Bay 12 Games Forum

Flood the fort with lava and blame the nobility. Call it lavagate

I laughed.

Quote from: MobRules on July 07, 2015, 04:55:22 pm

Quote from: Magnumcannon on July 07, 2015, 12:26:57 pm

GCS Doberman bomb, anyone?

Must. Try. This.

This is a good way to take on the HFS, actually

Only until one webflinging clown shows up.

Water falling onto magma that is right above a 'magma flow' tile (SMR floor) will not transform it into obsidian. Instead, the tile will be empty of both magma and water for one or two steps.

There's a complicated process for transforming it into obsidian, and I'd be happy to inform you about it if you want. It involves painstakingly building downstairs on the z-level above, then dropping water and designating constructed upstairs on the temporarily empty tile. Your dwarves will build the upstairs without regard for the magma filling the tile. Then more dropped water will actually obsidianize the tile.

So you have two options: Either go through the pain-in-the-ass process above, or go up one z-level, fill it with magma, and obsidianize THAT instead.

I have successfully pierced an aquifer three times now. The first time was a crudely-done cave-in pierce of a single level. The two more recent ones are both double-level double-slit pierces, now fully walled off with staircases going all the way through the fort. I usually don't build aboveground forts of any kind, opting instead to cap the top with a faucet-shaped hatch-cover entryway. (It's instantly sealable against building destroyers.)

The most elaborate build I ever did, however, was a multi-zone magma landmine system, constructed at great hazard in a realm of death clouds that caused anything caught in them to bleed to death in seconds. No goblin siege (of the many that tried) survived the surface anyway, but after I added the landmines there was even less reason for them to continue to show up.

I raised a pump stack from the magma sea all the way to 6 z-levels aboveground and filled a large tank of lava. Then I ran a pipe down about 10 z-levels and branched it into the extended landmine system. Each branch went to a separate landmine, some of which went through major sections of my fort. I had to put magma pipes through some of the stockpiles. The pump stack kept the magma pressurized from the magma sea. It was powered by a 1700+ power battery of water reactors.

When I wanted to unleash a landmine, I used the "mark for deconstruction" glitch to force lava through raised drawbridges down in the branch tunnels. That would allow the pump stack to force magma up the pipe and fountain the glorious hot stuff five or six z-levels above the plain, incinerating anything within a few steps of the pipe exit and setting the surface on fire to clear out even more invaders. A complicated lever system reset each drawbridge and I could stop the pump stack at will by throwing a lever to connect over 200 gears and jam the system.

The caravans never had issues because I built them a custom entryway with raised bridges and floors to protect them from the bleeding clouds and the invaders. Only one theif ever found his way in through that entrance and he got caught by a cage trap. That fort also had a legendary Butcher duchess who became a legendary lasher after training for a few months in my danger room. The fort never fell, and was eventually deleted by a hard disk wipe.

Burrow restrictions and common-sense engineering can prevent all infant deaths. The stockpiles for my training facilities are located near the doors, and burrow restrictions keep the kids in the correct zones while allowing the parents to restock the piles without crossing any spears.

I should post pictures.

Staalo, did you ever get any deaths to falling while you were training kids to jump off into the pool? One of my adult miners in my current fort just leaped to avoid a spear and fell, crushing his throat and bleeding to death on the way to the hospital. I have shamelessly savescummed but unless that was a complete anomaly I'll need to make some changes to the way I'm doing things.

I keep playing, though not consistently, because this game is deeper than anything else I've ever encountered in terms of the variations it can have. I love reading stories of the exploits of others, and I love building grand forts with the most precision and greatest efficiency of space. (I'm zeroing in on a really really good style - it actually depends on having an aquifer to pierce, believe it or not). I love starting with nothing but a pick for the sake of a clean beginning without all those silly trappings you can spend points on.

I love trying to do all of the above in a haunted glacier with yetis (and worse) breathing down my dwarves' necks while they frantically dig for the caverns and try to establish some sort of functional fort in the creepy depths while giant cave spiders snatch them one by one.

I don't go really in depth on knowing my dwarves, but the story of the fort is very interesting to me and I love to push things to extremes - crocsplosions, massive pump stacks, trapping forgotten beasts, surviving with only twenty dwarves...

You haven't dug deep enough. All candy leads to the circus. It's just a matter of how far down you must go.