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[PatrikLundell]

I wanted to avoid the exploity and FPS hogging water reactor for power, and tried my hand at building a windmill. Windmills seem to carry two safety issues with them, namely that they're vulnerable to building destroyers, and the power generated has to be transmitted via axles (unless using direct power) that require tunnels/shafts, which would let various hostiles in, and cannot be sealed, as far as I understand.
So I built a vertical axle and a wall box around it, a stair case up and then a wind mill on top, assuming this would counter the safety issues once the staircase was torn down. The power axle would then later be connected under ground in safety.
However, when looking at the wind mill with 'q', the wind mill is selected graphically, but the display says:
Inactive
Total Power: 0
Total Power Needed: 1
Hanging
while looking at the axle one Z-level further down states the same, with the exception of the last row, that says "Stable Foundation" instead. It looks like the top and bottom of the axle is displayed, rather than the windmill and the axle.

So, is my display misleading, or do I have a useless windmill that is incapable of producing power?
The wiki states that you can get windmills with 40, 20, or 0 power yield, and that yield is dependent on latitude.
'k' states that the windmill is in fact a windmill, in Open Space, and and is Outside, Light, Above Ground.

Does all of this mean that windmills are useless in my embark?

I had planned on expanding the windmill base box to be a rectangle with windmills side by side (size 3*[3*#windmills]) at the top, but it looks like a water reactor construction will have to be used (or a less exploity, but more FPS expensive waterwheel draining an aquifer constantly).

[rjs71053]

It's been awhile since I bothered with wind, so keep that in mind.

Try building a Millstone workshop directly under the center tile of the windmill.  If millstone doesn't get power, something is wrong with the windmill itself.  If millstone does get power, I would build a gear assembly directly under the windmill, not an axle.  Then use axles to move the power where you want it. 

I remember having to build my entire power setup backwards in that wind powered fort.  Pump stack first, then gear assembly on top, then axles on top of gears, then axles to windmill gears.  I was getting "can't build on empty space" issues trying to build from the windmill down, but I carved out the power path before building.  Doing it in steps should have fixed that.

That's all I remember.  Although I think "Q"ing over the windmill itself used to say how strong the wind was, or gave a power indicator of some sort.  Also, if you need more power then you planned for, you can build more windmills directly next to the one with gears, and power should transfer over automatically.  Sort of like SimCity power plants.

[PatrikLundell]

Thanks, I'll explore those paths!

Nope, replacing the axle with a gear assembly gives the same result, and the stupid windmill deconstructs when the axle is removed, so I don't think I'll bother with the mill. I'll exploit aquifer water wheels instead...

[Arx]

If your set-up looks like this from the side:

Code: [Select]

=O=  Windmill
 |   Axle
 |   Axle

Then your windmills are unfortunately probably all useless. You can try a non-cheaty one or two waterwheel set-up instead, which shouldn't be too much of an FPS hog if you're not moving water around with pumps.

[Quietust]

If a windmill built on solid ground does not generate any power, then you simply don't have enough wind on your map and will never be able to use windmills. In previous versions, the amount of wind you actually got was based on your latitude (it should be the same in this version, but I don't know how it'll behave with dual-pole regions), so next time you'll want to choose your embark location more carefully.

[PatrikLundell]

I don't think I CAN choose my embark location with any care when it comes to latitude, as I use pole less pocket worlds to minimize FPS loss and avoid freezing (which would render windmills and water wheels useless while the temperature is sub zero, if I understand it correctly), and I don't think there is any way to see/figure out any latitudes from what I assume is actually a sort of random piece of a world.

[Arx]

Pocket worlds do have a pole, I think. The temperature will be increased towards one side and decreased towards the other - one side the equator, and the other one of the poles.

[Nikow]

I don't think I CAN choose my embark location with any care when it comes to latitude, as I use pole less pocket worlds to minimize FPS loss and avoid freezing (which would render windmills and water wheels useless while the temperature is sub zero, if I understand it correctly), and I don't think there is any way to see/figure out any latitudes from what I assume is actually a sort of random piece of a world.

You can get water for waterreactor from caverns. Water melted from ice is useless.

[Miuramir]

If a windmill built on solid ground does not generate any power, then you simply don't have enough wind on your map and will never be able to use windmills. In previous versions, the amount of wind you actually got was based on your latitude (it should be the same in this version, but I don't know how it'll behave with dual-pole regions), so next time you'll want to choose your embark location more carefully.

I'm not sure I understand the chart.  On Earth, latitude would normally be 0 at the equator, and going to +90 aka 90N at the north pole, and -90 aka 90S at the south pole.  What is the chart actually showing?  Is it a [0...255] internal value, which for a single-pole world is mapped to [90...0] ? 

The Y-axis shows wind speeds from +25 to -20; in previous versions at least a windmill could develop 40 power, 20 power, or zero power.  Does this quantized approach still hold in DF2014 aka 0.40.xx, and if so what are the breakpoints between wind speed and developed power? 

Even without that info, it appears that you are better off in the middle of the temperate zone or the middle of the tropical zone, rather than near the borders. 

[PatrikLundell]

Well, my pocket worlds do not have a pole since I change the pole parameter to NONE.
I don't have any problem getting hold of water, since I've got both aquifers, one cavern covered by water (as far as I know), and one with a lot of water.

@rjs71053: I've thought about power conducting through adjacent windmills, but think it won't work. My understanding is that power is conducted through the central tile only, in a manner similar to that of screw pumps (which conducts power only through the unwalkable tile). That would mean that the surrounding 8 tiles would block horizontal power transfer. However, it would mean it should be possible to stack windmills on top of each other.