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damn... loving the look of that internal water wheel engine. looks like you did a thourough revamping of the internals, hopefully nothing too complex? smash traps are always good.
yeah I infamously do not like mangerial orders but the new version practically demands it. *sighs in oldschool DF*
Thank you! I've been playing around a lot with the steam version trying to find the best compromise between Framerate, Power Output, and hassle to set up.
The system mostly runs itself, but I've included stopcocks just about everywhere you could need them. Levers to isolate the cisterns from each other, low and high-pressure siphons, etc.
The drowning chamber has a pressure plate that detects water and seals the bridge to stop backflow into the caverns, but the lever into the fortress is manual, and given the pressure, that could go really badly if someone is inattentive. Honestly, I could probably have set it up some other way, but I was almost out of time and this seemed much funnier. To try and aleviate at least a little of the shmuck bait, the pressure-cistern has a dual service door, that will only become accessible once the cistern is fully drained. To do that, just open both low-pressure sluices and the off-map sluice, whilst sealing inflow. It takes a while, but it means you can modify the water system without any danger of flooding.
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The grates should ensure that whatever else happens, even if the fort floods to the gunnels, provided the offsite drain is open it will eventually all eventually flow off map. Perhaps a subsequent player might consider a panic room to retreat into so they could intentionally flood the fort in the worst of cases and hide whilst the invaders drown or are swept off the map.