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[fricy]

Just use a magma-safe cart and impulse ramps to automate the magma draw.

Is there a guide somewhere on how to do this?

Basically you need to build a magma trench with (!magma safe!) powered rollers at the magma sea level, and a spiral track to where your forges are. You push a magma safe cart into the trench, and it will contain 2 units of magma. Then you tell one of your dworfs to guide it to the forge level and dump it into a 1 tile channel. I think it may be the most efficient method of setting up surface magma forges without volcanos. Or you can use impulse ramps (exploit) or powered ramps (pumps may be easier/faster to set-up) to automate the process.

Impulse ramp design:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Minecart#Impulse_ramps

A powered double-helix I'm messing  around with now. It's a quickfort template, the letters mean the designations you would use in DF (i=up/down stairs, h=channel, etc.). I wouldn't recommend you to build it for this project though, it's meant to be used for fort-wide transportation with automated routes and plenty of logic circuits to switch doors. And it needs 5-8 power/level depending on components used.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hs4rxc1noo8v1gu/mine_plan_qf2.jpg

There's another trick that you can use: after you filled your carts with magma put them into a minecartstockpile, link it to another stockpile near your furnaces and tell your dworfs to wheelbarrow them up. That way you only need stairs. Be careful though: if your idiots start hauling them by hand you'll get unexpected, but !FUN! results.

VERY important: when carving tracks on ramps you also need to designate the wall behind the ramp, otherwise it will be a one-way only route. You can find ton's of information in this thread: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=109460.0

[TripJack]

Wow thanks! The minecart system is still a bit mysterious to me, but I'll do some reading and try this out ASAP. Definitely sounds a lot simpler than pistons or pumps

[ajg1g12]

WHY HAVE I NOT SEEN THIS BEFORE?!

A million thanks.

[GavJ]

I know this is an ancient thread, but I have a new idea for potential complete automation of piston pumping.  Basically using a 3x3 tube of air, only the center column of which is "outdoors" in a freezing biome.  Pump pressurized water in, instantly filling the whole thing to the precise level of the first bridges (measured reservoir size, and you would close off the aquifer refill at the same time the valve is opened to the column), ice forms in a column which than collapses down and pistons some magma up, a small amount of which flows off into holding tanks.  Then the ice collumn is swallowed by the semi molten rock, along with all the obsidian that results from the draining water.  Aquifer refills tank. Repeat, on an automated timer, and those tanks halfway up will be always replenished with magma.

I haven't tested all the parts of this, but I do know that even if the piston gets swallowed by the SMR, the magma it pistons up WILL still flow to the sides before falling, at least some of it. I just did that on a map just now.

The question is more whether the whole ice column will form prior to collapsing or not. Not sure about that.

IMAGES:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[dwarfhoplite]

It looks glorious, at least.

[Linkxsc]

Yo howd the ice piston turn out. I know when i get the chance tonite ima try to do that first with a fastdwarf 1 1 fort to try it/work out some kinks

[SpyderVenom]

I dont understand any of it... but I DO understand that out of almost 10 worlds created, I can not find an embark point that contains metals, flux, sand, AND lava thats elsewhere besides the lava sea at the lowest levels...

This means that in order to have lava AND flux for steel, I have to send my dwarves down 150 levels to smelt and make stuff and then haul it back up... Since I cant figure out how to move lava in ANY form what so ever... Im about frustrated enough to punch real live dwarf babies...

Why the HELL wont any maps I generate put a lava tube in a flux stone area? Is this prevented on purpose maybe? Seems so to me...

I wanted to do the piston because I do not want to walk down there and have not yet started working with minecarts at all, so track and stops and what nots are not working for me either...

Is there an EASIER way? Or a "magma for dummys that dont understand magma for dummys" book?

[greycat]

Is there an EASIER way? Or a "magma for dummys that dont understand magma for dummys" book?

Frankly, if it were easy, you wouldn't have the same satisfaction when you finally accomplish the goal.

