Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[shifty]

This is my first time surviving a siege without tantrum spiraling my fortress (yay!). I managed to drown all the goblins in my entrance corridor. Only, I didn't think about how I was going to drain the water... for now I just dug a few drainage tunnels, but every time I drown enemies I'll have to dig another drainage pit. Is there a better way to get rid of the water? Maybe pump it out?

[kaijyuu]

You can drain water through the side of the map by carving a fortification in it. From there, it's all a matter of making a drainage tunnel and hooking a floodgate up to it via lever.

[zelpao]

Instead of digging extra tunnels, you should consider using floodgates with mechanisms to open/close them.  You could also try to recycle the trap water by pumping the water back up to a storage vessel where the trap begins.  If you have plenty of water though (like from an aquifer or river) then storing water would be useless.

Edit: You can pump/dump water out on the map edges, as stated above.

[Kellnaved]

As far as I know water will evaporate when it is less then 3/7 in height. So if your drowning-chamber is 200 tiles big and you fill it up to 7/7 than your evaporation-chamber should be atleast 700 tiles big (but I guess 1400 would be better or even more if you have new sieges before everything is dry). --> Using pumps to drain the drowning-chamber is a better solution.

[shifty]

@zelpao, I do have floodgates and such on my drainage tunnels, lest the water used for the actual drowning would drain immediately.

Good information, guys. Very useful. I am funneling water from a river, so there's not much use in storing it. I'll probably try and drain it off the edge of the map then. Thanks!

[Quietust]

As far as I know water will evaporate when it is less then 3/7 in height.

Close, but not quite - it must be less than 2/7 in height, since only tiles of depth 1/7 will evaporate.

[FrisianDude]

Instead of digging a drainage pit of 700-odd it might be better to drain into the cavern. Or use pumps to empty the drowning pit/drainage over the land.

[Triaxx2]

If you're drawing off a river, just pump it back into the river. Then you have the side benefit of creating a nice water fall.

[slothen]

usually have all my water systems connect to a second tank far below my fortress for drainage.  When I want to drain it I flip a switch that pumps that water into a drain to the side of the map.  It drains very quickly.  You can make it dwarf-powered as well, but that requires the second tank to be a single z level, or use several baffles to depressurize the water on its way to the pump, which slows down the drain speed, but is still easier construction.

[gchristopher]

A pit containing large raising drawbridge connected to a nearby 0-2 or 0-3 water-triggered pressure plate will (mostly) automatically destroy water that drains in. Some tuning is necessary for best results and occasionally the bridge needs to be manually reset, depending on the design.

[Archereon]

Personally, I use drainage tunnels that lead into the caverns, and a complicated series of floodgates that lets me flood the caverns completely in the case of demonic invasion/forgotten beast (doesn't kill them, but can wash them off the map and will slow them down.)

[white_darkness]

My most common drowning entrance setup is aquifer dependent, easiest to do with a partial map aquifer stuck out to the side somewhere, and i run my entrance hall down alongside it in normal soil/rock.

3 levels.  Bottom level normally has an aquifer connection for water control and a descending tunnel to my well system.  De-pressurization twist in the tunnel right before the wells.

Middle level is the actual entrance hall which has lever-controlled hatches, that under normal conditions remain open.  These hatches are protected by built fortifications, so no building destroyer can get creative.

Upper level has the aquifer source and a series of hatches (also lever-controlled), where the water is dropped down to the entrance hall level and the bottom level.

If the top aquifer source isn't available, a small two pump stack, and a series of water wheels on the entrance hall level but separated from the entrance way, can supply infinite power due to the water source being the flowing bottom level.

Under normal conditions, mist waterfalls, under siege conditions, the bridges snap closed, the hatches close on the entrance level, and the entrance fills up.  When everything is terminated, the hatches open, and everything stays sealed as all the water drains back into the aquifer.

Then I go see what I got for Goblin Christmas.