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[Eidako]

Does anyone know if waterwheels, mechanisms and shafts work while fully submerged?

The plans for my powerplant call for creating high pressure water by dropping it down many z-levels before running it through a series of waterwheels and dumping it in the magma sea.



However, the water is going to rise into the waterwheel room due to pressure. If this is going to stop them from working I'll put a screw pump in to reset the pressure, but I thought I'd check to see if this was necessary first.

[bluefox]

You should definitely reset the pressure.

As you've drawn it, not only will the waterweels become submerged, but the water will go up the power shaft will, too. Gears are completely passable, and do not block dwarves nor water.

The magma will solidify into obsidian once water comes into contact with it. Whether this results in a slightly lower reservoir (which will stop flow) or constant spam of "a section of the cavern has collapsed" depends on whether the water dumps near the edge of a wall or not.

Recommended modifications:

Code: [Select]

~         |
~         |
~         |
~         |
~         |
~         |
~  W-W-W-W-W-W
~%%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:
where
~ = water
| = gears
W = waterwheel
: = fortification at the edge of the map.

The water will keep pumping off the edge, and the waterwheels will continue turning.

You can submerge waterwheels and gears, and they will continue to operate. Makes it a pain to modify the design, though.

[Hyndis]

If you have a stream why not just build your power plant on the surface in the stream itself? Be sure to of course fortify your power plant with thick constructed walls. A regular stream or brook can generate all the power you need easily enough.

If you need even more power just build a dwarven water reactor complex.

[Eidako]

Hmm. Dumping water into magma away from walls in arena mode doesn't cause warnings or obsidian, but I'll have to try it in fortress mode to see what happens Scratch that, it does cause the collapse message . Part of the reason I want to use magma is to make a sauna above it.

The reason for not doing this on the surface is that my aboveground is somewhat hazardous at the moment and is going to become extremely dangerous in the future. Also, the stream is on the other side of the map, and is currently slated to stop flowing altogether on the surface; the underground tunnel's primary function is reroute the stream into my fort. Building the powerplant at the bottom has the advantage of the water being under high pressure and uninterrupted should I tap a higher level for obsidian casting.

[Hyndis]

Try using a vertical shaft to get water from the brook/stream underground. You can make it very large so its possible to move huge amounts of water quickly, like 4-5 tiles across. You can then tap into it on the corners by carving fortifications into the wall. The diagonal breaks water pressure so its safe.

You can use this water to power a dwarven water reactor array. You can build it anywhere you want though it does need a small amount of water input to make up for evaporation.

The nice thing about dwarven water reactors is that it gives your fortress a feeling of having a factory or engineering district. I even have custom workshops where mechanics go in and tinker with the control panels, working on their engineering skills between DWR's. Everything in there is a little damp, but the mist gives everyone happy thoughts. You can also extend the DWR's indefinitely creating all the power you could ever need.