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[Lytha]

Yup, that's really very familiar. I do the hauling and smoothing gradually though, starting from the bottom. First, we dig the 3x3 design, then the rocks are hauled on the lowest couple of z-levels, then the smoothing begins, then the channeling plus the necessary wall constructions (we can't have the miner trap himself, can we?). Meanwhile, the glassworker is producing the green glass items.

Then I have them construct the bottom couple of screwpumps, and move my activities up a few z-levels.

I usually avoid the caverns instead of constructing the pump stack through it though.


95% just like your procedure, I think. Quite creepy.

[ledgekindred]

I have personally never built a pump stack or a magma piston because I've never felt I had a use or need for one.  Either I try to embark near a volcano, or I dig straight down to the magma.

Something to keep in mind, going up/down 60 ramps is the same as walking horizontally 60 tiles.   So assuming your magma is 90 levels down, you can build a rampway that goes all the way down and really not have that big a deal in delay between your dorfs getting from one place to another.

Ramps operate different from stairs in that going down a ramp is considered one tile, whereas going down a stairway is considered two tiles and only one dorf can be on a stairway at a time.  Depending on the distance, ramps can make a noticeable increase over stairs.  (Although it's easier to designate and build up/down stairs.)   It's easier to show pictures than try to explain how to build ramps effectively.  You can see how I have my rampway set up here:  http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-10310-diamondrelic

My dorfs take no time at all in getting down to the caverns for stuff.  (Although I didn't need to go all the way down for magma since there is a surface volcano.)

Thanks to everyone for the great suggestions. I will put them in practice this evening.

I have to say after reading this thread that one of my favorite things about DF is the community.  Very few games have the kind of people who will sit down and explain something like this to a self-declared noob the way that people do on these forums. 

[Lord_Phoenix]

I was thinking of making just 1 line of magma along the northest wall of the room, and line all the workshops there - except for the forge, that requires Magma on one of the two center-side tiles. Is this correct? Or the magma furnace will work as long as any one tile is on magma?

I also thought of making bars in the magma channel, to prevent magma-swimming creatures from coming in. I don't think I will need a floodgate, the "irrigation" channel will be at the same level of the top magma floor. Does the magma level can naturally change over time?

I tend to rely on deep magma forges even tho my fortress is near the surface. At least until the 100 z-levels pumpstack with associated power generation brings magma to my large and fully-prepared reservoir (output floodgates pre-built). By the time it is done, a new stable version of DF is out and I never get the chance to finish the other large/mega projects.

That would be... about 60 levels of pumps, in my case.

I'm pretty sure that magma forges and furnaces only need a tile open to magma beneath them, it's just recommended practice to put it under one of the impassable blocks of the workshop (left or right of center for smithy, top center for furnaces).

[boyhowdy]

I'm pretty sure that magma forges and furnaces only need a tile open to magma beneath them, it's just recommended practice to put it under one of the impassable blocks of the workshop (left or right of center for smithy, top center for furnaces).

Just to clarify, you place the impassable tile over the channel to prevent creatures that can travel in magma from coming up through the hole.  Takes advantage of the fact that building-destroyers have to be on the same z-level as the thing they're trying to knock over.  Due to some bugs, fortifications and grates aren't considered 100% effective at keeping critters out of your magma plumbing (not to mention the alleged ability of some them to spawn inside of it), so it's a good idea to keep it sealed up.

[Noir]

Thanks everyone, great suggestions all around!
I have decided to keep my magma forge down (it's just 60z levels below my fortress after all). I have however built a new, shorter access way to it - entirely made of ramps (obviously!).

Couple of things:
The floor of my wannabe magma forge is made of a non-magma-safe stone. This means, I presume, that I will have to build a magma "irrigation" channels made entirely out of magma-safe one - both the walls AND the floor, I guess.
How can I "build" a magma safe "tile"? I know that I can build walls, and I have plenty of magma-safe stones, but when I build a wall out of it my dwarves build somthing that appears on the map like a column. How do I make a full-fledged, original tile in a zone which has been already digged?
Secondly, how do I do that from another tile? I can make a number of ramps to let my dwarves back up, but the last tile will have to be filled from above... I don't know if I made myself clear...

Next: I want to make my ramp that go down at least two tiles wide; I assume this will allow multiple dwarves to use it at the same time in both direction. What is the best practice in this case? Is three better than two?

