after a reclaim, even if there's no path from the sea to the now-flooded tiles.

Ah ha. I think you have put your finger squarely on the answer. They were indeed.

Oh well. Construction of the new facility proceeds apace! This time I found an ocean-side volcano embedded in a high cliff overlooking the shore, and I am installing, directly behind the cliff face, a subterranean reservoir with a capacity of about a quarter of a million units of magma.  We'll see who's laughing this time, ocean!!