After a six month absence, I've finally returned to this little fort.
Progress started out incredibly slow, but has sped up in the last couple of months. I'll put more detail in various PoI's, but two of the root causes for my slow pace were the fact that I flooded one of my two obsidian farms, which wasn't bad in and of itself, but I had to shut off the water from the source as I didn't build any bridges to control the flow closer to the farms, and I screwed up in my mechanism placement for the second level of the magmaduct, so I had to build five or six bridges, one at a time, in order to reach my far bridge. Needless to say, that latter exercise took nearly two seasons to complete.
Despite the setbacks, however, the second level of the magmaduct greatly increased the amount of magma reaching my farms and my second farm is likely going to be back online before summer. So there should be a large amount of progress made during this coming year.
Broke 80 dwarves last spring, so I also got a couple sieges of my lightly modified goblins (Increased their size and gave them better overall gear, iirc...I modified these files over six months ago. I thought I also gave them the [NO_FEAR] tag, but I saw some flee, so I doubt that). First siege was just one squad of wrestlers along with a couple axemen, so about a dozen total. That fight was an utter massacre...and only two of my six champs did 90% of the fighting. The champs are only in iron gear and the worst "wound" was one of'em getting tired.
The second siege was a bit different. Nearly three dozen total, one group from the W, one from the SW, and one from the E. I saw the W group first, so I canceled all my harvesting designations on that half of the map to keep my civilians from charging out to their deaths. I forgot, however, to be the same for the W side once my attention got focused in that direction...and ended up losing one of my original seven...the wood cutter/carpenter to be precise. He was just about to reach legendary status in carpentry, too :/
Another amusing thing to note, I got to watch one of my badly injured dwarves (he was bed ridden for at least six months) get possessed and fall unconscious every five to ten steps he took...and he ended up gathering at least six materials, two of which (marble) he went down to one of my lower levels to get thanks to the pathfinding ignoring z-levels. He ended up creating a marble bed worth 86.4k.
You can see the left obsidian farm in mid drop and the right one, after nearly a year of work, is finally about to be usable again.
I ended up flooding the right farm due to not checking if the water feed gates were closed before dropping. Needless to say, the pressurized water flooded the farm before I could close either the water drop or the water feed as both of the levers were located on the same level as the farm. This was around mid spring of 204...
Ended up cutting the water off from the source and gradually using the depressurized water up in my left farm. Once I was able to dam the aqueduct right before the fork, I setup some doors to control the water flow through my catacombs and started draining the farm into my cistern.
Added in some control gates for each side that are linked to my main level to prevent something like this from happening again. - Ashery
There are 20 comments for this map series, last post 2010-12-07
Bladeshoots
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Submitted by: magic dwarf - 2009-01-03 to 204 Early Spring
Nice design. I hope you finish it soon.
Your obsidian farm looks dangerous, I don't think its up to DOSHA (dwarven Occupational safety and health administration) standards
Submitted by: Ashery - 2009-01-03 to 204 Early Spring
I've had a couple minor issues, but as I'm using "Restricted" pathing for the bottom level, dwarves rarely walk down into the pit unless they're picking up raw obsidian.
I've had a couple dwarves sidestep into the pit in order to avoid going prone, but even when that happened during a refill, the dwarf got out in time (There were two adjacent tiles with magma at the time).
Pets, however, ignore the designation...
...now I just have to hope a cat wanders into the pit.
[Message edited on 2009/01/03 at 07:33 by Ashery]
Submitted by: Ashery - 2009-01-03 to 204 Early Spring
Just had my first injury with the obsidian farms...A mangled left foot from someone who sidestepped into the pit as it was filling.
Submitted by: magic dwarf - 2009-01-03 to 204 Early Spring
I'm afraid that we are gonna hafta shut your farm down due to safety concerns. You get two weeks to get it up to code and get your act together. If you don't comply we're not hesitant to bulldoze your cruel and usual death trap.
Submitted by: Ashery - 2009-01-03 to 204 Early Spring
Do I need to add that, thanks to a careless oversight, I completely flooded my east farm and had to seal it off completely for the time being? ;p
Had to cut off the river supply at the source (I neglected to install any backup control systems on my main level) so will have to wait an incredibly long time for it to drain into the chasm so that I can clear out the flooded farm.
Submitted by: Unbeltedsundew - 2009-01-04 to 204 Early Spring
Your fort is already looking pretty fantastic, cant wait to see it further along.
I find that with plumbing I often spend 10 times longer fixing my mistakes and draining it then it took to build in the first place. Its teaching me to be even more meticulous in the initial stages.
Submitted by: Ashery - 2009-01-04 to 204 Early Spring
The only thing I wish I had added earlier is a bridge right before the fork in the water supply to my farms...That would've allowed me to cut off the feed and quickly drain the flooded part of my farm into my eventual cistern.
Ah well, fixing one's screw ups is one of the joys of DF, XD
Submitted by: syhr - 2009-01-05 to 204 Early Spring
can you please explain the pump system you used for all that water because it seems very space efficient although i cant figure out how you did it because of your tileset
Submitted by: Qjet - 2009-08-13 to 207 Early Spring
@shyr
Pump system
Submitted by: starcannon - 2009-10-30 to 207 Early Spring
Holy cow. How is that you accomplished so much, in so little time??
Submitted by: Ashery - 2010-01-03 to 207 Early Spring
Excessive micromanagement, heh.
Which, amusingly enough, is also why I burn out on the game after only a few years and take an extended break from DF.
Considering taking it up again, but with the new release coming soon I might just start anew with that.
Submitted by: ajr_ - 2010-02-05 - Removed
Submitted by: ajr_ - 2010-02-05 to 208 Early Spring
I can't believe this was built in only 7 years but it looks true. Just amazing work. ++++dwarf karma
Submitted by: ClsfdKidd - 2010-02-05 to 208 Early Spring
Holy crap yes! This fortress looks amazing!
There is so much to love here. Great work!
Submitted by: Demonic Spoon - 2010-03-02 to 212 Early Spring
Lovely map, especially the sandy bit near the magma pipe.
Gorgeous fortress, love it. Awesome design, really, really nice.
Submitted by: Vermadus - 2010-03-05 to 213 Early Spring
Oh wow, this design is brilliant. I'm suprised you did all this with such a tiny obsidian farm though. Nice work!
Submitted by: Ashery - 2010-03-05 to 213 Early Spring
Thanks, and while there are definitely changes I'd make to my magma duct/farm design, the size of the farm is not one of them.
Yea, it's a pain to do a couple new batches every month, but it's efficient as all hell for my dwarves. My masons just grab the obsidian right from the farm and, once they run out, they spend a bit of time helping construct the tower while I produce another batch.
[Message edited on 2010/03/05 at 10:39 by Ashery]
Submitted by: Retro - 2010-03-31 to 213 Mid Winter
Oh my XD It looks like you've run into a little bit of trouble. hopefully it won't put the fort's finish date too far back. Bladeshoots continues to looks better and better.
Submitted by: Stromko - 2010-04-02 to 214 Early Spring
That is a work of art and dedication. I'm bookmarking this for inspiration. Even though I don't think I have the patience to work out such a steadfastly fractal design I admire it immensely.
Submitted by: Markavian - 2010-04-02 to 214 Early Spring
Dwarves build the best towers
Submitted by: Eric Blank - 2010-12-07 to 214 Early Spring
I love this! Very beautiful design, a grand role model for us all.