Next: Is there a better way to store bars and wood rather than just one unit per tile? Can I build a container for them?

This is all for now, thanks for the awesome suggestions!

[blue emu]

The floor of my wannabe magma forge is made of a non-magma-safe stone. This means, I presume, that I will have to build a magma "irrigation" channels made entirely out of magma-safe one - both the walls AND the floor, I guess.

Natural stone walls and floor (and also constructed walls and floor) are immune to melting. Only movable items (like stones or equipment) or articulating objects (like doors, floodgates, bridges and pumps) will melt in magma.

Next: I want to make my ramp that go down at least two tiles wide; I assume this will allow multiple dwarves to use it at the same time in both direction. What is the best practice in this case? Is three better than two?

Wider means less time lost to collisions between dwarves, but slower pathfinding and lower FPS (Frames Per Second). I just use a 3 x 3 staircase. It's only sixty to one hundred tiles, which takes the same length of time whether it's horizontal travel or vertical travel.

Next: Is there a better way to store bars and wood rather than just one unit per tile? Can I build a container for them?

Furniture, Wood and Stone cannot be stacked in Bins. Bars and Blocks can.

[Naz]

The walls that your dwarves build will look like columns until there's another wall next to it, at which point they'll merge and look like a smoothed wall of whatever color the stone you used was.

As to your issue with storage: Blue already mentioned that you can't put logs and stones into bins but what you can do is designate a dump activity zone by pressing "i", designating one tile then hitting "g" I believe. Once that's done order all that excess stone and wood to be dumped using "d""b""d" and your dwarves will happily haul it off to the dump which through the magic of !!PHYSICS!! can hold an unlimited amount of...whatever. When it's all dumped you can hit "d""b""c" and designate everything on that tile to be reclaimed, thereby making it useful or hit "z" then go to the stocks screen and unforbid/undump <---I R LITERET! specific things in that heap instead of all of it at once.

[Noir]

Thanks to both of you; yes indeed I am already (ab)using the quantum-stockpiling technique

[Marthnn]

The floor of my wannabe magma forge is made of a non-magma-safe stone. This means, I presume, that I will have to build a magma "irrigation" channels made entirely out of magma-safe one - both the walls AND the floor, I guess.

Natural stone walls and floor (and also constructed walls and floor) are immune to melting. Only movable items (like stones or equipment) or articulating objects (like doors, floodgates, bridges and pumps) will melt in magma.

To put it simply : everything in the (b)-(C) menu can't melt, wether it is built or designed. The rest is at risk (I don't have any exception in mind...).


I agree with the ramp using. Stairs are hardly adequate for a main hallway. A 60 z-levels ramp also means 60 lateral tiles traveled... You can always do a 3-wide ramp going down, then 3x1 stairs so the ramp can shift its direction 180 degrees.

[Naz]

Someone probably mentioned this but when drilling down to magma if you hit open space put a hatch cover over it until you have the opportunity to seal the whole pump stack off. Building destroyers have to be on the same level as the thing they want to smash so a huge monster can hang out below a locked hatch pounding futily on it and whining to be let in all he wants. Also, if your design for the intake to your pump stack involves letting the magma flow horizontally before it gets drawn up you'll want a line or two of fortifications built as close to the magma as is safe before you let the tunnel fill. Otherwise just stick a magma safe grate over the intake tiles for the lowest pumps. Either method will keep anything that lives down there out of your pump stack

[Hyndis]

Someone probably mentioned this but when drilling down to magma if you hit open space put a hatch cover over it until you have the opportunity to seal the whole pump stack off. Building destroyers have to be on the same level as the thing they want to smash so a huge monster can hang out below a locked hatch pounding futily on it and whining to be let in all he wants. Also, if your design for the intake to your pump stack involves letting the magma flow horizontally before it gets drawn up you'll want a line or two of fortifications built as close to the magma as is safe before you let the tunnel fill. Otherwise just stick a magma safe grate over the intake tiles for the lowest pumps. Either method will keep anything that lives down there out of your pump stack

Grates beats a hatch. You can pump liquids up through a grate but the grate will protect the pump from any building destroyers.

[Naz]

Yea should clarify that. Hatch for the top of any staircase you build for your dwarves to access lower levels, especially if you drill into open space.

