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[Finn]

I'm having trouble figuring out how to temorarily redirect water.  In my current scenario I have a river at z-146 the drops into a gorge down to z-140.  I've been trying to build a bridge across the chasm, about half-way up right through the waterfall, but I'm stuck.   I have a tunnel on either side, but the bridge won't construct because of the water from the waterfall.  So I need to shut the waterfall off for a while, build the bridge, and then put the waterfall back.  I've been reading the wiki, googling, etc., just about everything but look at youtube (cuz I just thought of it) and I've experimented a bit but I'm not being very successful.  I have managed to *almost* divert the water off the map, by almost I mean that the floor was slowly decreasing and if I had waited about a week the falls might have stopped.  I can certainly figure out how to tunnel into a river bottom and suck water out, but I don't know how to fix it later.

Basically, I don't know how to build a dam.

Now I'm sure that this is possible, and I'm sure that floodgates will be involved, but well, if anyone has a simple example, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you,

Dan

[_DivideByZero_]

First of all, pumps.
Lots and lots of pumps.

What you want to do is pump water out of the river at an insane speed as to make the riverbed dry. Then, you want to build floodgates on the river bed before shutting the pumps off.

[Graebeard]

Magma.

But really, _DivideByZero_ is right.  Unless you have a volcano and magma at ground level to turn the river into obsidian, pumps are the easiest way to deal with this.  Here's an elaboration.

Pumps work fast.  Stupid fast.  In fact, they pump water faster than water can flow down a river.  Therefore, with the right setup, you can use a handful of pumps to send all the water that comes down the river back up the river.

Let's say you have a 4 tile wide river flowing across your map from east to west:

Code: [Select]

............
777777777777
777777777777
777777777777
777777777777
............
Build floors 2 tiles wide across the river upstream of where you want to work:

Code: [Select]

............
777++7777777
777++7777777
777++7777777
777++7777777
............
Now, build a pump facing upstream on each tile, so that they suck up all the water coming under your little bridge"

Code: [Select]

............
777->7777777
777->7777777
777->7777777
777->7777777
............
You could have 4 dwarfs manually pump these, but there'd inevitably be downtime, so let's automate it.  Build a water wheel or two upstream of the pumps and connect them all together with gears and axels:

Code: [Select]

....*----*..
777->777WWW7
777->7777777
777->7777777
777->7777777
............
Congratulations!  You have earned your first hydroengineering badge.  Check out this article on hydrodynamics and pressure for more details on how water moves and why this solution works.

[Finn]

Thank you, both of you.  So I need to build pumps and water wheels?  Are you really just pumping the water back up the stream?  Does that just spill all over everything else?  I guess I will find out.

[Graebeard]

It's been a while, so I don't remember exactly how the overflow works.  If I remember correctly, natural river tiles will suck up all the water you pump into them, so you shouldn't get a lot of overflow.  There may be a bit of overflow right around the edges, though, so a few well-placed walls might be in order.  Also, linking one of the gears powering the pumps to a lever before they're powered is handy.  That way you can disengage them from a distance if you need.

[Makbeth]

Magma.

But really, _DivideByZero_ is right.  Unless you have a volcano and magma at ground level to turn the river into obsidian, pumps are the easiest way to deal with this.  Here's an elaboration.

Pumps work fast.  Stupid fast.  In fact, they pump water faster than water can flow down a river.  Therefore, with the right setup, you can use a handful of pumps to send all the water that comes down the river back up the river.

Let's say you have a 4 tile wide river flowing across your map from east to west:

Code: [Select]

............
777777777777
777777777777
777777777777
777777777777
............
Build floors 2 tiles wide across the river upstream of where you want to work:

Code: [Select]

............
777++7777777
777++7777777
777++7777777
777++7777777
............
Now, build a pump facing upstream on each tile, so that they suck up all the water coming under your little bridge"

Code: [Select]

............
777->7777777
777->7777777
777->7777777
777->7777777
............
You could have 4 dwarfs manually pump these, but there'd inevitably be downtime, so let's automate it.  Build a water wheel or two upstream of the pumps and connect them all together with gears and axels:

Code: [Select]

....*----*..
777->777WWW7
777->7777777
777->7777777
777->7777777
............
Congratulations!  You have earned your first hydroengineering badge.  Check out this article on hydrodynamics and pressure for more details on how water moves and why this solution works.

Won't that cause massive flooding when the excess redirected water overtops the banks?  Would it be better to use the pumps to divert the water into a floodgate-controlled spillway that rejoins the river farther downstream?

Too bad we don't have gunpowder.  That way you could build an underground spillway and blast the riverbed out from underneath, so that you don't need to build pumps.  Of course, if gunpowder ever makes it into the game it'll likely be as hard to make as pumps anyway...

[jappipi]

You could also block the waterfall without pumps.
How to do it:

The river (O = open space):

Code: [Select]

WWWWWWWWWWWWW
777777777777O
777777777777O
777777777777O
777777777777O
WWWWWWWWWWWWW
Make a 2-wide bridge 1 tile away from where the water falls down. People could fall off if you make it 1 tile wide:

Code: [Select]

WWWWWWWWWWWWWFF
777777777777OFF
777777777777OFF
777777777777OFF
777777777777OFF
WWWWWWWWWWWWWFF
Now block the waterfall with walls (You'll get job cancellations IIRC but just unsuspend the construction):

Code: [Select]

WWWWWWWWWWWWWFF
777777777777WFF
777777777777WFF
777777777777WFF
777777777777WFF
WWWWWWWWWWWWWFF

 

[noodle0117]

^
Depending on the water depth, that method may end up taking a great deal of time and patience, might even be impossible if everything is too deep.

River diverting is tricky stuff.

[Vattic]

Similar to the other suggestions but this is what I'd do:

Edge of map
[~~~[
[~~~[
[~~~[
[~~~[
[~~~[
[%%%[
 %%%
 ~~~
 ~~~
 ~~~

~  water
[  raised bridge
%% pump

If the river is more than a tile deep then you can tier the pumps like so:

~~~%%
~~~~~~%% original water depth
~~~~~~~~~%%
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#################

Building them a tier at a time down into the river.

I tend to use windmills to power this kind of thing. Not all maps have strong enough wind so it's best to build a windmill to test. I haven't tried it but something like this should allow you to use waterwheels safely. Just thinking out loud.

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