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[Puck]

I wouldnt know how to call it better, nor would i know how to search for that..

I'll try to quickly give you my setup and explain my problem. Maybe its my fault, but im pretty sure theres something wrong.

What i built, sideview:

code:

 
First we're getting some water from the river
If that floodgate is open, that is.
      |
      v
################ 
 ~~~~>F    <-internal waterflow from lower pump, once theres water in the system
####### ########
#######G######## G for obligatory floorgrates
# Dining room  # Or shall I call it "Drowning room"?
#######G########
#              #   #   
#   Cistern    # pp#  <- those kinky symbols represent a pumpstack. That one is carrying the water to the surface.
#               ^###  #  
#              #### pp#
#                  ^### <- and this one is is feeding the top, internally, as          
#######################    described above. (right side of floodgate)
 

The idea is to have water running inside the system and the backup pumpstack, a little higher, to get rid of excess water.

Now when i let the floodgate open, I could imagine the internal pumpstack working against the pressure of the river (they meet at the same point) and therefor being inefficient or unable to get rid of water, letting the water in the cistern slowly rise. I dont know how that works in such a case. Maybe its just increasing the pressure inside the system.

Anyways, what happens is this;
the second the bottom level of the cistern gets to 7/7, the waterfall seems to get "solid" (i shit you not), clogging the floorgrates and the dining room fills halfway up or so.

the bottom level of the cistern stays at 7/7 and all the nice and empty z levels above never get filled and the backup pumpstack never kicks in.

now you could say "maybe you pumping so much in, it cant drain through the floor".

well i thought of that. dug away half the floor. same effect. the water fills the dining room level before it fills the cistern. Am I doing something wrong? For the life of me i couldnt tell what it is.

I mean, it just LOOKS like im simply pumping a lot more water in than those few holes in the ground can cover... but... I really made a 5x10 hole for 4 single tiles that pour water (all fed from the SAME one tile wide tunnel) and tried it again. as soon as the cistern bottom hits 7/7 it fills the dining room. (yes both pumps are running at full force all year.)

Now why for heavens sake does this evil thing know, WHICH floor to flood to piss me off ?        

i guess i can upload the save, as soon as i find out how to do that.

edit:
now that i think of it, if I manually control the water level so the bottom of the cistern doesnt fill, it works. but even when i SLOWLY add water to the system, the cistern never fills above it's lowest level, but the dining room gets irrigated for good.

and yet another edit:
i just dug out some more floor, and now it seems to work as intended. but BOY that is a big hole in the floor now   any way to get that full with grates?
I'm not sure if this is supposed to work this way, I mean its hard for me to visualize pressure, in that example, but to me it seems it gets a bit off when a  SINGLE tile of the waterfall hits the ground. the way the water spreads in that case is just a bit wrong.

its the same with water dropping on a river; hit ONLY the river, and it gets destroyed. hit ONE floor tile ( even in the middle of the stream) and you get a circular shape of wet across the valley.

[ June 14, 2008: Message edited by: Puck ]

[Mechanoid]

when water reaches 7/7 and is moving downwards, water will to 'teleport' to a position of 7/7 water that's touching ground.

basically, try to make sure the amount of water in the system remains constant. instead of having a river put water into your area continually, you should instead fill the cistern with some water via buckets, and then start the mist generator with just that water; leaving the river alone completely.
that way you'll never flood your dining room.

[Puck]

when water reaches 7/7 and is moving downwards, water will to 'teleport' to a position of 7/7 water that's touching ground.

could you describe that a bit closer for me? what does it do, when it reaches that 7/7 that touches ground?

[Draco18s]

It does the same thing up a U bend (i.e. end location doesn't contain ground), but I digress.

When the water teleports it looks for an open location adjacent to the body of water it's a part of (A* pathing algorithm set to not look higher than the start z-level, in all likelyhood) and simply moves there without passing through the intervening space.

[Puck]

now IF i understand that correctly, all i would have to do, is build a walkway of floors, 1 tile wide, inside the cistern, in the path of the falling water, so it remembers where to pile up first?

dont get me wrong, the whole system works fine, if i just open the gate to the river, let some water in and then shut it close. but i like the idea of having a backup pump, that can pump out excess water in case anythign goes wrong. i mean... just the idea, the plan that i made, is actually ok-ish, right? in reality water would do what i expect it to, or am i being stupid here?

picture this scenario for example: i open the gate to the river, let it open too long, and oops, theres too much water. dining room is flooded, ok i can live with that. but the excess water should now drain, fill the higher z levels in the cistern, till it touches the backup pumpstack and gets sucked out.
this NEVER NEVER neVER happens and im a sad panda.... so ...
HOW exactly would i build such a system? for now ill just connect the backup pumpstack to the dining room, which is totally ghetto style :/ maintenance gear next to my plump helmet stew, that sucks.

also somethign else... look in front of the pumpstacks, thats pretty much how i built it... am i producing tiny u-bends?