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[Eitaro]

I am wondering - How well does thermodynamics work in Dwarf Fortress? I know that temperature will find an equilibrium between objects and their environment, but what about things like mist, miasma, or simply, the air? Water and magma can flow, but what about gasses? I know that there is a "wind speed" at the surface, used for windmills and such, but will air flow given the right circumstances?

I would like to drop temperatures below 10,000 U, to freeze water. It may be possible to do this using vapor compression if pressure exists in the game, but I don't think that it does other than for water. :-(

I guess that the questions that I am asking are:
1. If smoke can carry a temperature, does it condense at all?
2. Does miasma, smoke, or air flow at all underground?
3. Will miasma, smoke, or mist move with the wind on the surface, where there is a "wind speed"?
4. If pressure is present in air, then an 'n' bend would push water down on one side as water is risen on the other. This could be done as so:
%~%%%%% %       % %%%%% %       % %%%%% %
%~%%%%% %       % %%%%% %       % %%%%% %
%~%   % %       % %   % %       % %   % %
%~% % % %       % % % % %       %~% % %~%
%~% %~%~% this  %~%~%~%~%  or   %~% % %~%
%~% %~%~%  ->   %~%~%~%~%  ->   %~%~%~%~%    ??
%~% %~%~%       %~%~%~%~%       %~%~%~%~%
%~%~%~%~%       %~%~%~%~%       %~%~%~%~%
%~%~%~%~%       %~%~%~%~%       %~%~%~%~%
%~X~%~~~%       %~~~%~~~%       %~~~%~~~%
%%%%%%%%%       %%%%%%%%%       %%%%%%%%%
This is a side view of the apparatus, with water as '~', wall as '%', and flood gate as 'X'. (apologies if this does not show up as I intended)
5. I have no idea how to tell the temperature of something. Is there a tool, debug setting, or feature that would tell me the temperature of an object, tile, or (X,Y,Z) location?
6. Everything is destroyed by a DAS - does that include smoke/miasma/mist? If so, does the remaining vapor flow into the newly open space quicker than it would 'naturally' flowing outwards from its source?

A few of these questions I can answer myself with a few tests, but I don't have a fort set up quite well enough for me to jump on this in a timely manner. I think I'll post results as they come in. I've been digging through the wiki as well for answers - I haven't found much yet, but I could have missed something.

So. Any ideas?

[stabbymcstabstab]

Edit: Thread to Awesome.

[Soadreqm]

Miasma and smoke tend to rise upwards, but that's the only thing they'll do. I think mist might have temperature but I'm not sure. I've seen lava mist set things on fire, but with only two fluids in the game, it could be hardcoded.

There is no air pressure, and even "water pressure" is a quick (if effective) hack. Whenever you have a block of water that can find a continuous path (through water) to a square below it, it's instantly teleported there. U-bends work, but n-bends won't, and an isolated underwater air pocket will fill with water. Vapor compression is right out.

The only thing that freezes water at the moment is weather, and if the region you embarked in is too warm for ice, you're out of luck.

Hypothetically, a modded creature with a sub-zero body temperature might freeze water (and instantly die from being frozen inside the ice), but I certainly haven't tested that. I know that creatures with very high body temperatures, such as the old Spirits of Fire we used to have, make water boil, so the opposite might be possible as well.

[i2amroy]

Right now the only way to freeze water in vanilla is through weather, while DF might be advanced, it doesn't simulate temperatures that well right now.

If you are modding you could mod something that had a super cold temperature, and I believe if it is extremely cold (like 0 degrees), then it can freeze water in adjacent tiles and thus walk on water. Elsewise it can only freeze water in the same tile, which instantly results in it's death and as it's corpse is destroyed the water instantly unfreezes again.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Nether-cap is around 32 degrees Fahrenheit, see what you can do with that.

[GoombaGeek]

I think you mean 0 Celsius

Anyway, nether-cap might only chill to freezing temperature and not any lower. If you modded it to be one degree colder then maybe it could work. It's all a question of how sophisticated temperature is (I know that constructed walls aren't affected by temperature because ice walls can hold back magma, but is the reverse true?).

[GreatWyrmGold]

Wait, the reverse...can magma walls hold back ice?

[Jilladilla]

magma walls

This is genius! Quick! Someone get their finest dwarves to engineer these!

[Eitaro]

Wow, thank you all for your comments! :-)

I was hoping not to have to mod the game, though I guess I could...
After a few tests and some thought experimentation, I now realize that a refrigerator would require that some type of vapor drops in temperature when it condenses, rather than just changing state when it reaches a temperature. (wait, does it? Or does mist turn into water just after there's enough in the air?)

For example, if I chilled some mist, steam, or whatever using tower caps, this would work if the vapor gained the 0 degree Celsius value (32 degrees Fahrenheit) and then reduced temperature while condensing to water. My guess is that if I manage to cool a vapor to 0 degrees, it will simply condense to water, and keep the 0 degrees.
Perhaps if I mod the game at all, it would be that vapor drops in temperature as it condenses.

