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[MarcAFK]

Untill someone drops a dead goblin into your well, then you'll be digging a new one .

[Satche]

If clean water ever gets blood, pus, vomit, or a dead body in it, it becomes contaminated. If it touches any other body of water that is 'stagnant' like a pond, it gets contaminated. If it ever touches salt water, it gets contaminated as salt water. I'm 100% on this, but I think if clean water ever touches a tile in which there has ever been contaminated water, it gets contaminated. So, if a river of any type ever gets even the slightest bit dirty, the whole river gets contaminated (not just downstream). This certainly appears true in fort mode, and seems to be true as far as I've tested it in adventure mode. This isn't a bug, per se, but it does seem a bit silly. When I think about it, it seems like something of a challenge for Toady to fix; adding dilution thresholds and contamination directionality for flowing water seems to me like it'd be a right pain in the arse.

Fortunately, you can exploit the pump decontamination bug to ensure potable water for your fort. It is, in fact, almost completely essential to the running of a fort.

I didn't know decontamination by screw pump was a bug (I thought it was one of the main function). Is there any another way to clean water ?

[Findulidas]

Is there any another way to clean water ?

Nope. Fortunately for the playthrough/guide Im doing I can treat the stagnant water as salty and show people how to fix that.

Unfortunately the dwarves pumping water might sometimes get a little excited and pump so wildly that the water on the clean end runs over the stagnant end and quickly destroys your whole clean supply as my dwarf accidentaly did for about 2 secs (even thought he clean end wasnt even filled!!). grrrr

[floundericiousWA]

I had a problem in my now-abandoned fort with screw pumping NOT cleaning the water.

I was so PO'ed.  I about threw the computer.  I went to all the trouble to construct floors and walls (and I mean on every surface the water could touch after it came out of the screw pump) and keep everything sterile so the stagnant water would END at the intake and never touch a rock surface again (in theory, no chance for stagnation again)...I got it all built, sealed up, put in the screw pump...and as soon as it started running, the outlet was pushing huge quantities of stagnant water.

What a freakin' waste.  I lost the fort a few months later to tantrum spirals and gobbos but I'd pretty much lost my taste for doing anything with that fort at that point...I was so angry at it.

[floundericiousWA]

There should be a means to clean water that doesn't involve having to carefully ensure that the water never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever touches stagnation.

It should be possible to construct something with sand and charcoal which cleans any and all water.  Maybe it can only clean one bucket at a time, but we need something that's not so hair-trigger prone to fouling the water supply where you only know if you've gotten it right after HOURS of super-micro-management.

[Watsst]

I've been having the same problem as floundericiousWA, construct meticulous cisterns in areas that have never had water of any kind, is clean, smoothed and or constructed, with screw pumps that pump directly into a closed system and bam, stagnant. I've given up trying so many times, and while im sure it is possible to purify water this way, I cant seem to find a single possible cause for it  to become stagnant yet it does. Especially when you channel out and create some wonderfully designed wells and water features only to have them stagnent.

As for a way to make it pure again, I dont think Toady should have to worry about it till he implements alchemy, then a sort of iodine tablet that can be applied to a mass of water to make it normal again. But he could go other ways with it, filtration, boiling (water on top of warm stone cant be stagnent or something something). None of this would work anyway without a fluid overhaul

[floundericiousWA]

That aggravating experience was weird, too...

The first time, it actually worked!!!  The screw pump started pumping and CLEAN WATER was coming out..except, I didn't plan the openings right and it washed my pump operator into the stagnant cistern and he drowned.  The second screw pump I set up on that map was built up with walls and floors...but it started pumping stagnant water straightaway....very odd and very demoralizing.

[khearn]

I've been having the same problem as floundericiousWA, construct meticulous cisterns in areas that have never had water of any kind, is clean, smoothed and or constructed, with screw pumps that pump directly into a closed system and bam, stagnant. I've given up trying so many times, and while im sure it is possible to purify water this way, I cant seem to find a single possible cause for it  to become stagnant yet it does. Especially when you channel out and create some wonderfully designed wells and water features only to have them stagnent.

I don't think smoothing will prevent contamination. I've always read that the walls & floor have to be constructed. But I'm not sure. I've never had that sort of problem. I only use well water for my hospital, and that cistern is usually from tapping a river.

[Buttery_Mess]

Access to clean, potable water is meant to be one of the major factors in siting a fort. It's not easy to clean water of salt or contaminants, and not something people should be able to do with medieval technology.

Access to plentiful clean water is a good reason to site on an aquifer. You balance access to clean water against the difficulty of penetrating it.

The problem is that nothing less than evian-quality water is totally useless to dwarves for use in the hospital, which is the main reason to bother obtaining water. River water should be self-cleaning, like in reality, as new, clean water washes away decay. It should be possible to dilute dirty water with clean water to make a cistern clean again, too.

I don't think Dwarf Fortress is meant to be a negative homeopathy simulator.

It'd be a nice feature if dwarves could brew medicinal ethanol too, but that would partially negate the utility of the soap industry. It would be bloody funny though if the dwarves ran out of booze and resorted to drinking medicinal ethanol and poisoning themselves, though.

[Dante]

It'd be a nice feature if dwarves could brew medicinal ethanol too, but that would partially negate the utility of the soap industry. It would be bloody funny though if the dwarves ran out of booze and resorted to drinking medicinal ethanol and poisoning themselves, though.

Somehow, I doubt dwarves would bother to wait until they ran out of other types of booze.

[WillowLuman]

It'd be a nice feature if dwarves could brew medicinal ethanol too, but that would partially negate the utility of the soap industry. It would be bloody funny though if the dwarves ran out of booze and resorted to drinking medicinal ethanol and poisoning themselves, though.

Somehow, I doubt dwarves would bother to wait until they ran out of other types of booze.

Somehow, I doubt dwarves would be poisoned

[Buttery_Mess]

It'd be a nice feature if dwarves could brew medicinal ethanol too, but that would partially negate the utility of the soap industry. It would be bloody funny though if the dwarves ran out of booze and resorted to drinking medicinal ethanol and poisoning themselves, though.

Somehow, I doubt dwarves would bother to wait until they ran out of other types of booze.

Somehow, I doubt dwarves would be poisoned

Yeah, more likely the dwarf would give the ethanol alcohol poisoning.

[Watsst]

It's not easy to clean water of salt or contaminants, and not something people should be able to do with medieval technology.

Salt water, yes I can understand medieval times couldnt make that into fresh, but boiling water has been done practically forever (I dont think anyone can say when it was 'discovered'). As for filtration, running something through animal hides and cloth was done back in medieval times.

[Findulidas]

So if you drop some vampire blood in the river will the river be a source for vampirism? Somehow I doubt it, maybe it would treat it like mud.

Funny if it was true though, drop it in a river that runs through a major city and watch the whole civilization go up in flames.

[jhxmt]

Y'know, when I first started reading about the clothing bugs Toady was working on, I kinda shrugged one shoulder and thought, "Eh, that's good, but hey, it's not as cool as introducing new major features like vampires and werebeasts".

And then I thought.  And my senses came back to me.  And I realised that actually, I am incredibly incredibly excited and filled with anticipation about all the clothing fixes.  Moreso than for vampires, werebeasts and undead (with the possible exception of pulping infinite amounts of zombies because, hey, zombie pulp roasts).

Fixing the two-socks-on-one-foot-and-leaving-the-other-bare issue?  Fixing the ownership of clothing issue?  Fixing, in effect, the entire clothing and textile industry, plus a major part of the hassle around equipping a military, in one fell swoop?

That's awesome.  Even ignoring the new training system too!    Really looking forward to this release.