Well, I've finally got the beginning of a fun hydraulic network. Long input pipes from a cave river, a big cistern to store water close by the gate, a pump stack to pump water all the way from the the z-11 bottom of the cistern to as far as the surface, if necessary. A moat around my surface fort, and a second moat beyond that. A working well, a functioning emergency-drainage-catchpit/mudproof-doormat at the entrance.
Things are good.
So after a system test of a new side pipe, I open the gate at the top of my cistern to refill from the river. I return a little while later to see how it's going, and flow has slowed to a trickle. Tracing the pipe back toward the river, I see this:
1222122222122227777777777
Hmm. A blockage? I can't *see* anything. But it's stable.
Turns out there's a towercap in the pipe. And it's not alone... there are half a dozen young ones there, too. Now this pipe has spent the last year full to the brim behind a floodgate, and only lost any water depth at all in the preceding few days when I opened the gate to the cistern.
Now, I understand that towercaps grow in mud layers on rock. I even encourage that behavior in the lower levels of my fort. But it's problematic from a gameplay perspective to have fully flooded tunnels, or tunnels with fast-flowing water, allow towercaps to survive. Maybe they could be drowned, eventually?
Anyway, back to my fort. Where Reg Tetothlibash, Peasant, is about to be given his first (and last) +Tin battleaxe+ and enabled as a Woodcutter. Bet he never makes Novice...
DL