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Author Topic: Waterfalls  (Read 1489 times)

SnuffleKitty

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Waterfalls
« on: September 03, 2010, 10:00:11 am »

I'm having some issues here in my latest attempt to play DF2010.

I'm pretty well determined to set up my Fortress near a waterfall, a big one. A sheer cliff-face sort of waterfall. I've checked the wiki, and tried to follow the tips for finding a waterfall, but so far I've had no luck. Every time I think I have a waterfall, it turns out to be a weird super-narrow canyon, or something very like it.

Does anyone have any advice on how I might speed this up? I'd like to actually start playing the game.

-Nim
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Brian

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Re: Waterfalls
« Reply #1 on: September 03, 2010, 10:06:00 am »

Nothing scientific, but I seem to have luck finding waterfalls on embarks where two streams/rivers cross, or when there's a branch.
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Skid

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Re: Waterfalls
« Reply #2 on: September 03, 2010, 10:23:43 am »

Follow the canyon upstream a distance. There should be a waterfall at the start of it.
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Canalan

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Re: Waterfalls
« Reply #3 on: September 03, 2010, 10:46:53 am »

I find that the embark tile with the source of a stream on it usually has a waterfall.

rmunn

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Re: Waterfalls
« Reply #4 on: September 03, 2010, 12:46:37 pm »

The Worldgen Cookbook thread has several interesting worldgen recipes; look on page 6 for a couple with waterfalls. There's one specific site called "Crotchbreath" (though you'll probably get a different fortress name out of the random name generator, thankfully) and one generic worldgen recipe that's designed to get a lot of waterfalls.

In case you don't know how to use worldgen recipes: copy them into data\init\world_gen.txt and then choose "Design World With Parameters" from the screen. It's pretty straightforward.
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MonkeyHead

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Re: Waterfalls
« Reply #5 on: September 04, 2010, 09:42:05 am »

river sites with low elevations but lots of extreme cliffs tend to give me waterfalls. i love using them in pressurised goblin cannon traps which eject goblins for a short vertical flight...

lol. crotchbreath.

Shagomir

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Re: Waterfalls
« Reply #6 on: September 06, 2010, 12:11:22 am »

Because of the way I do rivers in my wordgens, I tend to have a crazy number waterfalls gen on my North America maps, due to lots of rivers and the way I generate the terrain. You can download them with the link in my sig.

I havn't gone hunting for the biggest ones, but even the map I'm using now is almost perfectly flat, except for the 2 zlevel waterfalls each of the brooks has when it intersects with the minor river.
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SnuffleKitty

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Re: Waterfalls
« Reply #7 on: September 07, 2010, 10:26:30 am »

I've found that, while I have found a number of waterfalls that are quite impressively tall, they are all minor streams and rivers, so their width is at most 4 tiles, and I was hoping for something a little wider.

But I've actually been thinking about doing something else: i.e. constructing a waterfall. I'd like for it to be large, like, Niagra Falls large, so I'm planning on building it off of a major river. The problem I'm facing with now is that, in order to pull this off, I'm going to need to find an embark site with a major river at on a plateau or something. But all of the major rivers I've found have been at the low-point of their respective maps. I thought about enlarging a pre-existing waterfall, but that would complicate a couple of other projects I had in mind for my Fortress. I'm also really interested in what will happen to whatever low-lands my constructed waterfall empties into; i.e. where will all the water go? Hehe.

I've been trying to use Grim's Waterworld parameters (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=64032.75) to find a suitable location, but so far I've had no luck.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

- Snuffles
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Kogan Loloklam

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Re: Waterfalls
« Reply #8 on: September 07, 2010, 11:10:17 am »

Look, you need to watch elevation changes. If it has a extreme number, then there is generally a cliff of sorts ON THAT TILE. As such, you want an area with low numbers on one side and the other, with higher numbers in the middle where the river is. You should also look at the relative height. You want to see a change in elevation where the river is.
As such, this:
000
777
000
is a better canadate than this:
454
356
545

Here is an example of what you want to see.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
On the bad side, with the relative elevation you can see that the river is pretty flat. The good side, you see a elevation change in the river just after they join up. Looking at the cliff indicator, you can see pretty flat areas on either side of the river with a elevation change of 2, followed by another change of 2. It is probable that in that location there will only be a single waterfall, falling probably about 2 z-levels. The bad side will have a river inside a canyon, a pretty steep canyon in some spots based on those extreme elevation changes listed there.
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Virex

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Re: Waterfalls
« Reply #9 on: September 07, 2010, 05:36:26 pm »

When searching rivers alongside mountains you'll have the most chance of finding waterfalls when looking at hard rock types, preferably granite. It's not rare to find waterfalls in normal rivers on granite soil.
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