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[imperium3]

Okay, great practitioners of !!SCIENCE!!, I'm in the process of setting up a magma forge. Since I'm lazy and can't be bothered to move my forge area, the magma is going to have to come to it. I completed the first stage using a magma piston, to create a small cistern of magma about 8 Z levels lower than the forge area, not ideal, but I can work with that. More tricky is that it is also halfway across the map (only solid pillar thru the caverns I could find), so it's going to have to be moved. And there isn't an awful lot of it, and it's not easy to get more, so natural spreading probably won't work - it'll all spread out and evaporate, if magma evaporates.

So anyway, I came up with this device to transport the magma speedily:

Code: [Select]

Side view

   pp   pp   pp   pp
mm/||\_/||\_/||\_/||\

Where m is the starting magma, and pp signifies a screw pump.

My first question is, is this setup likely to be safe for my dwarves? It's too far away from water and the surface to be reasonably powered by anything other than dwarf power, so I need to stop the pumps getting flooded by magma. I can see that in the current design the stack may have issues if one dwarf leaves for a break and then comes back to find his pump filled with magma. But are there any other problems that are evident?

Secondly, do magma forges require magma directly underneath them? Or can I get away with a few-Zlevel drop, in the way that wells do?

[slink]

The magma has to be right below the pump.  Wells work because the bucket is lowered on the rope.  Pumps don't work that way.

Speaking without much real experience, I would think that the final pump in your pump-stack from the magma sea would provide pressure for moving the magma across the map without requiring a series of horizontal pumping stations.

[FritzPL]

Code: [Select]

Magma level
mmm|  |...|  |...|.....
mmm|  |...|  |...|.....
mmm|  |...|  |...|.....

Pump level

:::< d>,,,< d>
:::<pp>,,,<pp>
:::< d>,,,< d>

, = open space
: = magma level below
> < = slopes or something
. = floor
Okay,little explaination. Its view from "up". Pumps need dwarves to work obviously,so dorfs need to have access. In theory they wont be harmed. Altrough,I wasnt ever checking the pump mechanics,only reading about how they work. But thats a good system I think,tough it will take a little lot of energy to work if you want to have these forges far.
And if you plan to have them on every single "pump island",then,answering your second question - magma have to be one level below the magma forge.

[boyhowdy]

I can see that in the current design the stack may have issues if one dwarf leaves for a break and then comes back to find his pump filled with magma.

This.  Pumps will try to fill in any contiguous area on the same z-level or below, so you're for sure going to flood the next pump.  If you don't have the pumps sealed off, magma goes everywhere.  If you do, you're not going to have anyway to drain the area so there's no way to get the submerged pump working again.  If you want to go with this set up, I strongly recommend attaching each pump to a windmill so the pumps will run reliably and you can completely seal them off.

For a safer method that you can run with dorf power, build your pumps as a series of steps going from the reservoir to the level just below the forges:

Code: (side view) [Select]

                   MF
                %%mmmm
          %%mmmm
    %%mmmm
mmmm

Alternatively, pump it in stages through a series of cisterns with access to the next pump sealed off by a magma-safe floodgate.  Fill one cistern, stop the pump, open access to the next pump, fill next cistern, rinse (!!RINSE!!), repeat.

[imperium3]

The slope method looks like a good idea for safety, but my forges are really far away so it's not very practical, even if I use occasional magmafalls to avoid having too many z levels. However it's also about the only efficient option I have, I think.

I'll look at this because for the amount of effort it's going to take, it might just be simpler to build a new forge area and convert the old one into stone stockpiling or something. The old one is *really* big though, so I'm not sure...

[Dorf3000]

Firstly, in each pool you'll lose magma because pumps won't grab 1/7 magma in the bottom.  So if you're thinking of using this kind of pump chain then keep the pools as small as possible.

Secondly, you'll get flooding and toasted dwarves as soon as one leaves for any reason.  If he's not emptying his pool, the one behind him will fill it up and then continue pumping even though he's now not emptying his own pool any more, which means the one behind him will flood his chamber and !!fun!! and !!dwarves!! and tantrums.

If you're going to the trouble of making a magma piston then building a water reactor and having all the pumps connected together should be no problem, and that way you can completely eliminate wasted magma by having all the pools be only 1x1.

[Graebeard]

Yeah, your original design is definitely going to result in a lot of flooded and singed dwarfs as soon as someone decides to take a break, which gets more likely the more pumps there are.  On the other hand, it would work perfectly if it was powered.  It might be easier to make some dwarven water reactors than modify your design.

boyhowdy's step-up model will do the trick pretty well, and you said you have to move it up 8 levels anyway, right?  You could definately do a magma fall every so often if you need.  Remember that magma isn't pressurized unless there's a pump forcing it up through a u-bend.  You could have 8 or so pumps stepping up the magma with a u bend pipe at the end, followed by another step setup.  Something like this:



It would be a good idea to put a hatch at the right side of the u-bend to prevent accidental flooding.  You will lose some magma this way, but only 2/7 for each u-bend.  Since you're already going to be leaving at least 1/7 to evaporation where your current cistern is that may or may not be an acceptable loss.  This design has the advantage/disadvantage that you can fill up the left side of the u-bend without needing dwarfs to operate the ones later down the road.

