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[Olith McHuman]

You thought magma cannons were dead after the .31 update? Well it is a LOT harder due to the caverns and the distance, but with the large amount of magma in the magma sea, much more rewarding. Actually, even that wasn't enough for me, it runs out of magma too quickly. I had to build two magma holding tanks near the surface. All told, it uses about 60500 units of power. This is provided by a huge number of waterwheels. I used an exploit where any body of water that flows off the map is permanently marked as moving to make them work - no pumps or maintenance required.

To fire the cannon, pull the lever marked "Magma Lift Power" in the dinning room at hotkey F4. This will pump magma from the magma sea onto the surface. Or, if the firing doors are closed (see next paragraph), this magma will be pumped into the holding tanks. Then pull the lever marked "Pump From Magma Tanks" (be sure not to pump from the magma tanks if you wish to refill them). This will pump magma out of the tanks and into the magma lift pumps. The magma exits from a 3x3 hole just in front of the entrance at F1.

The level of magma can be controlled by 3 levers at the bottom left of the dinning room. It's not set to pump anywhere in the save file, be sure to pick one lever. Be warned that at the highest setting, some of the towers will over top. The magma won't get in the fort (hopefully!), but keep this in mind. If nothing happens, try the lever marked "Unstick Magma Cannon Flow".

You may notice the ground outside is rather barren. This is because this world was generated before the plants rewrite, and the generic grass all got burned up and doesn't seem to regrow (but trees and bushes don't grow back too?). I think this gives the fort a nice lava burned wasteland look . You may also notice this fort is running fortress defense mod, and some races that should be ambush only (such as hellfire imps and great fiend spiders) will siege you. I assume that this is because the fort's astronomical created wealth (from the pumps with high quality steel parts, high quality construction, and high quality design) is bugging out the arrival conditions .

(I did use dfhack a bit, such as to help dig out the magma holding tanks. They originally were filled with down and up-down stairs since I had mined for metals here and didn't want to cause cave-ins. The magma moving over the stairs caused epic amounts of lag when I tried to fill the tanks. So I modified dfderamp to turn stairs with a channel designation into empty space. The bottoms of the tanks were manually de-staired and smoothed.)

The save:
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=5263

edit: Uploaded a movie, because watching everything in real time sure beats watching it at 0 fps. In this case, an elven caravan is the target. As is the rest of the map.
http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-2400-byebyemerchants

[Anathema]

Any fortress with a lever marked "Unstick Magma Cannon Flow" is a winner in my book. There's something about the unsettling implication that the massive, omnicidal magma cannon could fail to work as intended, and that industrious dwarves have anticipated and even prepared for this eventuality with a properly marked lever. You do the legacy of Boatmurdered proud, good sir.

[Necro910]

[flieroflight]

i wish i could see your face when you saw this and remembered that you were anable to do your characteristic yell.

also, how does this work? im assuming a variant of the pump stack submerged in magma method, possibly 4 or 5 leading up into the holding tanks, with another 4 or 5 stacks ready to spred onto the surface

[Loud Whispers]

You should totally build a prison in the middle of nowhere, suspended with a chain/rope on constructions made of wood.

When the cannon is turned on...

SACRIFICE.

[Necro910]

i wish i could see your face when you saw this and remembered that you were anable to do your characteristic yell.

Ask and you shall receive.

[Psilobe]

That's what I call bringing a nuke to a fistfight!

[Loud Whispers]

"Boy, you just brought a whip to a -QUICK HE'S NOT LOOKING PULL THE LEVER."

[Olith McHuman]

Added a link to a movie of the cannon in action to the top post. Just in case there are people who don't like downloading a 63 MB fort just to see it crawl along at 0 fps . I would have used one I made earlier, but it was too big to upload to dfma.

As for how it works - lots of pumps. About 4500 of them. Some of them form a "root" system over the magma sea, these feed into one of two nine pump wide stacks that go up to the surface. These either fill the holding tanks, or pump onto the surface. The holding tanks contain a massive number of pumps at the bottom, these (as well as the pumps from the magma sea) feed into towers that lift the magma above ground level. It is then forced back down, and out of the hole in front of the entrance to the fort.

[Dwarfnet]

This ... this is so beautiful. It speaks to the dwarven soul. 

[Triaxx2]

I marvel at the awesomeness of your dedication to the craft of magma based destruction.

[Urist Da Vinci]

You thought magma cannons were dead after the .31 update? Well it is a LOT harder due to the caverns and the distance, but with the large amount of magma in the magma sea, much more rewarding. Actually, even that wasn't enough for me, it runs out of magma too quickly. I had to build two magma holding tanks near the surface. All told, it uses about 60500 units of power. This is provided by a huge number of waterwheels. I used an exploit where any body of water that flows off the map is permanently marked as moving to make them work - no pumps or maintenance required.
...

Actually, there have been a few magma-based superweapons since the 0.31 update:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=67905.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=77353.0

Yours, however, uses more power and more magma to nuke the entire surface. That makes it more powerful, though personally I enjoy the ability to aim.

Any fortress with a lever marked "Unstick Magma Cannon Flow" is a winner in my book. There's something about the unsettling implication that the massive, omnicidal magma cannon could fail to work as intended, and that industrious dwarves have anticipated and even prepared for this eventuality with a properly marked lever. You do the legacy of Boatmurdered proud, good sir.

I encountered that problem in my cannon (but never built a solution) where the magma will occasionally refuse to pump up a shaft, and you need to toggle a door or floodgate somewhere else in the system to prompt it.

[BloodBeard]

I've always wanted to do this <3 (except mine would be a giant spaceship that destroyed everything below ala independance day)

I tip my hat to you sir. I'm just as impressed that it's able to run at all without immediately crashing your window.

[peskyninja]

PLEASE STONESENSE PICS!

What are those big empty room with no roof at the surface?

[Anathema]

I encountered that problem in my cannon (but never built a solution) where the magma will occasionally refuse to pump up a shaft, and you need to toggle a door or floodgate somewhere else in the system to prompt it.

Curious. Do you have any idea why this problem occurs, and why that particular solution works, or are we just marking it down as an arbitrary bug?