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[Old Skool]

Will Magma cool while being piped long distances? If it 'escapes' how far (horizontally, up and down) will it flow?

There is a volcano on my current location, but I built the fortress kinda far away to avoid the imps.

How far can I pipe the magma? Is water the only thing that cools magma?

Thanks!

[Albedo]

Gawdz, read the wiki.

Magma doesn't cool. It has to be at least 2/7 deep or it will disappear.

READ THE WIKI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE LINK IS IN THE HEADER ON THE MAIN FORUM PAGE!!!!!!!!!!

[a.random.persona]

Gawdz, read the wiki.

Magma doesn't cool. It has to be at least 2/7 deep or it will disappear.

READ THE WIKI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE LINK IS IN THE HEADER ON THE MAIN FORUM PAGE!!!!!!!!!!

True, but theres no need to go on about reading the wiki. Its things like this that prevent some people from asking questions. No need to go on about it. AND this is what the forum is for.

[Albedo]

I disagree. The forum is for personal problems that cannot be trivially researched with the click of a button. Questions like "Does magma cool?" or "Do animals breed?" or "How do you smelt ore?" are things I learned the answer to in the first 10 minutes on the wiki - and I wasn't looking for them.

How to tap magma - meh, that's more complicated (even if that answer is in the wiki too).

OS - Once you've read the wiki, do ask more questions as they arise. The diff between someone who has clearly made some effort and someone who has not even bothered is a big diff - if you care about that.

[Cogsmith]

Since none of this is answering the question....

Magma evaportates like water. To do so it must be at a depth of 1/7 and remain as such for some time. Nominally not a problem, but magma moves slowly, so...

The real issue is the width of your channel. A wider channel allows more magma to move(which will allow it to get farther before it starts evaporating faster than it flows), but also drains your source faster (and if you don't have sufficient source to push your magma to where you're going then it's just wasted effort)

A narrower channel drains the pipe slower but will start evaporating sooner.

Of course if your willing to get creative (and veeeeery patient)with magma-proof pumps and power systems none of this matters and you can practically teleport magma across the map.

[Old Skool]

Thanks Cogsmith. That's what I was trying to figure out.

I started my fortress far from the caldera since I was worried about fire imps. I guess I will have to move my base closer to where I want my smelting zone.

Albedo, you can just ignore my posts from now on if you find them so offensive. I won't mind at all. really

[father_alexander]

Thanks Cogsmith. That's what I was trying to figure out.

I started my fortress far from the caldera since I was worried about fire imps. I guess I will have to move my base closer to where I want my smelting zone.

Albedo, you can just ignore my posts from now on if you find them so offensive. I won't mind at all. really

albedo is half right half wrong, while he completely over reacted, you should check the wiki, this was there, not so much for us answering, but rather for your own good, its faster, and usually more exact


anyways wen it comes to magma, its basically what cogsmith said, still its not so hard to avoid fire imps, actually its really simple, you should dig your furnace and let the magma get into a channe, then put a wall between the channel and the magma pipe/pool and carve a fortification in the wall, this will let the magma come in but not the creatures

hope that helps

[Shoku]

In small forums the most effective way to deal with threads that don't belong is just skipping over them. Yelling at someone just puts them into defense mode most of the time and gets the thread a lot of attention in the form of people telling you you shouldn't have yelled.

And just because this is a niche game doesn't mean everyone in that niche is also in the "can stand browsing a wiki" niche.

--

As for getting magma halfway across the map I just do a single tile wide tunnel- with the way bodies of fluid flow multiple tiles wide won't really help the magma get over there faster. You might technically be able to speed up the process some by having the tunnel drop down a z level after some number of tiles but I haven't tested that.

If you embarked on a 6x6 (default) then don't worry about putting the pumps near the pipe unless you want them ready fast. More than half that map in distance is going to take awhile to fill up but you shouldn't need to worry about the magma evaporating before it gets there unless maybe if your tunnel intersects the very top layer of the pipe.

Now, if you want it fast with a screw pump you'll be able to fill any length of 1 wide tunnel in just a few minutes except maybe if you're taking magma from the top layer of the pipe again. Pumps will move magma faster that water usually flows so no worry there.

However, without already having forges for metal/glass you'll have to resort to wood for the giant screw or at least for the pipe segment. Those can burn just from the temperature of the magma (usually you couldn't burn anything without getting magma on the same tile,) but how long that's actually going to take varies quite a bit.

If you don't have some pump operators you can risk you can still pump magma safely by having some down stairs right past the pump into the tunnel you want full of magma. It will drop right away so even if the pump burns up there won't be any way for it to flow back and burn the pumper. If you've channeled out the spots for your forges this pump CAN pump magma into your fort but since you can just tell the dwarf to stop pumping worst you'd get are a few tiles of magma in the forge area and they'll evaporate soon enough. (Don't stick anything flammable nearby though.)

Or you could transfer power with gears and axles but since you haven't been to the wiki and don't know about magma that probably seems a bit daunting. If not go right ahead but include an off lever so you can set the pump to permanently off and make it into a wall (I'm pretty sure it won't burn up when not in use, even with a wall of magma on the one side of it,) but if it burns up half way it might take an even longer time for the lava to evaporate so you can build another pump. If you use the drop I mentioned before with a powered pump it's that much more important that you can turn it off- unless you have the tunnel rise back up to the same level as the pump- since lava doesn't hold pressure without a pump working on it the lava wouldn't flow back up and over the pipe even if the end was full.

