Bay 12 Games Forum

I am assuming they do not shoot through fortifications.

Actually, they do! They can only target enemies on the same Z-level as they are, though.

As for your marksdwarves, are they:

- Directly adjacent to the fortification they want to shoot though?
- More Z-levels up than they are horizontal spaces from their target? I believe each level of elevation creates an additional tile of 'blind spot' for a projectile.

I noticed that as well.  Isn't the forge called the black anvil though?  And the only place possible to smelt a particular kind of iron? (I don't have a blacksmith so I don't know for sure, I'm afraid I'm a tanner/leatherworker)

*dons nerd hat*

I haven't played WoW for many years, but the Black Anvil was the only place to make items using Dark Iron; most notably the Sulfuron Hammer, the basic component for 'Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros' - a legendary weapon.

EDIT: But Thunderfury was much, much cooler - I was always sad that the bindings were tank priority for DKP bids.

*removes nerd had, shivers with a mixture of nostalgia and regret*

The time will come when you will have too many of everything. Your dwarves will live confused and desolate lives, perpetually adrift amid the soft crags of mountain ranges comprised solely of masterwork socks. The elven traders will crumple beneath the weight of your gem-encrusted, platinum studded figurines of their ancestors' brutal slayings. You will bury treasures that would make adventurers weep for joy beneath seas of magma, just to never have to see them in the 'Stocks' screen ever again.

And you will long for the days of 'too many bones'.

Seriously, though, decorate everything and save a few stacks for strange moods.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't it be possible to do a very violent casting?  Fill up the entire block with magma, which means getting a wall in place around it to hold the magma.  Then, plump water onto the top of the whole thing.  It will cast obsidian, which then falls to the bottom of the tank and displaces more magma upwards, which then gets cast into obsidian, etc.  To prevet the top layer from sticking, you can make the top-most walls from floorgates, doors, or statues.  Anything that holds fluid but doesn't support a wall.

I don't see why that wouldn't work, but it would be less magma-efficient, less water efficient and (with the potential for magma mist and massive amounts of cave-ins) much less friendly to FPS and Dwarves.

Howdy!

I've decided to cast a 20x20x10 block of obsidian within which I will build my fortress proper. It'll be suspended a couple of z-levels above the ground, for additional challenge.

I've got my pump stack set up to fetch magma from the sea, and I've got another small stack to fetch water from the river. Now, I've done two levels of the obsidian block and everything is going as planned, except the building of floors around each level, then a wall on the inside edges of the floor, as well as curving the output "spout" of every second pump in the stack (since they face opposite directions) is becoming fairly tedious. Not that that's a huge problem, since projects like this are fun because they aren't easy.

However, I was wondering whether there were any established standards for design patterns for this sort of thing. Surely "Pure obsidian fort in the sky" has occurred to each and every one of you at least once.

Making a 34x34x8 obsidian cube right now... Three Z levels above ground, five below. For the pump stacks above ground, which feed into the top level of the cast (Z level +4) I just use dwarf power, because that means no need for extra generators or linkages, and no need to worry about linking the pumps vertically. I was originally going to use retracting bridges to drop the magma/water, but I forgot that bridges can melt so that didn't end well. I've just been pumping directly into the cast and it's been equally efficient, if a little more tricky to micromanage.

Two quick things:

- The wiki says that having warm stone (i.e. a reservoir of magma) underneath above-ground water will prevent it from freezing, but will it also increase the water's rate of evaporation?
- Is there any benefit to having heated water in a dorfbath (bonus happy thoughts) or is it just being cleaned + mist that they like?

Donation-worthy. Just lemme blow the dust off this credit card...

I try for warm, savage jungle wherever possible. I've only ever tried a Freezing embark once, and it... I don't want to talk about it.