Heya! I'm working on my new fort, and I've got ambitions. As we all know, this is going to end gloriously, terribly, or gloriously terribly. I can't wait!
I'm building around a volcano right now, which is all well and good. At the moment I can't do much with it, since we just embarked, but I'm planning for the future. I want to go into the middle of the volcano, and construct an obsidian tunnel all the way down to HFS.
I'd like some advice for both creating the tunnel, and reaching across a volcano. I don't have much experience experimenting with drawbridges, so I'd like to know some of the details of how they work.
My current idea for crossing the volcano is to construct a magma-safe tunnel as some sort (diagram in spoiler). There are some questions, though.
1. Will a drawbridge block magma from rising through it?
2. Do drawbridges have to be connected to a wall in some way? Or could I use a floor?
F = floor, x = bridge
Unfolded bridge
F X X X X
F X X X X
F X X X X
F X X X X
Folded Bridge
X
X
X
X
| = wall, - = floor/roof
- - - - - - -
| |
- - - - - - -
This is to handle the natural lower/raising of the magma level in a volcano.
Theoretically the floor would be entirely built out of drawbridges, so you can drop nobles elves invaders into the magma below.
Also for actually cutting through volcanos with bridges maybe to make a 'capstone' from a lower position to hold a portion of your tube, you'd have to first drain the lava so its safe to construct the bridge with a controlled run-off while ensuring the lava spreading out and getting higher from below doesn't interrupt the builder, which over the wide z area, is a bit of a head-scratcher and highly dependent on how competent a DF fluid engineer you are, and your local site geography.
- Problem being for your diagrams is that bridges start off already extended, then can have their directions set to none (retract and dissapear from view), or directionals which pull them up into walls, which means they must have the room for them to extend-over, rather than springloading a upright gate which is then suprise-dropped as soon as there is enough room to accomodate it.
Alternative examples of obsidianization projects are like laying concrete in a multi-story building, (casting on site or moving it into a more adequate place in a controlled way), with the consideration that every piece of the bridges holding that lava in place must also be magma proof, or the heat will melt the most vunerable part first (the blocks or the mechanisms) and deconstruct the bridge.
(http://www.concretecoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/RC_frame.jpg)
DF has loose physics in that not all of those supports in the diagrams might not be needed, which could easily be moved to a ring of scaffolding to dock the pumps as long as one solid piece connects to a surface. Even in this diagram you could create a psuedo natural feature out of obsidian by control collapse by retracting the bridge with the obsidianized stone (cutting it loose to bear only on the bridge) or de-activating the supports (means rebuilding everything you toppled), which is the mechanics of a landmass clump-up that those 9 theoretical levels (water and lava held seperate, mixed evenly, then prepared) becomes 3 natural stone condensed ones at the bottom, which is a drop in the ocean before plugging 500+