Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[capt.pantsless]

Philosophical question: Is it worth the labor/resources to build a pump-stack to move magma up 50+ levels from the magma-sea all the way up to my current workshop area?   -OR-

Would it be more interesting to build a new Magmahalla area near the magma-sea with living spaces for the magma-oriented dwarves, with kitchens, stills, and dining rooms to support them?

[MiniMacker]

You've got to ask yourself. Is it easier to move through 50 levels of stairs, or to build 50 pumps?

[NecroRebel]

Building 50 pumps is dwarfier.

Also, it's typically more impractical to arrange for enemies to go down to near the magma sea than it is to arrange for the magma sea to go up near enemies. If you're going to have a magma trap, you're going to want magma near the surface. And, of course, you might occasionally want to magma your own dwarves, so I'd recommend bringing the magma to the dwarves when it becomes practical.

[grymwulf]

Urist McMagmaWorshiper says:

Elves do not like magma, so to kill Elves with the holy magma, one must bring the magma to the Elves.

[capt.pantsless]

You've got to ask yourself. Is it easier to move through 50 levels of stairs, or to build 50 pumps?

The real question is : move through 50 levels of stairs over-and-over-and-over-again, or design, build components, mine-out, install, and power 50 pumps once.

My plan at the moment is to get a bit of practice on pump-building from moving cavern-water (my only source of sourced water) up 30 levels to make a sweet waterfall.

[Illanair]

Or alternatively move your fortress 50 levels down and let the migrants and traders do the marathon instead of your own dorfs.

[Sutremaine]

If you're going to have a magma trap, you're going to want magma near the surface.

What for?

The real question is : move through 50 levels of stairs over-and-over-and-over-again, or design, build components, mine-out, install, and power 50 pumps once.

Or, move through fifty levels of stairs once and then stay there. Apart from the desire for a particular layout, are there any other reasons to stay just below the surface? Serious question. It seems to be a thing among DF players as much as elf slaughter.

[Jurph]

Basement level needs ore storage, bar storage, bin storage, sand bag storage, and all of your magma workshops.  It also needs housing and a dining room for all of your forge workers.  A barracks might prove useful down here if you decide to do lots of exploratory mining.

Halfway up the central shaft you need to have housing and a danger room for your haulers, as well as a floodable/drainable airlock to prevent Forgotten Beasts from taking over the whole fort.  Assign all haulers to military squads so that 20% of your haulers are guarding a pair of one-tile Danger Room zones, and the other 80% are doing their civilian job of hauling (this will improve their agility over time).

At the surface you need a trade depot, agriculture, and any agriculture-related industries.  Entrance defenses and the surface barracks should be placed up here.  Your top-floor megaproject should involve generating the required amount of axle power to sustain your magma pump stack.

Once you have the magma workshops deep below, use your army of haulers to bring sand to a glass workshop and build glass pump components down deep.  Build your pump stack from below, and your power supply from above.

[Sutremaine]

At the surface you need a trade depot

Why at the surface?

[blue emu]

I'm currently building a stack of pumps two pumps wide and about 140 pumps tall, to move Magma from the Magma Sea into a five-level tall Magma reservoir that I'm building up in the sky over my Fortress. It's part of my new orbital defense system, intended to rain flaming death down on the heads of elven caravans useless migrants whoever happens to wander by invading enemies.

Not sure why I decided to use a dual-pump stack instead of a single stack. Maybe because I wanted the ability to recharge the reservoir quickly.

Naturally, this uses a lot of power... so I first constructed an 84-wheel, 8.4 kilo-kitten-power hydrodynamic power station. That part is working and tested already.

[Jurph]

At the surface you need a trade depot

Why at the surface?

The further into your fort you allow traders, the more you tempt fate with goblins/orcs/etc. getting deep into your fort as well.  Also, if your agriculture is already happening up top, then that's where the majority of your bins, barrels, bags, cloth goods, leather goods, and food will end up.  Since I tend to trade food and agricultural crafts (saving stone and metal for myself) I keep my TD near the surface. 

I suppose you could build a big spiral ramp down through the fort and put your depot at mid-level or even super-deep, but now you've got the same problem as an all-surface fort: you have to travel 100 z-levels to do any agriculture!

[Sinnyil]

At the surface you need a trade depot

Why at the surface?

The further into your fort you allow traders, the more you tempt fate with goblins/orcs/etc. getting deep into your fort as well.  Also, if your agriculture is already happening up top, then that's where the majority of your bins, barrels, bags, cloth goods, leather goods, and food will end up.  Since I tend to trade food and agricultural crafts (saving stone and metal for myself) I keep my TD near the surface. 

I suppose you could build a big spiral ramp down through the fort and put your depot at mid-level or even super-deep, but now you've got the same problem as an all-surface fort: you have to travel 100 z-levels to do any agriculture!

Or you could use burrows and delivery chutes  

Personally, if the third caverns are near the magma, then I'll relocate my entire fortress.  Wall and roof off a bit of the cavern (or, if there's water, muddy some stone that way) for your agriculture, and you're set. 

[Sutremaine]

I suppose you could build a big spiral ramp down through the fort and put your depot at mid-level or even super-deep, but now you've got the same problem as an all-surface fort: you have to travel 100 z-levels to do any agriculture!

My big spiral ramp is the fort. Or the main corridor anyway, just because I don't like having stockpiles permanently in the corridors even if it would be the most efficient use of space. And yes, the trade depot is halfway down and between the 'outdoors' and the fortress.

For deep-down agriculture, there are two options. 1. Bucket brigade and a room for subterranean crops, and 2. Dig out and roof over a small area on the surface, and then extend it downwards for above-ground crops. It's pretty safe to carve out a shaft by making it from staircases and then removing the staircases from the top layer down.

[Sarudak]

Curious... Why do you need to do agriculture on the surface. Caverns provide everything you need for farming unless you need surface crops (which is a rather undwarvenly thing to admit to) in which case I would just drop a chunk of soil down to the bottom of the map (in which case you may keep your beard).

[NecroRebel]

At the surface you need a trade depot

Why at the surface?

I'd prefer the term "near" the surface, myself, because that's a relative term. Perhaps it would be better to say you want your defenses at the top of your fort, and your trade depot will usually either be centrally-located or also at the top of your fort. Probably both, in many cases.

Regardless of whether your fort proper is just below the surface or below the third cavern, the fact remains that sieges will have to go downwards to get to your fort. You'll generally want your defenses, including any magma traps, on the direct route enemies have to take in order to get into your fort proper, which means that they'll be above your fort proper, which means that, for magma traps, you're probably going to want to bring magma upwards. If you're doing that anyway, it usually doesn't take much more effort to run a magma duct into your "normal" workshop spaces, which means that for some forts it's just more convenient to bring the magma to your dwarves than vice versa.



Also, as mentioned before, pumping magma up is just dwarfier. Even if your fort is down by the magma sea, being able to magmafy the surface is worthwhile for the dwarfiness points