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[Quarque]

I dug a channel that connects an aquifer to a cavern below it (with a floor grate preventing wildlife from entering).

I reserved a part of this channel for powering water wheels, it looks like this:


xxxxxx
xxxxxx
......
......
xxxxxx
xxxxxx

x = supported floor
. = channel


The channel is filled with 7/7 water, flowing from right to left, ending into the drain down the caverns eventually.

In this channel I built a double waterwheel:


xxxxxx
xx|xxx
.===..
.===..
xx|xxx
xxxxxx


And yet it remains dead:

Inactive
Total Power: 0
Total Power needed: 22

Why does it not work?


Edit: I found out the problem. The game did not count it as "flowing" because the stream ended in a wide spreading flood of the caverns, instead of flowing off the edge of the map. If I end the channel in fortifications at the edge of the map, it works. However, I am a bit disappointed that this is how it works.. Flooding the caverns made more physical sense than fortifications at the map end, it is easier to figure out and is more fun, in a "screw the world" kind of way.

[mightymushroom]

My understanding is that the "flowing" designation occurs:

A. Some preprocessing that gives it to streams and rivers when the local map is generated
B. (Persists only as long as conditions persist) when water physically moves between adjacent tiles -- you can see the depth change
C. (Reportedly permanent but with quirks) when water flows off the map edge, or sometimes into an aquifer, by pressure the designation is assigned to the path it took.

You're attempting C, but with a cavern drain I expect there's an air gap that prevents the pressure path from tracing all the way back to your water wheel.

I understand the frustration; I previously dug a practice channel (no safety grates on a disposable save) for my planned waterwheel with both ends connected to my brook -- no power. Just now dug a second test channel on the same map to double-check my theory and it is powered. The difference is that the second one is on the inside of the stream bend, so it's a shorter path and the pressure goes through it. The first one was outside the bend and even though it filled rapidly, thereafter it was not "flowing."

Edit: Oh shoot, you edited your post before I got mine up.