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[Ragingpantsless]

An idea occurred to me. After watching what happens when magma gets pumped off a cliff, it turns into a cone of raining magma. The way to weaponise this is simple interesting: Rows of magma pumps behind bars or fortifications set up on a ridge to shower the hot goodness of magma onto hordes/sieges/elven diplomats/anything dumb enough to approach. So, is this actually feasible, and can it be recorded?

[bremarv]

The problem with this is that the magma fans out in all directions immediately instead of going straight forward and its hard to shoot more than 2 tiles.

I have this set up with 4 pumps, but I recon that I might be able to shoot another tile out if I add some more pumps from the magma sea.

[Ragingpantsless]

The problem with this is that the magma fans out in all directions immediately instead of going straight forward and its hard to shoot more than 2 tiles.

I have this set up with 4 pumps, but I recon that I might be able to shoot another tile out if I add some more pumps from the magma sea.

My experience was when I pumped out of a volcano. The lava spread outward as it went down, so to make it viable, you'd have to have the reservoir of magma up many, many z-levels. I'll attempt to do so with help from another scientist. He isn't a !!SCIENTIST!! because he has yet to light himself on fire for a really bad and petty reason.

[Hivemind]

Not quite what you're looking for, but hey.

I had one fortress that I spent a long while creating a defense against sieges for. In involved a wall, 4 Z levels high and 4 units wide. Between the two outer layers was open space, filled with magma by a manual pump system fed by the magma sea. The outer portion of the wall had floodgates spaced at regular intervals, all linked to one lever in a room that remained locked unless necessary.

Pull the lever and it floods the terrain surrounding the fortress with magma.


I always wanted to create a secondary level on top of the walls along the same lines, but filled with water for obsidianizing/putting out fires. Never got around to it though.

[Reese]

is it feasible? technically... maybe

Depends on how feasible several hundreds or thousands of units of power worth of pumps is to you...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

########
#......#
#%%%%%%########
#%%%%%%#......#
X++++++#%%%%%%#
########%%%%%%#
X+++++++++++++#
###############
X+++++++++++++#
########%%%%%%#
X++++++#%%%%%%#
#%%%%%%#......#
#%%%%%%########
#......#
########

That's the best I can come up with... if you open all flood gates at the same time, both cannon should shoot the same time,same distance, and the pattern is repeatable as long as you have space behind your entrance

[Lagslayer]

I've seen a thread where someone posted their fortress defenses. They had magma being pumped and a curtain was constantly being poured from the ceiling and through some grates in the floor, recycling it and preventing magma pools from forming. So basically, a magma resevoir and a couple of pumps to dump a small amount of magma on anything that comes through the front door.

[sicksock]

Not quite what you're looking for, but hey.

I had one fortress that I spent a long while creating a defense against sieges for. In involved a wall, 4 Z levels high and 4 units wide. Between the two outer layers was open space, filled with magma by a manual pump system fed by the magma sea. The outer portion of the wall had floodgates spaced at regular intervals, all linked to one lever in a room that remained locked unless necessary.

Pull the lever and it floods the terrain surrounding the fortress with magma.


I always wanted to create a secondary level on top of the walls along the same lines, but filled with water for obsidianizing/putting out fires. Never got around to it though.

That is the exact same defense system my fort has. You must be a wizard

[Hivemind]

That is the exact same defense system my fort has. You must be a wizard

[Ragingpantsless]

Nonononono. The thing I'm trying to build uses screw pumps as the guns. See when magma comes out of the pump, it goes in the direction it gets pointed at. I saw it in action when I tried pumping lava off the top of a mountain, down a cliff, into a hole so that it would be used for my magma forges. When I did that, I saw that the magma shot out in a random spray. So I'm trying to weaponize the spray effect from the screw pumps.

[sicksock]

perhaps have multipul screw pumps pumping into a 1 wide corridor to increase pressure so it shoots out.

[Urist Da Vinci]

Nonononono. The thing I'm trying to build uses screw pumps as the guns. See when magma comes out of the pump, it goes in the direction it gets pointed at. I saw it in action when I tried pumping lava off the top of a mountain, down a cliff, into a hole so that it would be used for my magma forges. When I did that, I saw that the magma shot out in a random spray. So I'm trying to weaponize the spray effect from the screw pumps.

This forum link has a good image:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=33837.msg503965#msg503965

More pumps, working in parallel, increases the size of the spray. Because the spray is circular, rather than a line, you need a ridiculous number of pumps working in parallel if you want to spray more than 5 tiles away.

[Vattic]

As others have mentioned the magma likes to spread out. This wasn't a problem with my last magma trap.

I used 384 pumps, 4 on each of 94 levels, and 4000+ power to make a volcano in the middle of the map erupt. The map floods in no time at all.
Results:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is a composite I made showing all the surface levels. Blur and darkness indicates depth.

A detailed explanation of it's workings.
A map from which the above image was created.

[Hivemind]

As others have mentioned the magma likes to spread out. This wasn't a problem with my last magma trap.

I used 384 pumps, 4 on each of 94 levels, and 4000+ power to make a volcano in the middle of the map erupt. The map floods in no time at all.

Huh, guh, buh, wuh.

I commend you sir.

[Ragingpantsless]

Nonononono. The thing I'm trying to build uses screw pumps as the guns. See when magma comes out of the pump, it goes in the direction it gets pointed at. I saw it in action when I tried pumping lava off the top of a mountain, down a cliff, into a hole so that it would be used for my magma forges. When I did that, I saw that the magma shot out in a random spray. So I'm trying to weaponize the spray effect from the screw pumps.

This forum link has a good image:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=33837.msg503965#msg503965

More pumps, working in parallel, increases the size of the spray. Because the spray is circular, rather than a line, you need a ridiculous number of pumps working in parallel if you want to spray more than 5 tiles away.

Yeah, this will work. My plan is to unleash this on the top of an artificial cliff and instigate a war with my neighbors. They're capitals are maybe 5 squares away.

[Urist Da Vinci]

This forum link has a good image:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=33837.msg503965#msg503965

More pumps, working in parallel, increases the size of the spray. Because the spray is circular, rather than a line, you need a ridiculous number of pumps working in parallel if you want to spray more than 5 tiles away.

Yeah, this will work. My plan is to unleash this on the top of an artificial cliff and instigate a war with my neighbors. They're capitals are maybe 5 squares away.

Magma cannons can be rather underwhelming for the effort required.

Watch this animation:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1567-yetanothermagmacannonproofofconcept