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[Puck]

I'd really really like to know, once and for all, how you "destroy" water. Or what to do with excess water.

First my specific situation: I have two pumpstacks in place that drain the water from the dining room waterfalls back to the ground level+1, into an aqueduct, which  pours it on top of the local river (not brook, if that makes a difference).

When I left it alone for a while and came back to check it out, there was a largeish (maybe 25 tiles radius) circle shaped blob of wet (1/7). when i watched the scene, it evaporated again, as if it only happened because i didnt pay attention   :eek: I'm pretty sure I hit the river with the water and not a floor tile. Also I thought I was supposed to do it this way, but still, that blob of wet was kinda discouraging. Also it completely lacked style, for such a (at least for my level of DF experience) complex system.

So how am I supposed to do this properly? Also, do I need to pour it onto the "original" river (thats what I did) or can I dig channels, a few tiles wide, off from the river to where I need it, to ease on the aqueduct building? or can I just pump the water to the ground level, into a set of walls that lead to the river? or does it really have to fall down? what about digging channels to the corner of the map (I quickly checked this underground, and it seems you cant dig the outmost squares away, dont know if thats true for above ground.

so basically my question is, now that i have mastered the friggin pumpstack (the dwarven access explanation on the wiki was way confusing for my taste and so i built it differently, but hey, the pumps stack the same and it works) WHAT exactly am I supposed to do with my water, supposing i DONT want to drown everybody with it, but rather safely remove it from the world?

If I wanted to drown everybody I wouldnt have needed to bother with pumping. Oh well, i have to admit without the pumps it would lack the possibility of killing everything ABOVE ground too.

Oh and something else... "pumps reset pressure".... suppose I put a pump I NEVER power up into a shaft with highly pressurized water, will it flow through the pump and come out with zero (or one or however you express it) pressure?

[Derakon]

Rivers do not absorb water. If you turn on depth display, then you'll see that rivers are already full to the brim with water, so any that you pour onto them just flows along the top. I'm only certain of three ways to get rid of water (and a fourth that I haven't tested):

1) Let it evaporate. Water that sits at 1/7 for long enough will vanish. Aboveground, belowground, it doesn't matter. Evaporation is viable for getting rid of constant flows of water, but you need a large surface area onto which to pour the water.
2) Pour it into an aquifer. Aquifers are special - any water poured into them gets absorbed.
3) Pour it onto hot magma. This will create steam and eventually obsidian.
4) (Untested) Pour it out near the edge of the map. I haven't checked, but it may be possible for water to flow off the edge of the map. Even if this doesn't work, though, it at least gives you plenty of room for evaporation to do its thing.

Edit: as for your pumps question, water can't flow through the "head" of the pump if it isn't powered.

[ June 12, 2008: Message edited by: Derakon ]

[Puck]

Well, the thing with the river, as you explained it sounds logical. on the other hand im REMOVING water from the river too     but seriously, that thing with dropping it on the river is how i heard it should be done.

at least i thought the river would have the tendency to carry that water away a bit, spreading it over a larger area to evaporate. given that circle shape of wet it didnt seem so.

also that excess water appeared while i was paying attention elsewhere and when i WATCHED it, it evaporated, and didnt appear again. with the pump running, constantly pouring water.

i dont want to use magma or chasms because i like the idea of pumping it back to the surface... and in that case... mist machine = new swamp for the map?

I could, however, let the water circulate inside my fortress, without it ever going up to the surface again, but to be honest... i dont trust the fluid mechanics enough for that.    

[ June 12, 2008: Message edited by: Puck ]

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Chasming it is a great choice. Sometimes an underground river will have a drop into a chasm-like hole, too. That's generally what I do.

[Lord Dullard]

Water is pretty difficult to dispose of, indeed.

It's why all my waterworks projects are closed systems. As long as you're careful not to run into any U-turn bugs or the like, using a limited amount of water will keep you safe from overflow.

[Puck]

quote:As long as you're careful not to run into any U-turn bugs or the like

and thats exactly my problem... this line "its entirely possible to end up with more water than you started with by dropping it several z levels" keeps haunting me... i mean, dropping water is the purpose of a mist system, innit? And if its only a small amount of buggy water that gets added, as long as its bigger than evaporation, it will lead to problems sooner or later... well...

I guess I ll have to do it like this: let it circulate and catch it in a cistern. the internal circulation is fed by a pumpstack on the bottom of the cistern, and somewhere near the top I'll add a pumpstack to drain the (potentially existant) excess bugwater, which hopefully will be a lot less to evaporate, giving a more beautiful sight.

plan? check.

potential to epically fail, and drown everybody in the process? check.

hey ho, hey ho,
off to our wet graves we go..

[Dadamh]

Destroying water is fairly easy.  Drop it off the edge of the map or into a chasm.

Also I suppose you could drop it into magma, but that only works until an obsidian cap forms from it.

Anyway, just run the water as close to the edge as you can, and build a set of walls around it that force it off map.  It's gone.

[Derakon]

I actually think it'd be neat to have a "continually irrigated" farm plot. Drop the water all the way down to z-15, which has been massively mined out - like, a 100x100 area cleared. Dump the water in the middle, and let it spread out until evaporation catches up with the input rate. Make farms in all the mud. Like, huge farms. Like, maximum-size farms.

Edit: I r spel gud.

[ June 12, 2008: Message edited by: Derakon ]

[Joseph Miles]

I haven't tested this, but I've heard that if you link a door up to a lever, and keep pulling the lever so the door opens and closes, the water will slowly go away.

I also think smashy-bridges work on this.

[Jamuk]

I'm not sure about doors, but I know that when you close a floodgate it will remove all of the water in it's tile.  So if you want to speed up evaporation, put a floodgate where the deepest section will be and then open and close it.

[Kagus]

Or stuff a whole room full of floodgates, and then open and close them.  Floodgates don't need supporting walls to be placed somewhere.

[Puck]

I always wondered what happens to the water on a floodgate when it closes... wait a sec... can you atomsmash with floodgates, too?

[Derakon]

quote:Originally posted by Puck:
<STRONG>I always wondered what happens to the water on a floodgate when it closes... wait a sec... can you atomsmash with floodgates, too?</STRONG>

I've had goblins jam open my floodgates through dint of standing on them when I tried to close them, so no. I'd guess they only work for destroying fluids.

[Puck]

guys....

i just tried this thoroughly... the water i dropped on the river before hit a floor tile, so SOME of the water spread on the land. i channeled that tile away, and now the excess water is ONLY hitting the river. as it seems it wont overflow. it looks as if it REALLY is "destroyed". also it creates mist    

that evaporating thingy as well as "let it flow out of the map" doesnt seem as nice to me...

now i only need to find out if it also works if i just wall it to the river on ground level.

[ June 12, 2008: Message edited by: Puck ]

[Jhyn]

quote:Originally posted by Dadamh:
<STRONG>Destroying water is fairly easy.  Drop it off the edge of the map or into a chasm.

Anyway, just run the water as close to the edge as you can, and build a set of walls around it that force it off map.  It's gone.</STRONG>

Does it work underground (a channel until the end of the map, with eventually an artificial cliff for the few last tiles), or must I drop the water from above ground?