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[omglazers]

I constantly find myself with little or no metal industry due to the fact that it seems like a gigantic project to pump up magma to my fort proper. One day takes a year or two of creation if started right from the beginning of the embark.

Magma pistons don't really appeal to me due to the nature of it being a one-time deal, so I'm interested in learning how to basically manage digging right down to magma from the start and building workshops near the magma itself.

My biggest problem seems to be dealing with cavern/magma creatures. Aside from walling off the area which may be difficult at the beginning, how can I gain early early access to magma without putting the fort into too much danger?

[TherosPherae]

Volcano.

And if it's a tropical island, you don't have to deal with retarded goblins or sissy elves either.

[omglazers]

Volcano.

And if it's a tropical island, you don't have to deal with retarded goblins or sissy elves either.

I felt terrible and cheesy for making volcano worlds, so I stopped doing it a while ago. But yes, this is obviously the EASIEST way. Aside from this though...

[FlamingCow]

Again, it's world generation altering but I've changed my worlds to give only 1 cavern layer, it means I still have the caverns (woot) but also means that magma is rarely more than 20z down, easily accesible, even without pumps. In my current fort it's about 12-z down, so the metal industry is just connected to the rest of the fort by a shaft.

[FleshForge]

You could build everything down where the magma is - what do you need to go to the surface for anyway, once you get a foothold?  While I'm ont into the military side of the game too much I don't have any problem just digging around the caverns and walling up any security holes, build your depot 100 z-levels down and make those asshole diplomats and traders do all the walking.

[Vercingetorix]

I usually dig down to the magma sea or a safely ensconced pipe as early as possible, flooring over staircases if and when I break in to the caverns.  As long as you're careful and either don't forget about flooring off the staircases (especially if construction is suspended for whatever reason) or making sure someone completes it in a timely fashion, you won't have a problem.  In my current fort I've been working the magma sea since year 2.  I still haven't built a pump stack due to the unwieldly nature of the caverns on this map, but the only FBs and other creatures I've had to deal with got in because of the mistakes mentioned above.

Another plus of this method is it does often reveal a lot of gems, ore, and stone because breaking in to the caverns reveals every deposit that is exposed within that cavern within the field of view created.

It is tedious as all hell to dig down 140 z-levels and then triangulate the position of the magma based on warm stone, but it's completely safe as long as you have patience and a dwarf with masonry enabled.

[Vercingetorix]

You could build everything down where the magma is - what do you need to go to the surface for anyway, once you get a foothold?  While I'm ont into the military side of the game too much I don't have any problem just digging around the caverns and walling up any security holes, build your depot 100 z-levels down and make those asshole diplomats and traders do all the walking.

I did that with a previous fort.  It's really worth it to settle the caverns...if you've got a good mason, you can often get yourselves walled in shortly after the first crundle.  Plus, the concept of a fortress deep below the Earth like that is pretty much universally amazing, especially if it's booming.

[omglazers]

flooring over staircases

I have no clue what this means

[FleshForge]

Means that when you're digging a staircase down, and it breaks into a cavern, you immediately build a FLOOR construction at the part of the staircase that borders the cavern.  This makes it impassible so you have to dig a new up/down stairway pair 1 tile over.

[Vulcanius]

Just build straight down, right through the caverns. If you breach a cavern through the ceiling use the b-C menu to build your staircases from the roof down and build walls around them to keep the nasty stuff out. It kills me when people build around caverns.

[FleshForge]

Well, I think it's a little easier and quicker to dig one tile than it is to build four walls and a staircase but that's just me.

[Lytha]

I wouldn't bother to bring the magma up to you; I would do exploratory mining down to the magma lake (wall off any openings into the caverns that you ended up with on the way down), then set up a small amount of magma workshops down there. Yeah, they are at a great distance of the rest of your fortress, but at least, you can now get going.

Then either move your fortress down or some magma up.

That aside, I like volcanoes.

[Reese]

I refer you to this thread: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59894.0

OK, it's more than a little cheaty, but it will get you magma... On every map I've played there's been enough lignite and Bit.coal I didn't feel like I needed magma to have a serious metal working industry, though.

[Rowantwig]

Means that when you're digging a staircase down, and it breaks into a cavern, you immediately build a FLOOR construction at the part of the staircase that borders the cavern.  This makes it impassible so you have to dig a new up/down stairway pair 1 tile over.

Instead of a floor, you can build an upwards stairway. Your dwarves will still be able to use it from above, and it won't let anything in from below.

[FleshForge]

That's a better way, thanks