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[Itnetlolor]

Let's see if it's possible to gain 1.21 giga-urists with this design, and my proposal of modifying it to be built as a skyscraper or earthscraper. I also provided a way to prevent evaporation from the water falling by using a ramp corkscrew system that connects from the very top to the bottom recycler lines.

If you want a simple breakdown of how it works, I shrunk it down to an abridged version (using ASCII-Paint) from what I understand looking at it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

3-More turbines or essentially a repeat of 1 as much as you need tall, and cap off the very top with 3.
2-Pump lvl.2 and overflow to a pit (can connect to more levels upwards by adapting 0 here, and mocking up 1 above; lather, rinse, repeat as high as you want)*
1-Pump lvl.1 and bottom "turbines", a walled off pit area from 2 connects here.
0-Flood zone (water source from floodgate) with flow regulators ('O's, as explained by the inventor). Receives from 2 (passing 1), or a corkscrew down-flow regulator (if going for sky/earthscraper version, to prevent evaporation via really high waterfall effect).

*Regarding 2, you don't need to repeat the protrusion. That's an output node for a power distribution system that can be repeated as substations if you intend to use this design as a power plant. Easily adaptable, simple, and practical for any power-related device. Further explanation on this and the symbols in the image here.

NOTE: It would be wise to link a lever to the bottom-most pump chain gear mechanism (which is assumed to be linked to the chain above it (per floor if expanding upwards) to use as a total kill-switch. The machine will eventually stop. Have another at the power distribution node base (or connected sub-station) if you want to unlink the power more immediately without killing the power plant.

Get this thing as tall and wide as possible; the design should handle it regardless of scale and height, and see if you can hit that limit. With this guy's design, it should be possible. The real question is, how will the FPS fair?

EDIT:
Right, my mockup picture has a bit of an inconsistency. The bottom row to Lvl.3 wouldn't work. I would advise offsetting the pumps (Lvl.1 and 2) downward by at least 1 tile to make use of them as well (9x100(-12) (888) power recovered). My mistake. Then again, it's a model showing in a simpler setting how the device works anyhow.

[Gizogin]

I've always been a fan of the standard V-reactor.  Is the over-under reactor more (space-/resource-) efficient?  Combining multiple V-reactors can give you as much power as you need, and it seems like it would be much more difficult to increase the output of the OU-reactor than it is to just throw in another half-V.

Code: [Select]

===
W.W
W%W
W%W
._.

= is a wall
W is the water wheel
% is the pump
. is a floor


[Itnetlolor]

Although the V-reactor is efficient on it's own, and expandable in it's own way, I could imagine a proper building of the Tower of Power Hydro-Plant (I guess dividing it into separate buildings (5x15 WW/2 floors area (7500 ^Us (7.5k^Us) per-floor 15,000 ^Us (15k^Us) per 4-floor stack proper) linked by a small set of mechanisms/axles to connect power) can get really tall, and really powerful in a relatively compact cluster of buildings; 1 local embark tile at most with this build. At least the notes I jotted down allows the OUWR to be a stackable design, and like also noted, having a ramp system or corkscrew can regulate the water on it's way back down to the bottom floor again without having it evaporate, thereby easing up FPS a bit more as well as having more direct control over it, and maybe also double it as an aqueduct system if you want.

I'm building my own version of that design to see if it can work as I want it to, and later on, if it can really be stacked. So far, in theory, it should work. Essentially, the bottom-most floor (and if much much larger, unless longer more WW rows-wise) should provide more than enough power to jumpstart it once enough water flows in, or is even lightly pumped from lvl.1 and 2 of the reactor.

The guy that made this originally proved it worked, but the stackability has yet to be put into practice, and to be proven as efficient and FPS-safe. From what I can observe, especially regarding lvl.3's clustering of WWs, this build has potential to be really efficient if done right. My kill-switch placement advice is just in case things go ass-end-up. The power regulator is also how to better use the power output in a schematic fashion, using as few levers/gear mechansims as possible if you need to toggle the power, or alternate the power use (if per pressure-plate use).

EDIT:
Fixed measurements. Of course, I'm going by every ^U (Urists) = w (Watts).

With proper measurement, you'll be needing lots of floors, and maybe multiple reactor buildings to link up. I mean,  1.21 * 10⁹ = 1,210,000,000^Us or 1.21G^Us. That is indeed a challenge. You can power the dwarven world from this.

I can imagine to maximize output efficiency (caused by water level dipping below 4/7), I would actually flood the entire bottom floor(s (7/7), if multiple buildings; or really tall, where it would be 1 entire flooded floor every 4 floors/proper stack (1:4 ratio, 1:2 if excluding dedicated WW floors))) (while the main pump chains are off) for all power-plant buildings used, then re-activate it, and kick-start the machine by manually pumping the upper-most water-accessible point to begin a chian-reaction jumpstart to the entire building. After one building has fully-powered, then reactivate the links to the other identical buildings. The one building alone can jumpstart the rest of the other buildings (up to maybe 4-6 identical-size & parts) simultaneously.

