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[DanielCoffey]

Version : Steam 50.05

I am receiving frequent "job removed" spam from my millstones when I don't think I should be and I wondered whether this is a known issue or if I am driving the millstones incorrectly. It seems to happen about 50% of the time when running any "Mill Plants" job.

My water source is a 2z 5x5 cistern with a u-bend fed from either a brook or a river filled to 7/7, through a diagonal with a Floodgate, along a level tunnel, through another diagonal floodgate into the standard 4-wheel 5x5 Dwarven Water Reactor. All Floodgates are left open. The surface water is not frozen. There are no boulders or corpses in the entire system.

Power is taken up one z from the screw pump to a gear assembly, along one short axle to one more gear assembly and directly into one or two millstones.

All gear assemblies and millstones are animated without interruption or warnings once the pump receives its initial start.

Once I set up the first job to Mill Plants it is only a matter of a minute or so before intermittent "unpowered millstone" spam begins. I never see any interruption in the animations.

What is causing this issue and given that I have a river as my water source rather than an aquifer, what could I be doing instead to drive the millstones? The only criteria is that the system MUST be secure from swimmers.

[Panando]

The dwarven water reactor is terrible. Use a Flowing Water Reactor, it is absolutely superior. That's where you have pressurized water (produced either by a screw pump, or water falling into water on the z-level below) flow off the map (most easily by smoothing the map edge and carving a fortification), the game traces back from the map edge and flags all connected water as "flowing", like a river, once flagged as flowing it'll give full power to Waterwheels even if the depth is uniform 7/7. The best part: you can even cut off the "actual flow" by using floodgates or whatever leaving a patch of still water under the waterwheels, that is still flagged as flowing, of course you don't have to do that if you have an unlimited water source but if you want to minimize FPS impact then it only makes sense to stop all actual water movement.

[Schmaven]

I just use the 2 tile, track stop dumping onto ramp, dual watermill generator design; and have been milling dwarven sugar, flour and dyes on 3 mills continually for over a year with no cancellations or issues.  I suspect the issue is related to your reactor setup.

[DanielCoffey]

If I watch the power on the standard reactor I can see it dipping all the time in increments of 100 so it must be down to where the output of the screw pump falls onto the water wheels. I made a smaller 2-wheel DWR and it runs at 200 output, dips occasionally to 100 and rarely to 0.

I will have to look for examples of creating water flow because folks are still producing standard DWR videos even for Steam 50.05 and not mentioning these issues.

[Panando]

The sheer dwarfiness of the Dwarvern Water Reactor makes it popular.

I will have to look for examples of creating water flow because folks are still producing standard DWR videos even for Steam 50.05 and not mentioning these issues.

That's partly my fault because I invented the flowing water reactor about 10 years ago but didn't do much to popularize it besides dumping all the info onto the wiki. I just updated the wiki page with some pictures of a simple working example: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Water_wheel#Flowing_Water_Reactors

[DanielCoffey]

That wiki article is very useful, thank you.

It is nice that the water will still "flow" even after you shut off the flood gate as it has built-in security from the outset unless you choose to drain it (after an unfortunate midnight swimming accident by Urist McNoble for example).

The Classic DWR is still being heavily promoted in new Steam DF videos. I suppose it is fine if all you need is the power on an "average" basis for pumping but if you need it in a steady flow for grinding plants then the interruptions make the DWR unsuitable. This is where the Flowing Water Reactor (FWR?) is more suitable. It is also very beginner friendly, allowing folks to move on to miniaturized minecart water reactors if they choose.

[Quarque]

Heh the only setup I ever used for power was flowing water, probably from this wiki (don't remember). It is extremely simple if you have an aquifer, just dig a canal from the aquifer into fortifications at the map edge and install as many waterwheels in the canal as you need. Usually I combine it with a dwarven shower (waterfall on a frequently visited location) to make them clean and happy.

Not sure the source even needs to be under pressure?

[DanielCoffey]

Instead of presurising the system with a screw pump to get "flowing" water, can you supply it from a cistern that has been filled from a river?

[Quarque]

From experience I know you do not need screw pumps. I always just let the water flow in from an aquifer, that works. A light aquifer is enough, if you dig some additional tunnels in it for more inflow.

[DanielCoffey]

In this embark I have a river and no aquifer... umbrellas not required. Native gold and bituminous coal right in the first rock layer were too good to pass up!

[Panando]

This is where the Flowing Water Reactor (FWR?) is more suitable. It is also very beginner friendly, allowing folks to move on to miniaturized minecart water reactors if they choose.

tbh I don't think there's ever a good reason to use something other than a flowing water reactor except exceedingly peculiar situations. They are extremely scalable from small to huge and basically foolproof.

Instead of presurising the system with a screw pump to get "flowing" water, can you supply it from a cistern that has been filled from a river?

Yeah, as long as the water is "pressurized" it should work. The three origins of pressurized water are screw pumps, river sources and water falling a z-level into a full water tile. And I don't think it's strictly necessary that the water even be pressurized, I seem to recall getting it to work just by having it flow off the map when the water is close to the map edge. However I think pressure is important for the propagation of the flowing property along the route the "water packets" take.

edit: Yeah, I just repeated the experiment I remembered:



Basically the 1x3 pond is used for driving a single waterwheel. I filled it with some pond zones, then pulled the lever to let some water flow off the map edge, then pulled the lever again and refilled the pond. It was successfully flagged as flowing. But I seem to recall the flowing property won't propagate back forever from the map edge so I think this build only works near the map edge. I think how it works is the flowing property propagates a certain radius from the map edge and along the path that pressurized water takes.

[Saiko Kila]

I recommend the version of water reactor called Micro Water Reactor on that page (the one involwing dumping minecart). It works at 100%, and is super compact, but also scalable, you can disable or enable it on demand by lever, no water loss etc. It works years in my fortress in Steam version without issue. Two wheels power a mist generator (four pumps) and four millstones with some spare power.