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[higgypig]

My latest fort is nestled next to the sea, using this unlimited water id'e like to make waterfalls for my dining room. What I'm curious about the water itself, will it overflow if I just have a big collection chamber at the bottom of the waterfall? Do I need to irrigate out of the map somehow?

[Arx]

Speaking from experience here...

will it overflow if I just have a big collection chamber at the bottom of the waterfall?

Yes.

Do I need to irrigate out of the map somehow?

It's possible to carve fortifications into the unminable tile at the edge of the map, which will allow water to flow out. You could also just dump it into the caverns, possibly with an aqueduct of some form, to let it flow out through the open spaces.

[greycat]

Your choices are basically:

• Drain the water into an aqueduct tile.
• Drain the water off the edge of the map.
• Drain the water into an edge-touching cavern lake.

[Quietust]

Drain the water into an aqueduct aquifer tile.

FTFY. Also, option 3 is pretty much the same as option 2.

There is technically another method, though it may be prone to errors - drain it into a reservoir containing a large drawbridge that periodically raises and lowers, atomsmashing the excess water before it can accumulate.

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Or drain it into the magma sea over SMR.  Hell on FPS but Armok-damned dwarfy.

[Button]

Keep in mind that any tile the seawater touches will become contaminated with salt, and any water which passes through that tile thereafter will become undrinkable. Recommend you plan out your waterfall thoroughly before beginning construction.

[GavJ]

Water from a river or stream or whatever will fill containers up to the level of the tiles where the water enters the map.

So in the case of a waterfall, it will overflow up to the level of the higher body of pre-waterfall water, but no higher.

[Melting Sky]

You can also put the waterfall with its own little sealed cistern that has a pump stack returning water back up to the top in an endless loop.

[joeclark77]

Keep in mind that any tile the seawater touches will become contaminated with salt, and any water which passes through that tile thereafter will become undrinkable. Recommend you plan out your waterfall thoroughly before beginning construction.

I believe a screw pump works to desalinate the water.  (It essentially "destroys" the input water and "creates" the output water fresh.)  You could set up a screw pump on the surface, powered by a windmill, which pulls water from the sea into your plumbing.

[slothen]

Keep in mind that any tile the seawater touches will become contaminated with salt, and any water which passes through that tile thereafter will become undrinkable. Recommend you plan out your waterfall thoroughly before beginning construction.

I believe a screw pump works to desalinate the water.  (It essentially "destroys" the input water and "creates" the output water fresh.)  You could set up a screw pump on the surface, powered by a windmill, which pulls water from the sea into your plumbing.

Its not so simple.  The tag for salinity is attached to a tile, not the water itself.  A pump lets you move clean water from a contaminated tile to a noncontaminated one without flagging the new tile as salty.  However, if the destination tile has ever previously had salty water on it (and thus is flagged for salt), then that tile will always contaminate any water that it touches later.


To the OP, some advice:

Use diagonal bends above the waterfall to keep a slow and manageable flow.
Always build your water drainage system while everything is still dry.
Its probably better to recycle water to the top of the falls than to drain all of it, then you only need to drain stuff if you want to dry out the whole system, which will be necessary for modifications, maintenence, whatever.
Pressure plates can be used to detect when the collection area (bottom of falls) is full, if it rises too much you can have it automatically shut off the water source, and turn back on when the level is acceptable.

[krenshala]

Don't forget that if the water falls through the z-level designated as "sea level" it will become salt-water as well.  At least, I remember reading posts about this last year (or was it the year before?).

[Cattani]

Edit: posting in the wrong thread hahaha

[Panando]

Drain the water into an aqueduct aquifer tile.

FTFY. Also, option 3 is pretty much the same as option 2.

There is technically another method, though it may be prone to errors - drain it into a reservoir containing a large drawbridge that periodically raises and lowers, atomsmashing the excess water before it can accumulate.

With a note for those who aren't aware (or haven't tried this), a draw bridge only atomsmashes water when it raises, and only the tiles in it's raised position (i.e. it's anchor edge) is smashed, the big long bridge slamming down, does nothing except allows the water to flow into the tiles which had been raised bridge.

This is different to how a bridge atomsmashes items, in which case it atom smashes with the boom when lowering, and with the edge when raising.

This can be compared with a door, when a door closes it effectively turns into a wall and atomsmashes all the water in the tile. When a bridge raises, the part which turns into a wall atomsmashes water.

Doors open and close extremely quickly, so if attached to a suitable repeater (i.e. a lever set to repeat) will smash water very quickly. Bridges open and close at a truly ponderous rate in comparison, so slow to be nearly useless, if you want to maximize water smashing rate with a bridge, make "bridge walls" (i.e. one tile "long", maximum width). Doors are much more efficient per-tile than bridges, and may be more efficient per mechanism too, depending on your repeater rate. For a slow repeater, bridge walls will give better value-per-mechanism.
The other thing is that doors can be jammed, bridges cannot, this really just means if you're going to use a door, remove all stones and other debris first.

I hardly ever have found occasion to use a water-smasher, but occasionally if only a small amount of water needs to be disposed of, in an inconvenient location (like enclosed in the magma sea) then a door linked to a lever can be a quick, cheap, tidy solution that performs admirably (I did once set up a waterfall on a repeater so it only let dribbles of water through, if you set up the inlet on a repeater like that, you could also easily install a water smasher in the outlet)