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[TheAvish]

I've got a river that freezes over every winter, so I was able to put in 2 sets of floodgates (marked by the red squares). I want to branch the river off a little so that I can have a nice little spot for my dwarves to fish at inside, as well as a safe not fun freshwater source for a longer siege.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to go about it. The last time I tried something like this, I messed up and flooded my fort. Any help would be much appreciated!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, if it matters, the river flows from right to left.

[Starver]

If you tap directly off the side, water that flows will try to stay at the level of the river, and if there's a direct connection into the dug areas of the fort in your screenshot then they're going to be flooded as easy as anything (unless you have a drain of some kind).

Try a diagonal link, to reduce pressure.  Won't be useful at the level of the river, but if you let it fall 1Z (below the screenshotted slice) and then pass through a diagonal, you should be able to get the bit beyond it to be 'level' at the Z-level below the river, giving you a slice-height walking area with a fishable pool in the middle.

Whatever you do, consider making sure you install a floodgate in the spot the river is tapped anyway, so that you can shut things off in case they don't work like you (or I) expect them to.  And set your fishing pond behind another door (or temporary wall) so that when you do open the tapping-floodgate (onto the newly defrosted river) you can observe any mistakes you make without catastrophic problems.

And then there's the option of making a drain into the caverns, before you start flooding.  But if you've got caverns, you might just want to set up fishing in the caverns instead.

I've no idea if any of this makes any sense, but thought I'd say it anyway.  Someone can point out the flaws in my text, I'm sure.

[TheAvish]

If you tap directly off the side, water that flows will try to stay at the level of the river, and if there's a direct connection into the dug areas of the fort in your screenshot then they're going to be flooded as easy as anything (unless you have a drain of some kind).

Try a diagonal link, to reduce pressure.  Won't be useful at the level of the river, but if you let it fall 1Z (below the screenshotted slice) and then pass through a diagonal, you should be able to get the bit beyond it to be 'level' at the Z-level below the river, giving you a slice-height walking area with a fishable pool in the middle.

Whatever you do, consider making sure you install a floodgate in the spot the river is tapped anyway, so that you can shut things off in case they don't work like you (or I) expect them to.  And set your fishing pond behind another door (or temporary wall) so that when you do open the tapping-floodgate (onto the newly defrosted river) you can observe any mistakes you make without catastrophic problems.

And then there's the option of making a drain into the caverns, before you start flooding.  But if you've got caverns, you might just want to set up fishing in the caverns instead.

I've no idea if any of this makes any sense, but thought I'd say it anyway.  Someone can point out the flaws in my text, I'm sure.

So (I think) what you're saying is drop it down 1Z, then move it diagonally on that -1Z, then back up to the original Z level?

[Starver]

I think you get what I mean, and it's what I'd try, given the setup you have.

How about a cross-section diagram..?:


____       _____________________Surface___
####~River~X #########_   _D__Underground__
############______________#################
###########################################
           ^   ^       ^   ^-safety door
           |   |        `-pool with upper-level walkway
           |    `-diagonal somewhere in this area
            `-fill floodgate


When the fill floodgate is opened (and river melted), I'd expect:

____       _____________________Surface___
####~River~~~#########_   _D__Underground__
############~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#################
###########################################


At worst, you'd get:


____       _____________________Surface___
####~River~~~#########~~~~~D__Underground__
############~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#################
###########################################

...then just keep that door locked and closed, close the floodgate again (permanently) and try again from another tap-point[1], learning from whatever mistake you've made/I've made you make.



[1] Or, if you can wait for re-freezing, mine out the ice in the river, open the floodgate to let some water out (to freeze as it exits), and keep on attacking the ice-plug (in a safe way, there being several different ways of doing this), and eventually there's a good chance that you'll reduce the internal water levels to just be in that sump, then close the floodgate and you might be able to use that fishing pool after all!

[TheAvish]

I think you get what I mean, and it's what I'd try, given the setup you have.

