Hey,
I just started playing two days ago. This is my fourth attempt now and irrigation is driving me nuts. I was using the "Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial" but as I understand it I can no longer grow plants on plain soil, I need mud. And for a permanent plant farm I need irrigation from a river or aquifer, right?
But I can't seem to get irrigation working, how do I build that corkscrew pump I need? Do I even need that?
I've flooded a room from a river. The connection from room to river has a grate so I don't get eaten by giant fish. The room has stairs up so the water ends there. Now I need a pump on the upper floor so I can pump some water from the basin below to the upper floor without flooding it entirely. Correct so far?
I've been able to build the three parts of a pump in my carpenter's workshop, pipe section, giant corkscrew and the blocks. But what now? I tried building a mechanic's workshop but nobody came finish the construction site, am I maybe lacking someone with the right profession?
Is there any other, easier way to do this? I've never played with aquifers because the tooltip when embarking says not to. Is it maybe easier to irrigate with an aquifer?
Please help!
ZMC
One of the first things I have my miners do is mine out a few farm areas, which I make 7x7, but with one square taken out of the top, so it looks like:
XXX_XXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
I put a few of these side by side, and dig out a line of 8 squares from the bottom of each (7 squares at 7/7 depth water will cover all 48 squares of the farm, plus the 1 square that the floodgate will be in):
XXX_XXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
F
X
X
X
X
X
X
F
XXXXXXXX
F = floodgate (or door, which is probably better)
X = mined out
That lower line of X's is a tunnel connecting to other farm areas and their channels.
From the very bottom line, mine out a tunnel that runs to a river. Leave 1 square unmined right by the river.
Hook up all the flood gates to levers.
Open the lower floodgates, close the top ones.
Channel the river from above (usind d-h for designate a channel) on the square that you left unmined in the tunnel below.
Side view:
____C <-- ground level (C = channel here)
XXX_RRR (R = river) <-- Z-1
Now your tunnels will fill up. Whenever you need to re-irrigate, lock all the doors in the 7x7 farm areas (which can have 5x5 farms in them, with room along the sides for dwarves to run around without trampling crops), close the bottom floodgates, then open the top ones. You will have 7 squares of 7/7 depth water flow out over the 49 squares (48 from the farm area, 1 from the square the top floodgate was in), wetting each, and evaporating relatively quickly.