And if you're the impatient type, just keep flooding it (from the end of the flooding pipe that goes directly to the pumps) as you pump it until you see an ideal average flow-level per-floor (4/7) at the center of each (water) floor.

[Azated]

Well, now I have three goals.


1: Have the underground fortress containing 50 dwarfs run completely automatically.

2: Have the surface of the map controlled by another 50 dwarves provided for by the cavemen.

3: Build a reactor capable of emitting so much power that it makes the Tsar Bomb quake in its shell.


This is going to be fun.

[BloodBeard]

Who can argue with a plan like that?

I don't know if Aussie got it to go any higher but I was able to get his version to output 33.6k UristWatts. I challenge you to break that record 

[Itnetlolor]

I know I may technically be cheating when I do this, but I'm going to make an experimental lands region/embark. All it really would be would be a bunch of base-level unskilled dwarves on embark, but devoting the rest of the spare points to equipment and creatures for pasture, and save it as a pre-set.

Upon embark, I would then use Runesmith to make all dwarves superdwarven (skills and stats and etc.), and find the most ideal locations for certain experiments. Any guinea pigs we'll be experimenting with, or extra arms will eb the migrants; but the Super-7 will always be super, and the administrators/overseers to the experimental fort. Basically, this is primarily for field-testing building designs and so forth. Not a bad idea huh? Like stated, this is experimental cheating; mostly to test out concept designs and such. First test will be to see if I was right about making the SOUR (Stackable-Over-Under-Reactor) a potential design. With super-dwarves, it shouldn't take me any longer than 1 dwarven year to get the basics setup.

The primary reason for this method is because sometimes, I tend to put things off, or I tend to get impatient when it comes to testing a concept out, and I and up putting it off for longer. Like my vault, or after I lost my Bloodfist site the first couple times. Took a few months before I continued that again. Of course, we can't forget Real Life tends to get in the way before I get around to testing things out and I eventually lose interest before I even get around to it.

Anyway, if the SOUR works, and is actually more efficient than initially thought, then let's do it.

EDIT:
Well, I essentially have my experi-fort made, and in less than a season too. Broken game, I know, but like stated, it's purely for testing out designs and optimizations. This'll be fun.

Got some victims/slaves migrants in now. This has been more fun than I initially expected it to be. I'm rapidly developing some nifty/good fortress designing as I'm building out with rapid assistance, good for future/current forts. I should also have more than enough materials to start crafting the SOUR now; and if I checked my location, I don't think I've got any nearby hostiles to worry about, but I am in the age of myth, so I can possibly have some ‼fun‼ random encounters. Summer, year 1 is nearly passed.

[Azated]

I'm feeling a little slow. It's been almost 4 years and I'm only just beginning to automate my fortress.

I had a bunch of ambushes and I expect a siege any day now. Unfortunately, my only defense is three untrained melee dwarves and two highly skilled crossbowdwarves. I also had a major problem with two FB's that were hanging out in my cave suddenly deciding to break into my fort at the same time; one through a hole in my central staircase and one through the magma pipe into my magmaworks that I forgot to close up. It took a few tries to get that under control, but I eventually did, and now I'm smelting steel and adamantine wafers for above-ground millitary for goal 2.


EDIT: While we're on the subject of Adamantine, I think I might have found it in real life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHnen2nSmDY&feature=relmfu

[GreatWyrmGold]

Only let your dwarves sleep, eat, drink, and generally do ANYTHING in buildings made of soap. (Furniture, tools, weapons, and so forth can be made from wood, stone, and metal, unless you're feeling REALLY adventurous and want to spend some serious time modding...although that would severely increase the "Awesome" factor...)

[Azated]

Hmm... Soap weapons... Slices you in half, but cleans the wound too!

[NRDL]

Hmm... Soap weapons... Slices you in half, but cleans the wound too!

...lightsabers?

[tolkafox]

!!Science!! This should be the goal of all forts. Find something you don't know (easier said than done) and learn about it. Try embarking in new and/or difficult locations. Gen a world with maximum savagery and beasts. Have you connected all those annoying little islands around your world to the main continent with a megabridge? Bonus points if you collapse the bridge with all of your dwarves standing on it.

My last for I found out that skeletal deer were very dangerous, and like to rip dwarves apart before they can smith a single weapon. I also got to test a much anticipated scenario in another fort: If faced with alligators on one side and honey badgers on another, which would a dwarf prepare to die to? My above-ground fort experiments were destroyed in the process, but the results were interesting.

It's alligators by the way, dwarves are more scared of honey badgers than alligators. I have !!Science!! to back this up.

Can 7 inexperienced and unarmed dwarves defeat one cave crocodile? Ultimately no, they can beat the cave crocodile until it's unconscious but eventually they exhaust themselves and the cave crocodile wakes up and eats them all.