Again, thanks for your input, guys. Now for the next project - these magical magma walls!

[GoombaGeek]

Wow, thank you all for your comments! :-)

I was hoping not to have to mod the game, though I guess I could...
After a few tests and some thought experimentation, I now realize that a refrigerator would require that some type of vapor drops in temperature when it condenses, rather than just changing state when it reaches a temperature. (wait, does it? Or does mist turn into water just after there's enough in the air?)

For example, if I chilled some mist, steam, or whatever using tower caps, this would work if the vapor gained the 0 degree Celsius value (32 degrees Fahrenheit) and then reduced temperature while condensing to water. My guess is that if I manage to cool a vapor to 0 degrees, it will simply condense to water, and keep the 0 degrees.
Perhaps if I mod the game at all, it would be that vapor drops in temperature as it condenses.

Again, thanks for your input, guys. Now for the next project - these magical magma walls!

Here's a below-freezing tree, and it shares the nether-cap biome:

Code: [Select]

[PLANT:END_STALK]
[NAME:end-stalk][NAME_PLURAL:end-stalk][ADJ:end-stalk]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STRUCTURAL:STRUCTURAL_PLANT_TEMPLATE]
[BASIC_MAT:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:STRUCTURAL]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:WOOD:WOOD_TEMPLATE]
[STATE_NAME:ALL_SOLID:end-stalk]
[STATE_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:end-stalk]
[PREFIX:NONE]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL_SOLID:MAGENTA]
[DISPLAY_COLOR:1:0:0]
[MAT_FIXED_TEMP:9050] <- below freezing, about -20 celsius
[TREE:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:WOOD][TREE_TILE:244]
[PREFSTRING:frigidity]
[WET][DRY]
[BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_WATER]
[UNDERGROUND_DEPTH:3:3]
[SOLID_DENSITY:150]
[TREE_COLOR:5:0:0]
[DEAD_TREE_COLOR:5:5:1]
[SAPLING_COLOR:5:0:0]
[DEAD_SAPLING_COLOR:0:0:1]Just add it to the end of plant_standard.txt. This one will also be showing up in my Creeper Cavern mod because it's very clever (in Minecraft there are two extra dimensions, the Nether and the End, and you go to the End after the Nether, so there's a logical progression). However, you'll need to generate a new world.

It'll look like ⌠.

EDIT

A material's temperature can be forced to always be a certain value via the MAT_FIXED_TEMP material definition token. The only standard material which uses this is nether-cap wood, whose temperature is always at the melting point of water. If a material's temperature is fixed to between its cold damage point and its heat damage point, then items made from that material will never suffer cold/heat damage. This makes nether-caps fire-safe and magma-safe despite being a type of wood.

Due to the way fixed temperature is handled, giving a material a fixed temperature will not cause its actual temperature to change accordingly — instead, its temperature will simply be permanently locked at whatever it was previously. Removing a material's fixed temperature, however, will cause all items made of it to heat or cool until reaching equilibrium with their surroundings.

The fixed temperature of a container does affect its contents, but you can't freeze water by putting it into a bucket made from nether-cap because water will not freeze until it cools below 10000 °U.

The fixed temperature of an inorganic material has no effect on unmined walls made from that material, though boulders will take on that temperature as they are produced via mining.

So there we go - nether-cap can't freeze water, but these can. Have fun with instant ice buckets

[Soadreqm]

I don't think items actually affect their surrounding temperature, though. Critters do, but not items. I remember having an adventurer find a lump of fire (cut from a random demon) in a pool, picking it up, and having all the fat in her hand melt.

[10ebbor10]

Fun fact, constructed things can affect water. I know this because of the community experiment where someone tried to make a self cleaning well. (Ie, artefact burnable chain or bucket) then a touch of magma, then open for business. It ended in disaster when the dwarf caught fire and the chain vaporized the entire cistern.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I imagine that the disaster didn't take long to happen...

[10ebbor10]

Well, he planned on forcing the dwarf through a shower upon exiting, so that he would be extinguished.

The problem was that the dwarf never managed to get water as it kept vaporizing, and he therefore kept trying.

Doing something like this on a glacier must be awesome I thing. Should go like a laser drill straight down.

[Eitaro]

I don't think items actually affect their surrounding temperature, though. Critters do, but not items. I remember having an adventurer find a lump of fire (cut from a random demon) in a pool, picking it up, and having all the fat in her hand melt.

I was reading a little bit on a magma pump stack, and that a standard, small pump stack will lag quite a bit due to the constant temperature recalculation. There was a solution to have each level be a 3x1 area that held magma, so that most of the temperatures did not have to be recalculated every time that the pump stack pushed up some magma.
I bring this up to ask - would constructing nethercap walls and floors wherever magma is to be carried prevent temperature recalculation, or will the nethercap walls obtain the 10075 U that magma gives to adjacent walls?