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[druid91]

Well I got an idea for a fortress defense where the entrance is actually under water and the area around it can be sealed off and drained by pumps, any ideas? I do know how to make power plants, but the only thing I can think of is to either build the fortress up and flood the very bottom level where the entrance is but making it able to be pumped into a container that could let the bottom level fill again, or damming a river and rigging it with floodgates or a drawbridge, so that the water can be released on command to destroy those elves. Obviously the trade depot has to be in the center of the river so that it is vulnerable to this.

Ok I have tried to do this before, but inevitably if it is more then a brook the carp kill my dam technicians or I run into an aquifer.

[bmaczero]

I like the idea of an entrance that's physically under a lake or something.  I've seen it done a few times  .

You could try this:
Dam a river.  Once it's empty you dig into the riverbed, build something like this:

Code: [Select]

▓▓,,,,▓▓
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▓▲.▼▼.▲▓
▓▓,,,,▓▓
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On the spots with commas, make a pair of bridges that raise inward.  The up ramps go up to the shore, and the down ramps go into your fort.  On the level below (an entrance hall), make a way to drain water (channel into a cavern or some pumps to pour the water back into the river), and some doors or floodgates to keep the water from flowing into the fort.

Normally you keep the entrance hall sealed and the bridges down - the water flows normally.  When you want to open it you raise the bridges, drain the water, and you have a nice dry spot for you dwarves to run out from.

For protection from aquatic animals, you could have one of the bridges actually lie over the entrance when it's down, and when you raise it the entrance is uncovered.

[Rollory]

First thing to do is to drain the area you want to work in.  For example, build a wooden enclosure near a pond, with a pump going directly out of the pond and into the enclosure.  Manually pump the water out.  Dig ramps into the side of the pond, then your down ramps or staircase in the middle.  Go down some ways, build your fort, put hatches on top of the entrance (in the pond floor), connect to lever within the fort.  Also, you probably want to set up a drainage area below ground, so that you can drain from the pond down into there, and then pump the water back up into the pond, as needed.  Once all that is set up, you can let the water from the enclosure back into the pond.  Drain whenever you want people coming in and out, close the hatches and re-fill to isolate.

Rivers are similar except that you need a lot more pumping.

The exception that makes things easy is if it freezes in the winter, in which case you just dig out the ice without needing to do all the preliminary pumping.  Still need the hatches and a drainage area below though - unless you plan on digging your way through the ice every winter.

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

Is it possible to get dwarfs to wade through 4/7 water in 40d to retrieve an item? If so, how? I've got an entire underground pool drained almost exactly to 4/7.

[Rollory]

Does it need to be exactly at 4/7?  I think (not sure) 4/7 is where they start cancelling jobs because it's too deep.  Pumping just a little bit of water out would get it to a mix of 3/7 and 4/7 and I know they wade through 3/7 fine.  The 4s would move around and they would eventually get it.

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

Does it need to be exactly at 4/7?  I think (not sure) 4/7 is where they start cancelling jobs because it's too deep.  Pumping just a little bit of water out would get it to a mix of 3/7 and 4/7 and I know they wade through 3/7 fine.  The 4s would move around and they would eventually get it.

But doesn't it begin to evaporate below 4/7?

[druid91]

Does it need to be exactly at 4/7?  I think (not sure) 4/7 is where they start cancelling jobs because it's too deep.  Pumping just a little bit of water out would get it to a mix of 3/7 and 4/7 and I know they wade through 3/7 fine.  The 4s would move around and they would eventually get it.

But doesn't it begin to evaporate below 4/7?

No, it evaporates at 1/7 only.

[Shoku]

It evaporates a little at 2/7. I've filled a few things up too much and then turned off the pumps and come back with a salvage plan later to find it evaporated anyway. Also 1/7 on top of 7/7 also evaporates.

The dwarves will only go through 4/7 if they are using the cheaper pathfinding code. This is the one they use when their original path had something in the way, such as a dwarf, and they need to find a quick way around. In order to teach soldiers to swim I made a hallway with ramps down into water but a 1 wide path of floors over the water. There is probably no way to get them grabbing items out of 4/7 though.

As for a flooding entryway I like just having many screwpumps holding back the water and turning them off when I want to close the entryway and possibly drown intruders like elves. I always kind of want the entrance even deeper but typically don't have the patience for the pumps that would take.

[dogstile]

It evaporates a little at 2/7. I've filled a few things up too much and then turned off the pumps and come back with a salvage plan later to find it evaporated anyway.

I you sure you didn't have a couple 1/7's in that pool, and they evaporated, causing the water to spread...etc