[Starver]

The hole in the ground below a magma workshop can be anywhere you like, but I really prefer to have it below the impassable tile of the workshop. So yes, the weaponsmith would need the magma below the centre row. You can of course just have a 1 tile wide magma plumbing and just put little dents into it where you will probably channel out the holes. This give a vaguely comb-like appearance and can look quite neat.

It depends on the workshops I want to put there (the location for "the tile" in magma forges being [centre-row, left and/or right] access point and all the others being [top-row, centre]) but I will generally run my single-width magmaduct(s) so that there are no 'dents' or untoward branchings at all (beyond possibly a distribution spot right next to the magma source).  This also improves the dedication of the flow, given I use tapping techniques which give a relatively low-speed flooding speed, and spreading into multiple new tiles slows this down.

It's slightly less efficient if/when I want to make corners (e.g. to snake around to service a 3x3 array of magma workshops).  I could either make a diagonal gap to the bend, causing its own slowing issues, or suffer it being a proper L-junction with "two spots to fill", also (when you come down to it) that latter would mean one more tile to have to completely fill before 7/7 stable (or at least 4/7 usable) the whole way through.

So these days I actually tend to 'radiate' new magmaducts off of a magma pipe, or through a handy rock mass within the magma sea level, so that they're all straight.  Instead of a single 3x3 workshop array all full of workshops, I might have three 3x3 magma workshop 'areas', only the central set of trios being the workshops, the adjacent rooms being part of the supply and produce piles (as well as any Z+/-N stores I can establish, ignoring of course where the magmaduct cuts through the Z-1 plan).

This also means that I can either extend existing radiating tunnels (if the geology allows) or 'star' off some more from the pipe (on this or another level, as existing excavation/geology layout allows).  But I must admit that really thorough tapping plans have never yet been required so this strategy has never yet been tested to destruction, but it appears to be generally viable up to a huge degree of expansion.  (A magma pipe is essentially revealed in its usable entirety, but even when it comes to the magma sea, adding in new tapping-points grants further view of the environment down there and lets you plan more tappings further away, which, in turn...  You'll only really have problems if you have essentially explored the entire magma sea, and if you haven't got a productive enough magma industry set up by then, you're obviously being a busy little dwarf and have certain Plans well beyond simply pouring out metalcrafts. )

Hopefully I've used an understandable form of terminology and not forgotten about some other limitation that I've not yet had direct experience of.

[Naz]

Efficient plumbing: DF's version of rocket !!SCIENCE!!

I love how complicated this all gets...so much...

Edit: is it me or does it feel like anything with the !! around it needs to be yelled while waving your hands around like John madden in that episode of Family Guy?

[Starver]

(Other things already explained, if this has as well, apologies.)

Secondly, how do I do that from another tile? I can make a number of ramps to let my dwarves back up, but the last tile will have to be filled from above... I don't know if I made myself clear...

When I'm building my magmaducts, I may remove (for no reason other than neatness) any ramps created by pre-emptive channelling from above into the prospective magmaduct route, and I either put a temporary cover[1] over the gaps (if I don't have enough anvils, or enough steel ones if I'm building a particualrly 'posh' row of magmaforges that only I'll ever know about) or pre-build the workshop when I can, but the very furthest tile from the magmasource is the one I (by necessity) leave as a ramp, and it ends up being covered up by the final workshop in the row.  The one that I only start building once I'm happy with the duct and have breached the magmasource, and has so far always been built before anything[2] finds it can get to (and through) a 7/7-mitigated fortification.




[1] A 3x3 bridge is an extravagant measure I use.  It gives the architects something to do.  It's also time-consuming to build and destroy, of course.  But if I put a floor/pillar on top of it, deconstruction would drop it into magma-channel.  Which is just plain messy, and it wouldn't look at all pretty with a rock (molten or not) floating around in my entirely smoothed/block-rebuilt magmaduct walls and floors.

[2] But I've already mentioned, elsewhere, how I've recently had very little of anything that looks anything like ready enough to invade my magmaducts.  It's possible I/you could be unlucky in future, so be aware.  I'm also taking the chance that the breaching dwarf, or any other stray dwarf/creature that happens to wander down there for no reason, doesn't suddenly go to sleep, but I've even had a stray dog wander down, cross paths with the miner as he strolls away from the breaching exercise, wander over to the front edge of the magma, effectively appear to lick it, then casually wander back out again.  No injuries or other heat damage.  YMMV.