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[TDSS02]

Hello everyone, i have a quick question about making an obsidian factory, first off ill explain what i did (tried to do). I have a volcano/stream embark, its actually quite nice, what i did was halfway between the volcano and the stream i dug out a 22 x 22 tile area. Made it 3 floors deep by utilizing cave-ins. I had a tunnel dug from the volcano side to the bottom level of the 3 floor room and put a flood gate there, and did the same thing one level up on the other side and connected it to the stream.

When i flooded the room with some magma to perform a little test, and opened the floodgate for the water, everything was going perfect. The water collided with the magma and there was lots steam blah blah etc... when the smoke cleared there was some obsidian, so i thought to myself "YAY I DID IT" but when i had my miner go in to dig it out to harvest the obsidian it looked like 1-2 levels caved in on top of him??? I don't get what just happened lol. does the steam etc create a obsidian wall that goes up numerous levels? i didnt see anything when i went up to the 1st and 2nd floor. what am i doing wrong? can someone please explain to me (hopefully with drawings or pics cause im still kinda new to this game) how to make an obsidian factory/farm.

Thanks in advance

[FallingWhale]

Was the water/magma falling into the chamber?

[TDSS02]

The water is falling from the 2nd level on the opposite side, the magma is coming in from 3rd level (Bottom level). Should i make them both come in from the bottom? But if i do that it will create a wall in the middle of the chamber where the magma and water meet and then i will just have a big pool with water on one side and magma on the other divided down the middle by an obsidian wall, at least i thought thats what would happen if i had them both enter the chamber from the bottom.

[TDSS02]

No one? o well thanks anyway all ill figure it out.

 

[KrazyDocK]

I have tried making an obsidian farm only once.  My setup was kinda similar to yours with a few minor differences.  I also had 3 z layers to pour into but both my "spouts" were close to each other on the top level.  What I did was turn on the magma until it covered the entire floor, then shut it off.  Then I'd turn on the water until the whole bottom layer was obsidian.  It worked, technically, but it was super annoying to try to mine the stuff because I'd have countless interruptions because of DAMP STONE.

And I agree with you that if you had both spouts on the bottom level, you'd just end up with water on one side and magma on the other separated by a thin wall of obsidian.

KD

[TDSS02]

Hmmm, thanks KrazyDock i have some ideas i'm going to try out. This popped in my head as i was writing but I wonder if it would matter if you poured the water first then the magma to maybe avoid the damp stone issue? Yea that damp stone issue would be a real pain.

[KrazyDocK]

My guess is doing it the other way around would result in getting spammed with "WARM STONE" announcements instead.  There's probably a way around it and perhaps someone around here has refined the technique and can share some useful info.

[Dearnen]

I haven't made a dedicated obsidian farm but I am building a tower of obsidian, and I presume the process is essentially the same.  Have your magma and water "faucets" in the center over the chamber/pit, then flood a layer with magma to about 4/7, then pour water on it to turn it into obsidian (being careful to turn the water off so you get as shallow a layer of water over it as possible).  Then send your miners in to channel it out from the layer above (while they won't tunnel directly through wet/damp stone, they will channel it from the layer above).  With my tower I'll be adding more layers of obsidian over it so I'll just wait until the level I want to carve rooms into is no longer/warm damp.

[kaijyuu]

Fill 1 layer at a time. Magma, then water, until the lowest layer is pure obsidian, Repeat until all layers (in this case, 3) are obsidian with some water on top, and let that just evaporate away.

[Tessien]

I did it via the bridges method, I filled channels on the floor with magma, had a bridge as the floor of a room 2 levels up that was the same width as the channel, dropped the water from the bridge onto the channel, and presto instant obsidian, no mess to clean up.

[Frelock]

To the OP, the problem may be that you have obsidian floors above that you are digging out the supports to below.  The channeling designation is probably the safest way to avoid these kinds of mistakes.

[TDSS02]

I haven't made a dedicated obsidian farm but I am building a tower of obsidian, and I presume the process is essentially the same.  Have your magma and water "faucets" in the center over the chamber/pit, then flood a layer with magma to about 4/7, then pour water on it to turn it into obsidian (being careful to turn the water off so you get as shallow a layer of water over it as possible).  Then send your miners in to channel it out from the layer above (while they won't tunnel directly through wet/damp stone, they will channel it from the layer above).  With my tower I'll be adding more layers of obsidian over it so I'll just wait until the level I want to carve rooms into is no longer/warm damp.

That sounds like it would work perfectly, i'm gonna try that idea out.

I did it via the bridges method, I filled channels on the floor with magma, had a bridge as the floor of a room 2 levels up that was the same width as the channel, dropped the water from the bridge onto the channel, and presto instant obsidian, no mess to

Haha very nice, one question though. How do you get the water on the bridge? just pipe it to the bridge?

Fill 1 layer at a time. Magma, then water, until the lowest layer is pure obsidian, Repeat until all layers (in this case, 3) are obsidian with some water on top, and let that just evaporate away.

Very good info, really appreciate it. One question though, what do you mean by "Pure Obsidian" is there different quality levels of obsidian? i thought water + magma = obsidian and it didnt matter about filling up 3 lvls to make the bottom level "pure obsidian". I thought obsidian was obsidian?

[Lytha]

"Pure obsidian" means that there aren't any pockets of water or magma left inside of that z-level.

You only need both liquids at 1/7, by the way, so why not just pour in a bit magma from the top, then close the floodgate/door/bridge; then pour in some water onto it from somewhere else? You should end up with something remotely circular and up to 16 tiles in diameter, if both liquids aren't under pressure.

You'd need one open z-level on top of that though, so that the water can spread all over the freshly formed obsidian and find more of the obsidian pockets.