I have several magma smelters and forges, located right on top of a pool of naturally occurring magma (i.e., quite deep). It's a long haul to go from the surface where most of these items reside, to the magma work-area, and I have a large number of items to move. What's the most efficient way to get these items melted down? Things I've considered:
- Dig a new 1×1 shaft all the way down from the surface, with a hatch cover; then designate a dump zone next to the shaft and mark all the goblinite for dumping. I haven't done this yet, as I am afraid that the dropped items will explode/shatter when they hit bottom, injuring my magma-smithy workforce, or become damaged to the point of being unmeltable (can that happen?)
- Setup a minecart route of some kind. I am in progress on this, it is an unpowered route
- Setup a multi-minecart chute system I just came up with this, not sure on viability. How durable are minecarts if you drop them from a great height?
- Setup a pair of stockpiles, one on the surface that accepts all the things I want to melt, and one in the forge area that only takes from the surface pile, and assign wheelbarrows/bins appropriately. This seems surefire to work, but possibly very slow
Best Answer
Dig a new 1x1 shaft all the way down from the surface, with a hatch cover; then designate a dump zone next to the shaft and mark all the goblinite for dumping. You can drop a crystal flute a hundred z-levels and it will be none the worse for wear. Just make sure to build that hatch, as the goblins may not survive the journey, but a giant eagle will. If you do this, make sure the shaft ends away from a route dwarves are likely to take, preferably in a 1x1 room behind a door, and make sure you don't unforbid the dumped items before the last one has landed, you don't want your haulers' brains to be introduced to high-velocity copper swords.
Having that equipment gathered inside bins in a stockpile and then having another stockpile take these bins is the second best option (you'll need to remove the take designation until the stockpile is full of binned items, though), but it is still significantly slower and requires more effort than just bulk dump designations. Running minecart tracks between the two stockpiles might save you a lot of dwarf-hours, but will cost quite a bit in man-hours due to having to build tracks on every z level separately.