If you're not sure the magma you have is going to cut it for the size of your forge area think about filling in your future magma reservoir with walls wherever you won't need magma directly below.  A big 20x20 cistern is going to take 400 squares of at least 4/7 magma.  You can cut that down to 1/2 or 1/3 of that by filling in the areas you don't need magma with walls.

[synkell]

Hmmm.... I hope you have considered the amount of power require to move it . Happened to me one time that my glorious 30 level pump stack didt work due to the lack of 10 more windmills.

[imperium3]

I've been plotting it out and for the number of pumps I'm going to need, I may as well have just built a bloody pumpstack in the first place... Ah well, you live and learn, and I didn't really want to anyway because of lag, my laptop is weak enough these days as it is.

For lag reasons I'm going to use windmills to power it, since the design compromises for dwarf safety appear to be somewhat excessive. I underestimated the distance, it literally is the full length of what IIRC is a 2x2 map, so I'm gonna need a lot of glass and a lott of magma-safe gears...

Thanks for all your help, I'll report back as construction proceeds.

[Triaxx2]

I know, it's very NOT dwarven, but wouldn't it be simpler to move the magma forges closer?

[Vattic]

I'd do what you suggest in the OP but remove the ramps.


  %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %% %%
█_██_██_██_██_██_██_██_██_██_██_██_██_█


If you needed access you could use doors or put a single ramp in each pit.

[imperium3]

I know, it's very NOT dwarven, but wouldn't it be simpler to move the magma forges closer?

HERETIC! *magma deluge*

Well, I could do but I've become very attached to the forge area I built when we still had lots of coal (mostly run out now and the rest reserved for steel). There are about a dozen slots for workshops and a number of large storage rooms for ores and coal. And I don't want to leave it lying empty.

So I guess the alternative question is, what workshop-intensive industry can I put there instead? I already have another large area for my masons, so that's out. I could turn it into more food and/or furniture stockpiles, but that's not particularly exciting, is it? Crafts would leave me buried in +schist crowns+ very quickly, too. I'll keep thinking, maybe it'll become a workshop are for those like the mechanic and craftsdwarf that are currently just shoved into a corner somewhere. But I doubt I need that much space...

[Kogut]

Giant useless baracks?

[boyhowdy]

So I guess the alternative question is, what workshop-intensive industry can I put there instead? I already have another large area for my masons, so that's out. I could turn it into more food and/or furniture stockpiles, but that's not particularly exciting, is it? Crafts would leave me buried in +schist crowns+ very quickly, too. I'll keep thinking, maybe it'll become a workshop are for those like the mechanic and craftsdwarf that are currently just shoved into a corner somewhere. But I doubt I need that much space...

Cloth, maybe?  I've never set up a major clothing operation, but I'd imagine you'll need at least two or three looms, clothier's and dyer's workshops.  If it's nearish your farms you could set up querns/millstones to process the dye plants right there and maybe throw in a jeweler to add gems.  Manage to snag a giant cave spider and you'll be buying out entire caravans with a sock.

I've been plotting it out and for the number of pumps I'm going to need, I may as well have just built a bloody pumpstack in the first place... Ah well, you live and learn, and I didn't really want to anyway because of lag, my laptop is weak enough these days as it is.

Try this: A Better Magma Pump Stack.

[imperium3]

Funnily enough I already have two looms, a dyer, a clothier, and a giant cave spider Though they're not really in full operation at the moment. The trouble with the clothing industry is that it seems a bit pointless while dwarves won't wear them, and the caravans don't really have anything I need because this fort is quite large. Plus I like pillaging the human ones instead. Thanks for the suggestion though, and that better pump looks great - maybe I can construct it in the old shaft of the magma piston

I'm starting to think that what I could do is turn the old forges into a mega-kitchen. They're not TOO far from the dining room, and it would be nice to use up the huge amounts of stuff I have that's inedible, like tallow, syrup and sugar. Plus, getting dwarves to live solely off cooked food would be a nice challenge!

EDIT: DAMN! The new forges have run into a low aquifer. Going to take a lot of excavation work to get around that. Worse, because of this the walls are sand instead of stone, so they can't be smoothed. Time to savescum and build it on a lower z level, my sense of aesthetics can't deal with this.

Edit2: Okay, it's not so bad, the actual forges are unaffected, just the storage space. And THAT I'll be very happy to relegate to a lower z level.

Yetanotheredit: And on the plus side, this sand is going to make the operation of some glass furnaces SO much easier!