How about a cross-section diagram..?:


____       _____________________Surface___
####~River~X #########_   _D__Underground__
############______________#################
###########################################
           ^   ^       ^   ^-safety door
           |   |        `-pool with upper-level walkway
           |    `-diagonal somewhere in this area
            `-fill floodgate


When the fill floodgate is opened (and river melted), I'd expect:

____       _____________________Surface___
####~River~~~#########_   _D__Underground__
############~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#################
###########################################


At worst, you'd get:


____       _____________________Surface___
####~River~~~#########~~~~~D__Underground__
############~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#################
###########################################

...then just keep that door locked and closed, close the floodgate again (permanently) and try again from another tap-point[1], learning from whatever mistake you've made/I've made you make.



[1] Or, if you can wait for re-freezing, mine out the ice in the river, open the floodgate to let some water out (to freeze as it exits), and keep on attacking the ice-plug (in a safe way, there being several different ways of doing this), and eventually there's a good chance that you'll reduce the internal water levels to just be in that sump, then close the floodgate and you might be able to use that fishing pool after all!

Many thanks! I'm currently waiting for the river to drain out right now, and then I'll give this a shot.

[urmane]

I've done this a couple of times now, so I'm not an expert, but here's what I've learned:
- What those guys said
- Search this site, there's a lot of good info
- Floodgate just after the river tap, so you can turn the whole thing off.
- Consider another floodgate in a dead-end branch corridor just after that - you can then dig from the other side in future for, say, water wheels or misty waterfalls
- Don't forget to hook up levers to all the floodgates before you turn any of them on
- Make a cistern (I make mine several Z deep), and put floor grates above to fish through
- Consider putting wells next to the grates for water
- Designate zones at the wells / grates, and if you need to keep your beards inside, use the (o)rder menu to tell them to only fish / water at designated zones (I am not convinced this actually works)
- Minimize the amount of space / distance you create for the actual water, both horizontally and vertically - I've dug tunnels 100 tiles or more to get waterfalls in my dining room, plus similar to drain, and it kills your FPS
- Draining into caverns is fun ... until you actually want to use them ...
- It looks like you're in soil - be aware that trees block water ...

[TheAvish]

It worked! Thanks so much! Now I have a new problem. I set an activity zone over the area, but it won't allow me to set it as a fishing zone... it's showing 0 squares available for fishing. (At least that's what I thought the numbers meant). Any ideas? What did I do wrong?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Quietust]

You cannot divert a river for fishing purposes - when a dwarf goes fishing, it looks up whatever map feature is associated with that tile and draws from its population info (so rivers give you river fish and cavern lakes give you cave fish), but if it does not belong to any map feature it assumes it to be a murky pool and gives you stuff like turtles (unless you've fished them to extinction, in which case you get nothing and the tile ceases to show up as "available for fishing").

[TheAvish]

You cannot divert a river for fishing purposes - when a dwarf goes fishing, it looks up whatever map feature is associated with that tile and draws from its population info (so rivers give you river fish and cavern lakes give you cave fish), but if it does not belong to any map feature it assumes it to be a murky pool and gives you stuff like turtles (unless you've fished them to extinction, in which case you get nothing and the tile ceases to show up as "available for fishing").

So there's no way to fish safely during a seige?

[Quietust]

So there's no way to fish safely during a seige?

Sure there is - build a protective structure around the river, preferably extending down into the water as well (to keep out swimmers). If your river freezes during the winter, this obviously makes it a lot easier.

[TheAvish]

Does water flow through fortifications? Will they be enough to keep out swimming beasts but stil allow fish, turtles, etc through?

(Sorry for all the questions I promise I know about the wiki, I just find this to be a little easier.)

[Sutremaine]

Vermin teleport around randomly, appearing wherever there's a biome that supports them. It's only things that you can q or v over that need physical access to move somewhere, and you can't fish for those.

Fortifications are bugged and allow creatures to travel freely through them when the water is at 7/7. Block off your fishing area with some walls, and redirect the river around it if you'd rather keep the downstream flow.