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[rungus]

I'm still learning the ropes and using a bunch of dfhack cheats to stave off disasters in my current fortress while I learn how things work, and my next thing I want to experiment with is magma forges, magma smelters, etc. When I 'reveal' the map, I find that there are, if I remember correctly, 135 z levels to dig down through between the bottom of my current fortress and the beginning of the magma.

I guess my first question is: is this normal? Is it supposed to be so big?
Also, do you think it's a reasonable distance to commute every day for my workdwarves? It seems like a long way to me.
Or would you suggest that I find a way to bring lava up nearer to my now quite large fortress? If so, what's the easiest way to do that?
The only other option is that I rebuild my entire fortress nearer the magma, which would also be a lot of faffing about.
Or that I start a new fort in a volcano, I suppose, seeing as I'm learning the ropes and mucking around still.

How far do you think is too far to commute for a workdwarf?

Oh, and what's going on with 'helmet snakes'? A helmet snake attacked one of my dwarves today and in the fight report, there was a line 'the helmet snake stands up'. Like, is that normal? Does your helmet snake stand up like that? How do snakes stand up? Some kind of strange magic, no doubt.

Thanks!

[Loam]

135z is very deep, but not (AFAIK) unnaturally so, especially if you've embarked on a high-elevation area (like a mountain) and have all three cavern layers enabled.

Keep in mind that the distance between z-levels is identical to the distance between tiles in the x and y directions, meaning that a dwarf going down 135z is going no farther (i.e. taking no longer) than one traveling 135x or y. Which is still an appreciable distance, though probably not as bad as it seems. Still, it wouldn't be my first choice to have dwarves walk all that way, especially carrying heavy stuff like ore.
   Now, if you had ore and metal bar stockpiles near the magma, and linked those to the forges, you'd save your smelters and smiths the long haul - you could essentially create a "mini-fort" just for metalworkers down there. Other dwarves would still haul ore down and finished goods up, which would take a while, but using wheelbarrows would cut the time considerably. So I think that's feasible, if not the most efficient (or "dwarfy") solution.

Getting magma up to the existing fort would be the best outcome, but it'd be trickier.
   I would never in a million years build a 135z magma pump stack, especially not as a newer player. It'd take way too many resources and a lot of power (which, admittedly, isn't that hard to get if you have a stream). But pump stacks are also difficult to set up, as they require some precision engineering. Highest I've pumped is ~40z, and that was a pain.
   The other option is minecarts, which is a lot easier but requires some tedious management. Dump some (magma-safe) carts in a small, sealable chamber, then flood it with magma - it'll fill the carts, each of which holds 2/7 depth magma (you need at least 4/7 to operate a smelter or forge). Then drain the magma and unseal the room and let your dwarves take the carts up to your forge area (don't worry, they won't burn their hands). You can set up track stops adjacent to the pits where you want to dump the magma (make sure the stop is set to dump in the right direction!), then make routes that include those stops and assign the magma-filled carts to the route. As soon as the dwarf bring the cart to the stop he'll dump it. I know that sounds really complicated, but it's actually pretty easy once you figure out what buttons to press (and you should read the wiki about minecarts, track stops, and routes).
   You can apparently automate the minecart process with tracks and routes, but you don't need to - once you have your 4/7 magma pits you're set for life.

So I say: minecarts if you're bold (expect a few dwarves to get fried - such is life), or mini-fort for metalsmiths if you just want something basically functional.

And yeah, snakes (and other legless creatures, like carp) "standing up" is normal - just a quirk of the way DF understands "standing" and "lying down".

[PatrikLundell]

Largely the same as Loam posted while I typed:

It's not an unusual distance. Also note that they don't commute daily: the fortress tile is running at a different rate, so dorfs eat, drink, sleep, etc. more on a monthly basis than a daily one.

Bringing magma up to your workshops is quite doable by hauling it in magma safe mine carts. You need two cartloads of magma per magma workshop (4/7 depth of magma in a single tile, preferably underneath an impassable tile of the workshop).
To unload the mine carts you need track stops that dump into the single tile channeled hole where the workshop power is to be, then you need to set up a route on top of the track stop, and, once you have a full mine cart, assign that mine cart to that route and the dorfs will carry the mine cart there (possibly via stockpiles, due to a bug).

There are two main ways to fill mine carts: Send them through magma to scoop it up, or build a screw pump that pumps the magma into a single tile "room" where the empty mine cart is placed via a route. I use the latter method for magma hauling.
You can also use magma pump stacks, but that's really for large amounts, and you can make mine tracks for carts to be pushed rather than carried, but, again, that's more for a constant transport need rather than a few mine carts worth.

I've had a fortress where the distance to the work sites was about 300 tiles, and that was a bit much.

If you knock a helmet snake down it will probably "stand up" when it changes its prone to the side position to prone on the belly one. The message likely isn't tailored to the specific kind of locomotion. If you want, you can consider "standing up" to be reclaiming the kind of position a cobra uses when "dancing" (i.e. preparing to strike).