Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Pantsmansoy]

I want to build a well near my hospital for use during sieges. I have a brook that I could divert but I'm not completely sure or comfortable with the mechanics of that (I don't want a flooded fortress!)

So my thought was to have the well pull water from a cavern, probably ~100 z levels down.

But how do I channel a single tile all the way down that far? Or do I just end up building up/down stairs and then build a well over top of it for the level I want the well to be on?

Some help is most appreciated.

[Twiggie]

if you start from the top, you can designate channel in a vertical column and a miner will dig it straight down. then you just have to worry about getting him out from the bottom.

or not...

[quarague]

as said before you can designate a straight down channel of size 1. Be careful about the bottom end so the miner does not fall to his death. Note also that while a well a 100 z-levels functions well it is very slow. Each time some dwarf wants to get water the bucket it lowered all 100 z-levels and pulled up again. So if you need lots of water this design is not ideal and a water reservoir directly below the well is preferable.

[Canisaur]

Unless mechanics have changed and I missed it, you'll have to manually designate channeling that tile on each individual layer.  You can, however, make it somewhat less painful by pressing control-r (starts a macro recording), designating the tile for channeling on a layer or two, then press control-r again (stops macro recording).

Once you've recorded that macro, you can press control-p to repeat all the keystrokes you made while recording the macro.

[AndreaReina]

Nah, designations also follow z-levels. So put the start of the designation on the heighest level, drop down however many levels needed and end the designation on the last level. Note that you'll want to designate one level higher than the last stone, dig into the adjacent rock, then finish channeling out the last floor. This will prevent your miner falling to his doom.
i.e. channel out the red tiles, then dig (or place up staircase) on green:

##
##
##
##
##
##

you'll end up with this:

 #
 #
 #
 #
 #
__

At that point, channel out the last floor between the shaft and the caverns, the miner will do it from the adjacent square.

[praptak]

I want to build a well near my hospital for use during sieges. I have a brook that I could divert but I'm not completely sure or comfortable with the mechanics of that (I don't want a flooded fortress!)

I'd say try anyway. It has lots of benefits (power, mist, maybe fishing) and you can always practice somewhere away from your fortress.

[Quietust]

Just so you know, deep wells are a bad thing - every time the bucket needs to be filled, it will have to be lowered all the way to the bottom, 1 Z-level at a time, then raised back up. If the water is a hundred Z-levels down, it could take days for your dwarves to get their water...

[rhesusmacabre]

It's also worth realising that any flying critters will be able to enter your fort from the caverns, if that is where you are drawing the water from. A sealed reservoir would help remedy this.