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[intently]

Also, as far as having caves in your piston... I cheated.  I used reveal to find a column of stone without caves and took screenshots of its location   Then I reloaded an un-revealed save game.

[keda]

I sort of did the same thing in my latest fort, except not through cheating. Should be easy to just pierce all caves to reveal a large area and see if there is a big enough place for the piston. If not try pierce elsewhere and so on, although I found a 11x10 area at the first shot.

[kendo]

Figured something out now

*edit*

[doomdome]

So... the whole bit about draining the magma with pumps before you cast the obsidian... Wouldn't it be MUCH easier to just make the catchment area 7/2ths as wide as the piston, so the magma naturally spread out to 2/7 depth, over a few moments? It would only work with 1-z-level cisterns, but it would be way faster and easier to reset, so more magma in the long run.

[Fenwah]

So... the whole bit about draining the magma with pumps before you cast the obsidian... Wouldn't it be MUCH easier to just make the catchment area 7/2ths as wide as the piston, so the magma naturally spread out to 2/7 depth, over a few moments? It would only work with 1-z-level cisterns, but it would be way faster and easier to reset, so more magma in the long run.

the problem with this is that is that you can't collect 2/7 magma very easily. If you try to move it form the cistern you will always leave 1/7 on a tile. This means that at best you can only pull out half the useable magma. You can however pump out of your catchment into another reservoir that is built so that it is full when there is 2/7 magma left in the catchment. Some very simple maths will let you work out how big to make the measuring reservious. Have a drawbridge in the measuring reservious so that once you have measured out the right amount you can drop it into a larger storage tank (this way you don't leave a 1/7 layer which will evaporate, as would happen with other methods of emptying). Protip: put raising bridges in your large reservious's so that you can lower them to expand it as needed. If it is too big to start all your magma will evaporate.

I originally had my system designed to measure out exactly the right quantities, and it worked great even with my 3 z level cistern. However, I was designing it as I went along, and after like 3 redesigns of the casting method I couldnt be bothered to keep working out the sizes and reshaping the rooms etc. Just using a 1 level cistern would make it a whole lot easier to build and work out though.

[rmunn]

reservious

Sorry for nitpicking, but I've been wincing just a little every time I come across another misspelling of this word. It's actually spelled "reservoir". Comes from French, where the "oir" ending turns a verb (at least, certain types of verbs) into a place noun. So a "reservoir" is a place where you hold certain things -- usually water, but magma in this case -- in reserve for future use.

We Now Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Dwarven Physics Experiment (TM).

[AMRIV]

Regarding Doomdome's Idea; what if you floored the catchment area with lever linked bridges, and immediately below you have a two level cistern in the same shape with pumps set to pull from the upper level only. After casting the next piston level you drop the rest of the 2/7 magma into the cistern, which does not "evaporate" because it is resting on a layer of magma below it. Some of the initial magma supply would go to that first layer, but after that would not need replenishing.

On another note, does the magma sea replenish, or is it just one large sum of magma.

[expwnent]

It replenishes. It has magma flow at the bottom. Quite a lot of it, actually.

[Hans Lemurson]

Two things:

-Wouldn't this be best called a "Magma Teleporter"?  The name Piston is misleading since it implies that the magma is squirted up the sides.

-How exactly do you re-use a column when its base is now resting on solid ground surrounded by magma?

[AMRIV]

@Hans Lemurson: Since you can't just drop it directly into the sea, you need to make a cistern first. Presumably you could just build doors on the side of the cistern and have the dwarves dig out the insides.

[Hans Lemurson]

Ok, so basicly anywhere you can actually make a cistern, will also theoreticly have the capacity to drain out excess magma so that you can clear the bottom out in preparation for another plunge?

If you're doing this without pumps, I guess this would depend on an elevated magma source and floodgates, or if you are using pumps it's a small price to pay to only have to worry about 5 of them rather than 150.

[Iche_Bins]

Concerning suprising caverns:

I just hit a suprising cavern, can't I just build some walls where the empty space is? Or will they deconstruct once the piston falls down?

[Urist Imiknorris]

They will deconstruct.

[frostilicus]

On another note, does the magma sea replenish, or is it just one large sum of magma.

Definitely replenishes. It's fun to watch, actually. On my current fortress, I have a magma sea which used to power my magma-*s, but I accidentally used it to

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

attempt to flood a pipe of adamantine (that went all the way to the demons)

ten or so z-levels below the max level of the sea, so now, if I watch it instead of paying attention to my dwarves for a while, you can see it bubble up a z-level, then drain back down. Reminds me a little of sunspots....

[WrathNail]

This is excellent! I always hated having to restart several times to find a good embark spot with a magma pipe close enough to the surface to make a pumpstack viable.

One question though: I'm in the middle of building my own version and wondering how to support the piston once it's fully dug out. Placing the support in the cistern seems to be the solution, but what if I'm gonna make a cistern that's 2+ levels deep? I don't suppose building supports on top of each other is possible? Some help appreciated.