...but I've probably described enough stuff to make you feel dizzy so don't worry about it for now.

[Shaostoul]

Magma will flow as long as it is 2/7. HOWEVER!!! If it reaches 1/7 it has that chance to cool. If you have it moving a huuuuuge distance and the magma isn't filling as fast as it is draining, you will effectively lose that Z-level of magma.

[Jim Groovester]

I disagree. The forum is for personal problems that cannot be trivially researched with the click of a button. Questions like "Does magma cool?" or "Do animals breed?" or "How do you smelt ore?" are things I learned the answer to in the first 10 minutes on the wiki - and I wasn't looking for them.

Albedo, the purpose of this forum isn't just to answer questions, it's to introduce new players to Dwarf Fortress and our community. It's therefore very important to be polite and friendly, to show new players that the people who play Dwarf Fortress aren't just a bunch of rude jerks that don't like answering questions, but rather, friendly, polite, and intelligent people who enjoy seeing that their favorite game is growing because new people are playing the it.

Your first post in this thread can not be said to have served that purpose.

So please, for the love of Armok, don't lash out at any new players because they didn't look at the wiki before they came here.

[Shoku]

Magma will flow as long as it is 2/7. HOWEVER!!! If it reaches 1/7 it has that chance to cool. If you have it moving a huuuuuge distance and the magma isn't filling as fast as it is draining, you will effectively lose that Z-level of magma.

I've played on glacial maps where I was melting ice with magma and accidentally filled my evaporation chambers up to all 2's with some 3's floating around. It takes longer but that evaporates too.

[Sutremaine]

If you've channeled out the spots for your forges this pump CAN pump magma into your fort but since you can just tell the dwarf to stop pumping worst you'd get are a few tiles of magma in the forge area and they'll evaporate soon enough. (Don't stick anything flammable nearby though.)

...Like dwarves. I did that once on my first 3D fortress.

Putting the impassible (dark green) tile of the magma workshops over the channel will stop that from happening.

[Albedo]

Since none of this is answering the question....

A narrower channel drains the pipe slower but will start evaporating sooner...

Sigh.  Lies.  It appears Cog hasn't read the wiki either.  If you're going to answer, answer correctly, so you don't spread confusion, leaving others to clean up your mess.

OldSkool - Magma will never evaporate from a canal of 1-tile width.  Why? Because it's filling, and any magma that is 1/7 will almost immediately become 2/7, and the next tile will then become 1/7.  To evaporate, the 1/7 depth has to sit around for a while - and that simply won't happen.

What's more, if it's a pipe (not a pool), it will refill.  If it's a pool, a 1-wide tile tunnel drains less. 1-wide is the way to go if you don't need a massive flow for other purposes (making obsidian, death traps, etc.)

You can dig a feeder-tunnel all across your map - it might take a few "days" to fill, but that's usually fast than digging something wider for no purpose whatsoever.

And if I vented momentary frustration, I also answered the question.  You don't have to worry about magma cooling, nor evaporating in this instance.  Since it doesn't cool, you can pipe it forever. 

We could talk for 10 paragraphs about magma and not include every significant consideration.  The wiki has all the above info, and more.

[Cogsmith]

Since none of this is answering the question....

A narrower channel drains the pipe slower but will start evaporating sooner...

Sigh.  Lies.  It appears Cog hasn't read the wiki either.  If you're going to answer, answer correctly, so you don't spread confusion, leaving others to clean up your mess.

OldSkool - Magma will never evaporate from a canal of 1-tile width.  Why? Because it's filling, and any magma that is 1/7 will almost immediately become 2/7, and the next tile will then become 1/7.  To evaporate, the 1/7 depth has to sit around for a while - and that simply won't happen.

What's more, if it's a pipe (not a pool), it will refill.  If it's a pool, a 1-wide tile tunnel drains less. 1-wide is the way to go if you don't need a massive flow for other purposes (making obsidian, death traps, etc.)

You can dig a feeder-tunnel all across your map - it might take a few "days" to fill, but that's usually fast than digging something wider for no purpose whatsoever.

And if I vented momentary frustration, I also answered the question.  You don't have to worry about magma cooling, nor evaporating in this instance.  Since it doesn't cool, you can pipe it forever. 

We could talk for 10 paragraphs about magma and not include every significant consideration.  The wiki has all the above info, and more.

First: This could have been said without the condescending attitude.

Second: The wiki is not the end all be-all. In more than one area I've found it to be either flawed or flat out wrong. I prefer to think of it as a guide more so than anything else.

Third: Your analysis is making a few false, or at least unneccessarily optimistic assumptions.
A tile of magma won't evaporate if it alters, and as magma flows tiles alter so, normally, not a problem, especially in a 1 wide.
The problem however is in really really LONG 1 wide channels the magma spreads forward faster than it comes in from it's source pipe/pool.
Since it spreads forward faster this leaves you with a vanguard of 1/7 tiles. I know this because more than once I've stared glumly at a 1x9 string of 1/7 magma tiles in a channel, watching a single 2 move up slowly just in time for the last tile to evaporate and be replaced. repeat ad infinitum.

Also: There's a diffrence between the pipe/pool and the source I mentioned. If you breach a pool at the surface level then your still breaching a pipe. But your source is only the pipes top z-level.
Now normally you would be correct. However the OP specifically said he's a long way from the pipe, and I prefer to always assume worst case scenario. So my advice applies to him doing this from the opposite corner of a large map, at surface level.

[Old Skool]

Thanks for all the great answers guys.. And I am sorry I snapped back. Please accept my apology!