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[Captain Hat]

Right... I started playing DF this summer, thought it was a great game with the most depth and complexity I had ever seen, and now I am stuck. Irrigation is my number one enemy, it refuses to work for me, see my illustration below, I am using the outside river as my water source, just to get started. I've got the mechanism hooked up to the floodgate, and it opens and closes correctly, but the water won't flow out!!! I've had a look at the wiki, which has changed since I last saw it, but it was of little or no help . The illustration below shows my method, it is all on the same level. Your comments would be appreciated.

key:

# <-- Wall
_ <-- Channel
X <-- Floodgate
~ <-- Water
. <-- Ground
% <-- Lever
D <-- Door

//
########.%#
########D##
#.................#
#.................#
#.................#........~~~~~
#.................#........~~~~~
#.................X_________~~~~~
#.................#........~~~~~~~~
###########
//

[ November 09, 2007: Message edited by: Captain Hat ]
EDIT: Had to add dots to fix things, seems that the board ignores whitespace

[ November 09, 2007: Message edited by: Captain Hat ]

[Garthor]

That is all from the old version.  In the new version, you can just drop a farm on any soil.  Irrigation is only needed for farming on rock, which is not necessary.

The problem you're having, by the way, is that your stuff is on level z, and your water is on z-1.  So, the water stays where it is.  You'd need a pump (but the water is unnecessary here anyway, so this is purely academic).

[DrMorbly]

Or put your farm one level below.  However, then you'll have to deal with pumping the water out of your farm area or draining it through some other means.

[AlanL]

I've found that aquifers are the ideal drain for excess water. Then again, they're a bit of an obstacle to a starting fort.

[Dwarmin]

I thought you could only plant pump helmets and such underground? You would need a irrigation system to grow Dwarven plants.
You can make a farm in one deep water-just put down a line of grates between the farm and entrance to soak up runoff and only open the floodgates for a short time-you can make a cistern underneath to hold it until it dries up.

[Gudamor]

quote:
I've had a lot of luck irrigating an underground farm like this:

code:

=~~~=================
=~~~=========......==
=~~~=========......==
=~~~=========......==
=~~~=X..<...X......==
=~~~=========......==
=~~~=========.....===
=~~~=================
=~~~=================

Where the ~ is an underground water source and the Xs are floodgates.  Start with the left one open and the right one closed.  Have the miner dig out the last tile and it'll fill up with water up to the right floodgate and he'll retreat up the stairs but the water will stay downstairs (no guarantees for deep lakes/oceans/rivers if water pressure floods your fort, I've only done this with ponds or brooks.)  Then close the left floodgate and you'll have 6 tiles with 7 water each (42.)  Open the right floodgate and the 42 units of water will distribute over the 6 original tiles, 1 floodgate tile, and 35 farm tiles.  You don't even have to wait for the water to evaporate, you can build a farm right over tiles with 1 water.

You can definitely change the numbers, but I've been using it as a good quick way to get plump helmet farming going quickly so my guys don't starve while I experiment with more impressive water pumping methods.

The problem with your current set up is that the farm is one level (level 0) and the channel filled with water is actually the level below that (level -1). Opening and closing the floodgate on level 0 has no effect because no water is actually on level 0.

If you took the same setup you have now and sunk everything one level underground (such that the farm area, floodgate, and channels were all on the same level) then the water would flow, BUT your farm would fill up to level 7 deepness water and never empty.

The design I've quoted was taken from the SomethingAwful forums. It works by allowing only a certain amount of water to drain into a larger area. Between the first and second floodgate are 6 tiles which will fill to 7 deepness. Opening the floodgate between that chamber and your farm allows those 42 (6 x 7) units of water to flow into the rest of the farm area, to a depth of exactly 1.

"But there's still water in there!" Not for long. Water level of 1 depth evaporates rather quickly leaving mud. You can even build the farm plot on the remaining water!

[sbr]

quote:Originally posted by Dwarmin:
<STRONG>I thought you could only plant pump helmets and such underground? You would need a irrigation system to grow Dwarven plants.
You can make a farm in one deep water-just put down a line of grates between the farm and entrance to soak up runoff and only open the floodgates for a short time-you can make a cistern underneath to hold it until it dries up.</STRONG>

You can farm underground in dirt, loam, sand etc.  The only time you need irragtion is if it is bare rock, then it needs to be muddied.

[StormDragoness]

The floodgate in this version is basically a door that can close on water, it does not haul water up from a "channel", you need a screw pump for that.