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[Aoi]

So the launch of Magmaship One is nearing completion. Our brave testers have lived for years sealed within its comfines without lacking for food, beer or company whatsoever. We are almost ready for launch, the plumb the depths of this great land, to go deeper than any other dwarfs have gone before.

We now lack but one thing: Onboard construction materials! The fine minds working on this project cannot find a way to devise a self-sufficient form of resource generation. So we appeal to the assembled masses for your inspiration!

--

Omitting the flavorful speech, I'm trying to get a renewable resource to a specific spot in a constructed building. As I built it over a surface volcano, it's all outdoors. The biome is freezing. I was considering are sand->glass, wood or water->obsidian, but I'm open to others. (Other than a colony crew that consists of everybody being legendary bonecrafter/butchers when they get out...) Any ideas?

[FuzzyZergling]

I think that dumping a bag of sand, then reclaiming the bag without reclaiming the sand will put sand on the tile.
I could be wrong.

Also, just so you know, if you have a magma control system then you can melt water (heat the floor from below), drain most of it away, then freeze it again for infinite water.

[Aoi]

Infinite water still works? I thought that was fixed. Well-- guess it's time to raise the pumpstack even higher. Thanks for the tip!

[Sphalerite]

Infinite water from ice works.  Ice always melts to form 7/7 water, but you don't need 7/7 water to make ice.

Dumping sand on a tile to make a sand tile for infinite glass does not work.

Make obsidian, muddy it, and grow wood?  I'm not sure if wood will grow on muddied obsidian.  I doubt it, but you should try it and see.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Make obsidian, muddy it, and grow wood?  I'm not sure if wood will grow on muddied obsidian.  I doubt it, but you should try it and see.

I'm pretty sure that if you muddy a floor tile, anything can grow on it. At least, in my experience.

[Darvi]

Only if it's meant to be planted underground. No prickle berries or wild strawberries.

[Aoi]

Yeah, I thought about the wood, but since I built it to descend down from a surface volcano [Bit more imposing to see a massive structure rising up from the top of an active volcano, no?] the tiles are all listed as outdoors. Looks like I'll have to build a few more levels designed to be filled with magma, as obsidian production facilities.

[slothen]

if you muddy obsidian it will grow stuff, but not if its a constructed floor.  1/7 water will turn to 'muddy ice.'

Would it be possible to build the ship underneath an aquifer and drop a wall tile all the way down, then using that as an infinite supply of water?

I always thought it would be possible to drop a sand wall tile and then get infinite sand.

[AWellTrainedFerret]

Also of note: once a tile has been exposed to the surface, it will always be a surface tile. So you can grow above-ground crops underground.
As for sand, I'm fairly certain that you can only have sand tiles if you embark has them; and they can't be moved except maybe by creative cave-ins.

[Hans Lemurson]

On my current glacier/volcano embark, I have found that if I construct something on the "obsidian cavern floor" that is left after you dig-out the lowermost level of glacial ice, that when you remove the construction, that tile is now sand.

There is one other transmutation of bedrock to soil that I know of, but I have not looked for it since 31.12:  If you muddy some stone floor, allow some cavern-plants to grow on it, and then build a workshop on top of it, the plant is destroyed, but the material of the floor where the plant was is now a type of soil.  I got "sandy loam", just like soil above my fort, so I'm not sure this can guaranteably state that this is a way to get sand.

Those are the only two ways I can think of that you might get sand from non-sand.

Another possibility, for infinite materials, is if you have infinite water, and a ready supply of magma, just manufacture some obsidian!

[dakenho]

there was rumor in a thread that if you build a floor of sandstone then demolished it it would turn to sand, no idea if that would work or not.

you could have a massive cow farm,  Butchering the cows should give you tallow, then you can make soap, then you could use the soap to make various constructions...a tree farm or obsidian farm would be your only other option.   There is a mod you can download where you can get trees on farm plots.   wasn't there a bug that by melting bolts you would get more bars of metal then you used to make the bolts? 

[BigD145]

Would it be possible to build the ship underneath an aquifer and drop a wall tile all the way down, then using that as an infinite supply of water?

I always thought it would be possible to drop a sand wall tile and then get infinite sand.

Constructed walls will deconstruct to its components in a cavein. Nevermind, I think I understand what you're getting at.

[slothen]

there was rumor in a thread that if you build a floor of sandstone then demolished it it would turn to sand, no idea if that would work or not.

you could have a massive cow farm,  Butchering the cows should give you tallow, then you can make soap, then you could use the soap to make various constructions...a tree farm or obsidian farm would be your only other option.

you'd still need a tree farm for ash.  Although trees are the slowest to grow and take up the most space, they are also probably the easiest thing to do, short of figuring out a nice way to teleport or create a sand tile where you want.

[TheyTarget]

I always thought it would be possible to drop a sand wall tile and then get infinite sand.

I do this. And it always works for me. I also drop soil tiles and farm miles underground.