OOC: Nope, no sunberries or rope reed seeds. Maybe we'll get some next year.
@Dutchling: Okie Dokie, I'll get you in full steel before Summer. I think you're halfway there already.
We have two smelters, and according to Dutchling's shiny new spreadsheet, we will eventually have four operaters. Plus, I keep getting Cancellation messages whining at me about how we need more steel. So yeah, we could use another smelter. I might do it myself. Then again, I've never gotten a chance to play with magma before, so maybe not...
One last thing. I won't be putting up any stonesense pics at all. For some reason, it's refusing to work. When I put up pics, it'll be in glorious ASCII.
You need to turn off labors intelligently to maximize usage - smelting steel isn't a high priority, and
both of your furnace operators have other jobs... and one of them is the self-same smith that is making the steel weapons and armor in the first place, which is part of the problem.
If you really want to speed up iron production, make sure Ghills has all other labors besides furnace operation (temporarily) turned off. (You need permission to turn labors people didn't sign up for on, but turning labors off to focus their efforts is fine.)
If there is a task you really need done, you should keep an eye on who is actually assigned those tasks, and make sure that you turn off their other labors.
Urist Imiknorris and NW_Kohaku are our only farmers... and they both have multiple labors on, as well. Every time Urist is sent out to handle traps, she's not farming. Every time NW_Kohaku is sent to the kitchen, or is making large pots to fill with booze, she's not farming. If nobody farms, we have a problem.
Speaking of which, have you ordered the stills to produce more booze? We were getting around to the time where we needed more, and it's a big problem if we run out. Digging a resevoir is one of the things I didn't have time for.
If you aren't using Dwarf Therapist already, you really should do so, because you need to keep in mind exactly who is being sent to do what tasks, and how many other jobs they have - JohnnieRWilkins is both woodcutter and carpenter, but he can only do
one at a time, and prefers to keep doing one as much as possible because of priorities.
Anyway, if you want to make a magma smelter, plan out where you want to put that smelter first. Dig out only the middle-top tile for the smelter, so that the hole you dig is covered up by the impassible tile for the smelter. That way, fire snakes don't get out and dwarves don't fall in.
I didn't dig out a way to expand the current magma trench, unfortunately, so I'd recommend you not build extra magma furnaces anywhere but where the trench is already. You definitely won't need more than what you have already, however. Just dig out some extra stockpile space, and move southwards. There's an extra set of trenches in the south of the magma furnace room, where I put the stockpiles.
Also, pics are easy - just hit Print Screen, and then open up a regular image editing program, and hit Ctrl-V, and you'll paste a picture. No need for fancy level export.