The only methods of upward magma relocation that work in vanilla DF, as far as I know, are pumps, cave-in pistons, and minecarts.  If there are others, I'd love to hear about them!  I've only briefly experimented with magma pumps and minecarts, and never at all with a magma piston yet.  I think I favor the minecarts, but I haven't worked out a good design yet.  And by "good design" I mean it must not require the use of a dwarven water reactor.

[GavJ]

Frankly, if it were easy, you wouldn't have the same satisfaction when you finally accomplish the goal.

Yeah that's why we all push our cars to work every morning, too.   

You can get flux and volcanos pretty easily. Actually I'm a bit shocked you woulodn't even on vanilla settings. You don't need sedimentary layers (which ARE hard to get by volcanoes). You only need metamorphic for marble, and hematite, which are quite often in range.

To speed up your search:
1) Go to advanced world generation and just change the minimum volcano number to about 2-3x whatever it is by default. Then gen from there.
2) Download dfhack 3rd party utility and while you're on the embark screen, you can run the command "prospect all" and it will give you a decent estimate of all the exact minerals in that embark square, without having to actually embark and look. Hop around volcano to volcano and you should find what you want in a few minutes, really.

[indyofcomo]

Can you carry it on the bodies of burning dwarves? 

[greycat]

Can you carry it on the bodies of burning dwarves? 

Hmm... not in vanilla, as far as I know.  You could mod in a symptom that turns a dwarf to magma after X ticks, infect him, and send him up the stairs.  Maybe.

[krenshala]

Yo howd the ice piston turn out. I know when i get the chance tonite ima try to do that first with a fastdwarf 1 1 fort to try it/work out some kinks

I'm curious about this as well, especially considering the ideas the graphics give me.  not that i've attempted a "normal" magma piston yet, of course.   nothing like ensuring some !!fun!! while testing.

I wonder if making the top part narrower would help.  I know you won't want those bridges, or even dug out floors around your magma catch area because any falling ice or obsidian will punch right through either.  You'd need natural rock formations in place of the bridges in the diagram. (I have personal experience with falling wall sections punching through constructed and mined floor tiles, killing a cat on z-1, a hauler on z-2 and wounding a dog or three plus my mayor in z-4 (two story dining/meeting hall, that was).

[GavJ]

Oh I thought I posted it somewhere. Ice piston was an utter failure.

Everything about it works, actually except the part where its decision to cave in or not is utterly random and bizarre.

Sometimes it will just cave in when I look at it funny. Sometimes it will hover there in mid air while I go build a whole fort, etc. etc.

And it was really difficult to build and it still only lifts magma up halfway up to the surface, blah blah. Just didn't work.

[Sutremaine]

I think I favor the minecarts, but I haven't worked out a good design yet.  And by "good design" I mean it must not require the use of a dwarven water reactor.

Off the top of my head: Instead of using power to get the minecart out of the fill basin, can you use impulse ramps and drain the magma so that it offers less resistance?

[MeMyselfAndI]

I think I favor the minecarts, but I haven't worked out a good design yet.  And by "good design" I mean it must not require the use of a dwarven water reactor.

Off the top of my head: Instead of using power to get the minecart out of the fill basin, can you use impulse ramps and drain the magma so that it offers less resistance?

You don't need to drain the magma, actually. Use the power of newton's cradle minecarts!

(Following directions are arbitrary - this can be built in any orientation)

• Set up a trench at least 3 tiles long EW (haven't tested it with anything under 6 or so).
• Put NE impulse ramps along the trench
• Have an output track at the E side of the trench one z-level up
• Fill the trench with magma
• Drop a minecart into the W side of the trench

The first minecart will sit at the E side of the trench. Each time you drop in a minecart thereafter, the one already in the trench will be bumped out of the trench by the one you just added.

Rough side view:

Code: [Select]

_ XXXXX
X    __
XRRRMXX

R=impulse ramp with magma
M=minecart on impulse ramp with magma
X=wall
_=track on floor
 =empty space

(Warning: you may end up with magma mist at the input square. If loading minecarts manually, you may wish to add additional z-levels to the drop.)