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[jeffreyac]

Hi all - question....

I've recently grown tired of deforesting whole maps just to get my smelters running - my habits had reached the point where if I didn't embark on heavily forested or woodland areas, I'd be uncomfortably low on wood. No, to be a true Dwarf I needed to encounter and tame Magma!

So, on the most recent embark, after poking around the site, I decided to go for it. Just enough digging to get the fort started, then turn the miners loose on exploratory shafts, straight down. My plan was simple - I had researched magma pistons, and wanted to try one, so - find the magma, buid piston, use piston, die a fiery death and try and figure out what I did wrong profit!

So, anyway, was going well; I had to go WAAY deep, but found the magma sea around 140 levels below my embark. I was daunted by the size of the task - but then noted there was a magma channel running up to only -75 or so from my embark - score, work cut in half already! I set the miners to task, scouted the caverns, found a place to set up the magma piston (a vertical area with no caverns in the way), built a cistern for the magma at the bottom, and got ready to go! This was it, finally I'd get to see how magma smelters and forges worked!

...except, no, it seems...  The magma level in the shaft I found has dropped - currently about 15 z-levels below where it was when I first found it, and appears to be continuing to drop. (I hadn't noticed it dropping earlier; too busy scouting and builind the piston....)

So, after the setup, the question - I'm guessing this is normal, the magma flowing in and out of the magma sea. I'm hoping maybe it's a cycle, and the magma may come back up? If so, anyone know how long? I just got all set (for the previouos level), I'd hate to have to try and alter the project to go deeper to the magma sea another 75 levels (if I can even make that work...). Should I try and wait for the magma to come back, or just abandon the xistern I've built and try to make the magma sea?

If I do abandon the cistern - can I extend the rock (for the magma piston) by building constructed walls to fill in the cistern at the bottom (i.e. will constructed walls act the same as unmined rock for the purposes of connecting the piston and displacing the magma?)

[Urist Imiknorris]

Oh dear.

I'm not sure if I can tell you what's going on without spoilers. Suffice to say there's a leak in the magma sea and when/if it drains completely you're going to be in for some fun.

[jeffreyac]

.....




.....oh.


 



 

[Azated]

I advise you say your prayers and hope you have a good enough defense to fight the denizens of the deep.

[jeffreyac]

Hmmmm...  well, if I get your meaning, then I know the spoiler already (though not from firsthand experience, just from tales....)

I'll probably relegate this to a test fort then - try the mechanics of the piston (the support, the drop, etc.) and just consider it a trial for my next fort.

One thing though - the issue with the magma, is that common? My understanding was that the magma sea didn't intersect with the....  fun....

[Urist Imiknorris]

It's a result of severe elevation changes. Terrain is generated in 48x48 chunks, and if the elevation difference between two chunks is great enough, there will occasionally be a gap where the bottom of one chunk's semi-molten rock is higher than the next chunk's SMR's top, leaving a gap for HFS to exit the HFS and come straight for you. The only trigger needed for your doom is for that gap to be revealed.

You could floor over the magma pipe and never try to expose the magma sea, but you'd basically have to go without magma and your framerate has probably been suffering for the whole game.

[jeffreyac]

Ah!  I'd have missed that hint, too - I tried for the first time for this embark a smaller embark area, coupled with an increase in the FPS caps trying to see what kind of performance I could get. Guess this may explain why it wasn't really all that impressive of a boost, though....

Ah,well...  thanks for the responses!