Lava Pit: Difference between revisions

* In ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'', if you have access to the lava and magma-safe materials to manipulate it, you can build a variety of death traps, and itmagma furnaces removes the need for coal to smelt all metals except steel or in other fuel-consuming workshops (glass furnace, kiln, forge); without mine-able coal, you'd use more time and jobs to chop, haul and turn into charcoal wood. Aside of efficiency, no-fuel industry opens possibilities: it uses wood so sparsely (charcoal for steel, ash for soap and glass) that you may cover all needs with import if none grows at your site, or avoid woodcutting in dangerous biomes, or remain elf-friendly without any real inconvenience. The only issue is the creatures like Fire Imps, Magma Men or Magma Crabs<ref>actually sort of a dog-sized winged insect, which can swim, crawl and ''spit molten basalt blobs'' — they even can be pets if caught and tamed</ref> living at said sites. On the upside, since magma stays hot forever (though "evaporates" like water when very shallow), a little magma reservoir under the furnace remains useful even if isolated. There's even an option in production of stone items to specify magma-safe rock (for mechanisms, hatches, etc).

** Now that there are mine carts, a minecart of magma-safe material makes magma handling almost too easy and pump stacks are no longer necessary, except for overkill amount of liquid. Since nickel is as cheap as copper, usually it's possible to bring a magma-safe cart<ref>cost 100 zorkmids; like one more sheep or an iron anvil — but unlike a cart, an anvil is useless until you got some metal plus fuel or magma, and normally can be purchased from dwarven merchants or pre-ordered once you're ready</ref> on embark, along with nickel chain<ref>20 zorkmids, like 2 heads of cheese or a pair of fowl</ref> for a roller (mechanism for it can be made from local magma-safe rock). Roller mentioned above is not necessary, but desirable to power the suddenly-heavy cart scooping magma by submersion in a channel — which is less dangerous than pouring it from above or in/out of a lock, since those ways involve a place your dorfs may treat as safe right until it floods with magma, but if a hole is full of magma constantly, dorfs at least aren't dumb enough to go swim there.