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Author Topic: Mechanics questions  (Read 1183 times)

CaptainFatty

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Mechanics questions
« on: August 14, 2012, 12:26:49 am »

I have embarked next to a river. A big one. And i'm not happy that I don't have complete control over it. I want to dam it with walls and floodgates with one floodgate every three tiles. Each floodgate will have it's own lever and I want a master lever to control every floodgate at once. My questions are:

1. Can I link my master lever to the floodgate control levers instead of the floodgates themselves?

2. If I dam the river completely, will my upstream water wheels stop working?

3. Since the river freezes every winter, will this damage the dam at all? I'm pretty sure it won't but there's still that bit of doubt that makes me ask anyway.
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Garath

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Re: Mechanics questions
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2012, 04:22:53 am »

1 It might cause problems to link the master control lever to other levers, not sure

2 If there is no outflow, there is no flow, so yes, they stop working

3 The dam shouldn't be damaged by freezing


Note that some titans and other creatures happily dive into the water to destoy your floodgates.
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CaptainFatty

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Re: Mechanics questions
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2012, 04:41:07 am »

Thanks, I'll run some tests with linking levers to levers to see how they'll work then.
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crazysheep

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Re: Mechanics questions
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2012, 05:49:46 am »

1. Can I link my master lever to the floodgate control levers instead of the floodgates themselves?

2. If I dam the river completely, will my upstream water wheels stop working?

3. Since the river freezes every winter, will this damage the dam at all? I'm pretty sure it won't but there's still that bit of doubt that makes me ask anyway.
1. No, you can't do that.

2. What Garath said.

3. Open floodgates won't be affected, neither should walls. Essentially, anything not submerged in water shouldn't be affected when the water freezes.
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Mechanics questions
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2012, 11:44:26 am »

I have embarked next to a river. A big one. And i'm not happy that I don't have complete control over it. I want to dam it with walls and floodgates with one floodgate every three tiles. Each floodgate will have it's own lever and I want a master lever to control every floodgate at once. My questions are:

1. Can I link my master lever to the floodgate control levers instead of the floodgates themselves?

2. If I dam the river completely, will my upstream water wheels stop working?

3. Since the river freezes every winter, will this damage the dam at all? I'm pretty sure it won't but there's still that bit of doubt that makes me ask anyway.
1. No, but you can link your master lever to all of the floodgates. And the danger room, too.
2. Probably, but I've seen rivers flowing despite being blocked by ice, so who knows?
3. I don't think so.
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Nkosi_SW

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Re: Mechanics questions
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2012, 04:05:12 pm »

2. If I dam the river completely, will my upstream water wheels stop working?

I think they'll probably keep working.  The whole point of Flowing Water Reactors is to generate power under a waterwheel with no water actually moving.

I currently have a completey dammed offshoot of a completely dammed brook generating steady power for a 150-level magma pump stack.
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CaptainFatty

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Re: Mechanics questions
« Reply #6 on: August 15, 2012, 07:48:21 am »

Thanks guys, you've saved me some good time.

One last question, is there a way to stop people walking onto the ice. There's about three babies underwater because their mothers dropped them to save themselves after falling into the river. Somehow all my adult dwarves survived but they might not me so lucky next time.
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Garath

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Re: Mechanics questions
« Reply #7 on: August 15, 2012, 08:59:20 am »

If you have a valid way of crossing the river (such as the dam) mark it as high traffic while marking the rest of the river restricted traffic. If across the ice is the only way across the river (in winter at least) traffic designations won't help
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Mechanics questions
« Reply #8 on: August 15, 2012, 09:15:25 am »


In that case, build a bridge. Bridges work wonders.
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Triaxx2

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Re: Mechanics questions
« Reply #9 on: August 15, 2012, 10:42:52 am »

However, consider that bridges may require some support if the river is wide enough. You might have to go out onto the ice and cut a hole to build a couple of walls for support.

Of course you can also dig out some ice and then use that to build the walls. It works.
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Mechanics questions
« Reply #10 on: August 15, 2012, 10:45:03 am »

Bridges don't need support in DF. That doesn't mean you shouldn't give them support, mind you...
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Quietust

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Re: Mechanics questions
« Reply #11 on: August 15, 2012, 10:50:01 am »

Bridges don't need support in DF.
Yes they do - at least one tile along the bridge's edge must be a (supported) wall or floor, and diagonals don't count (though there's a bug in that logic). In the case of bridging a river, though, the only time you'd need a support would be if the river was more than 20 tiles wide.
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It's amazing how dwarves can make a stack of bones completely waterproof and magmaproof.
It's amazing how they can make an entire floodgate out of the bones of 2 cats.