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[Duke 2.0]

Okay, so I settle on a nice location. Next to a volcano, with plenty of ledges and terraces for a megaproject involving lava, channels, and lavafalls. So I set up some basic fortress stuff(Dining room next to a lake of magma? Necessary.), and I look around the map.
...
Where was the sand the soil lairs described? I've never really made a large-scale smelting operation, and I wanted to get my hands dirty practicing with the glass industry first. But nowhere could I find exposed sand. That is, unless I mistook sand for sandy loam.

So I look around for some source of sand. I hear underground rivers have sand near them. Great, I have three pages of dead snakemen, giant olm's and frogmen in the unit menu. All of them dead for some unknown reason.
Then again, why are they all dead? I've never seen a live one on that screen.

So here are my questions:
1. Does loamy sand count as sand?
2. Does lava give any good thoughts? Like, in a lake?
3. Any side-effects of making lava-falls?
4. How do I find an underground river? The (aquatic creature)-men are an indication of that, right?
5. Sand near such a river?
6. How the heck do I find it?
7. Some foul force making all life in there die?

[ March 28, 2008: Message edited by: Duke 2.0 ]

[THLawrence]

1.) No, loamy sand is not "pure". It can not be used in place of normal sand. However if you go into the raws and add the [SOIL_SAND] tag to loamy sand it will work.
2.) No lava does not give any good thoughts for just sitting in a lake.
3.) Well in old versions the magma would be used up but in the newer ones it will slowly refill. Watch out for lava mist. That burn your dwarves I think.
4.) To find the underground river you will need to do a lo of digging. There are some tricks to making it easier. Check the depot access, unincorporated map areas will appear as blank. However incorporated map areas that are still hidden appear as a bunch of red tiles.
5.) I haven't heard of there being sand near the river before. That may be from the 2-D version.
6.)Explained above. More to come.
7.) Cave river creatures will sometimes fall off the waterfall and into a chasm.  This is a known problem and can clear out large numbers of creatures. You won't see them when they are alive unless you open it up.

Incorporated map areas 48*48 areas that have been used at some point as well as all those above them. An unincorporated map area is one that has never had anything done to it. If you mine out a square in an unincorporated area it will become incorporated and all 48*48 tiles above it as well. Hidden features start out incorporated.

[Kagus]

Lava mist won't scorch your dwarves, but I'm not sure if it provides happy thoughts.  Also, lava refills at a painfully slow rate, so don't just tap into the caldera and pour the exit of the magmafall off the map or something.  The magma will drain out too fast and the fall will go dry.

Pumping (iron/steel pumps and bauxite mechanisms) should work just fine, however.   Watch out for the 'magma + pumps + = scary mutant magma U-bend bug'.  It's happened before.

However, the surface turns a nice red color some time after that happens.  You'd have your very own hellworld, covered in molten rock.

[Duke 2.0]

Huh. Something fascinating about creating a fortress on a rock in the middle of a lava hellworld with a single stretch of rock reaching the edge of the screen.

Must try!

Although the news of a slow lava refill rate does scale-down my plans, a normal moat could be achieved. My plan was to tap into the caldera directly and have the lava flow over the side, down several z-levels and into a moat/lake.

Thanks for all the help! I'll be sure to try these methods.

[bigmcstrongmuscle]

Be careful the falling lava doesn't overflow - pressure won't do it, but a waterfall onto a full tile will. You'll need to establish some kind of safe drainage channel for when that happens, or your lake will suddenly get a lot bigger than you intended. You could drain it either off the map or back into the caldera, which would have the added advantage of stopping the magma flow from drying up.

...Aww, crap. Now I've got the urge to build a giant magma-fall that shuts on and off at predictable intervals based on the magma level in the caldera. See what you've done?   :p

EDIT: When I say a drainage channel, I mean like this:

Key:
O = wall
~ = lava
* = lava-fall

SIDE VIEW:

code:

 **
 **
 **
 **
O~~ ~  ~~~~    -> leads back into Caldera
O~~~~~~~~OOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It means building an extra z-level into the lake, but it's worth it not to have the drainage channel constantly emptying the thing.

[ March 28, 2008: Message edited by: bigmcstrongmuscle ]