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Author Topic: Magma forge becomes heat forge!  (Read 1750 times)

Nil Eyeglazed

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Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« on: August 06, 2011, 04:55:08 am »

Currently, the magma forge is designed to work off of, well, magma-- doesn't matter if the magma is hot or cold, just matters how deep it is.

Why not change it so that the magma forge works based off of the temperature underneath its impassible tiles, rather than the presence and depth of magma?

Why?

It would play better with the rest of the game.  In the future, we can imagine various things that can provide great heat other than magma.  Some of those things already exist, in fact; how cool would it be to run a forge off of the heat of a trapped creature with a tremendously high homeotherm?

Why not?

Maybe because it would end up breaking the minimum magma depth mechanic-- even magma 1/7 provides that heat, if I'm not mistaken.  But that mechanic isn't very significant, now that there's magma on every map (used to matter, if you relied on the pits for magma in 40d).  If you can make 1/7 magma, you can make 7/7 magma.
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MonkeyHead

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2011, 04:56:18 am »

lol @ dragonfire furnace

G-Flex

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2011, 05:03:49 am »

Currently, the magma forge is designed to work off of, well, magma-- doesn't matter if the magma is hot or cold, just matters how deep it is.

Magma is always hot (the same temperature all the time, in fact) in DF, that's the thing. It's never cold.


But in general, yeah, this isn't a bad idea. However, it would break for people who have Temperature turned off. I guess it could always check for magma too?
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peskyninja

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #3 on: August 06, 2011, 05:39:37 am »

Currently, the magma forge is designed to work off of, well, magma-- doesn't matter if the magma is hot or cold, just matters how deep it is.

Magma is always hot (the same temperature all the time, in fact) in DF, that's the thing. It's never cold.


But in general, yeah, this isn't a bad idea. However, it would break for people who have Temperature turned off. I guess it could always check for magma too?
I agree.
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EmperorJon

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2011, 06:04:13 am »

I'd so build a Clown Furnace. :D
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Starver

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2011, 06:55:07 am »

I'd so build a Clown Furnace. :D
It occurs to me that this should have an affect on the quality of the goods.  If you could persuade the craftsman to make the item, and any other dwarf to use the item, it'd have a big effect on everyone else.  I sort of imagine a madly twisted (yet effective) sword wielded by a dwarf whose breastplate and other armour has a fearful affect on all enemies...[/tangent]


However, back to the idea, if the magma forge dips a heat-pipe into the cell below (even though no obvious material for this is used in its construction, save for the anvil which is quite plainly on the workshop level[1]), and which stretches up into the furnace-like part of the workshop, then it's vulnerable to building destroyers on the level below (at least knocking off the pipe, rendering the workshop useless[2]).

So instead it must bring magma up in some way (again, no obvious moving parts, but perhaps some sort of capillary action?) which means it needs close-enough magma in the current and traditional style of the workshop.  I could see a restrained heat-producing creature also being employed in a specially constructed version of the workshop that effectively relies upon a cage-against-furnace design on the same level, with no need for Z-1 to be intruded[2a], with (frexample) a halter to constrain the dragon with and aim its breath to the required spot.  Perhaps something stocks-like for magma men.  No idea about magma crabs[3], but stick to just the cage (on top of the base material of the non-magma, non-mundane workshop, and the anvil if a forge) as a component, and I could see it being logical enough.  (In DF terms, certainly!)


But that's just my simple thoughts, and probably have a number of failings (on top of those I've already mentioned) that I should see if I spent some more time thinking about it.


[1] Perhaps it's an anvil with a "long foot"?  But if it's hot enough to make a new anvil in, how come the extant anvil is safe from the heat...  My head quite hurts trying to twist that particular logic around... :)

[2] At least temporarily.  You'd get a new bit of pipe and lower it through the hole like another keel for one of those small sailboats.

[2a] I can see the argument that being trapped below would also give heat to the layer above, but there must be more to it than merely rising heat from a (sufficiently tall) mass of flame, so directing some possibly coerced creature to concentrate their natural flame attack seems to me more properly applied in a horizontal rather than vertical way.

[3] I've got a fort with zombie magma crabs[4].  Must see if I can capture one, just for the 'lulz'.  Let's see, I'm already tapping a magma pipe for my red-hot-fluid needs, so if I made another tapping through a corridor with cage-traps (heat proof mechanisms, definitely, but heat-proof cages as well?  I assume it'd only be (fireproof) animal cages for the magma-vermin, and I haven't notice fire-snakes in any of my forts for ages...) and kept the other end enticingly open or start an obsidian industry, maybe some would wander into it...  Well, perhaps after I've sorted out some other design issues of the above-ground fortress.  They're unlikely to wander away before I get around to it.

[4] Apparently you can get a cream for that.
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Wimopy

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2011, 04:43:18 pm »

Oh, this could lead to catsplosion*-powered furnaces, couldn't it? Also, you could have a special forge for caged-creature operation that checks the homeotherm of creatures in cages (toggleable, might cause lag), so you could use the dragonfire as a reagant, making extremely powerful weapons with flame damage, but that's - again - my imagination going off.

Would be nice to use it, but I see no other heat sources than magma, dragons, cats and the likes that have the power to melt stone. Maybe we're better off with the current system...

*Thermo-Nuclear.
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Draco18s

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #7 on: August 07, 2011, 01:49:34 pm »

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JohnLukeG

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #8 on: August 08, 2011, 12:56:21 am »

I'm all for making Dwarf Fortress more and more like the Flintstones.  I could certainly imagine some fire imp sitting under a furnace trying to keep it powered, then turning to the camera and spouting some sarcastic pun about his job.
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Draco18s

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #9 on: August 08, 2011, 08:25:52 am »

I'm all for making Dwarf Fortress more and more like the Flintstones.  I could certainly imagine some fire imp sitting under a furnace trying to keep it powered, then turning to the camera and spouting some sarcastic pun about his job.

"No pink!"
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Starver

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #10 on: August 08, 2011, 09:26:05 am »

I'm all for making Dwarf Fortress more and more like the Flintstones.  I could certainly imagine some fire imp sitting under a furnace trying to keep it powered, then turning to the camera and spouting some sarcastic pun about his job.

"No pink!"

ISWYDT.
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Draco18s

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #11 on: August 08, 2011, 09:34:08 am »

I'm all for making Dwarf Fortress more and more like the Flintstones.  I could certainly imagine some fire imp sitting under a furnace trying to keep it powered, then turning to the camera and spouting some sarcastic pun about his job.

"No pink!"

ISWYDT.

* Draco18s grins large and toothily
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G-Flex

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #12 on: August 08, 2011, 03:11:41 pm »

I'm lost.
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Draco18s

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Re: Magma forge becomes heat forge!
« Reply #13 on: August 08, 2011, 03:30:58 pm »

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