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[Tarqiup Inua]

Hi! I have recently found a new fort as I always wanted to try one near the ocean.

My question is - is there any easy (or at least easier) way to build underwater? I want my fortress to have few of those cliched glass domes with fish swimming overhead (genetically modified monsters running around are optional). Can it be done without damming the whole ocean? Has anyone done this before and has experience with this?

Lastly - if I make a vampire my miner, will he go mining underwater?

[Garath]

Don't know about the vampire, but I'd say no. They're "keeping the appearance of being normal" and going for a stroll on the ocean floor would definately spoil that. Abyway, I can see no way to make this work without damming the whole thing during construction. Maybe if you modded dwarfs to be half fish (great swimmers, breathe underwater) it might work, though it might say the water is in the way too

[smakemupagus]

I don't think you can build in the ocean, even if your guys could survive there somehow.  Maybe, build the domes in a dry area, and then let the ocean in?

[SpiralDimentia]

Wait wait wait, you can DAM the ocean? How the hell?

[Maw]

Wait wait wait, you can DAM the ocean? How the hell?

With enough power and pumps...

[laularukyrumo]

Yeah, you definitely have to dam the ocean at least temporarily, unless you dig out the area beneath, build everything, and then let the water in. Even if the dwarves wouldn't drown, they refuse to build anything in a tile with at least 2/7 water. Which gets annoying FAST if you're, say, breaching an aquifer. Annoying isn't unbearable though, thank god.

And yes, you can dam the ocean. Through several methods. It has to do with the fact that water flowing from offscreen is abstracted in the way that fluids technically are "destroyed" and "created" under certain conditions. Tiles at the edges of the map are deemed "water source" tiles, that infinitely spawn water at a certain rate. Since the water also usually flows offscreen at a rate similar to this, it all balances out. This is also why aquifers spawn infinite water and can absorb infinite water at the same time--the water is assumed to be flowing in from offscreen, but since the game doesn't yet track fluids (or really much of anything) offsite, it takes the route of generating/destroying. Additionally, water will only ever be generated up to a certain height, unless it is pressurized--and the word "pressure" has an extremely narrow and specific meaning within DF, so you likely won't experience too much uncontrolled flooding unless you either do it on purpose or really screw things up.

There are several ways to dam the ocean by exploiting these physics: draining the water into the caverns, draining the water into an aquifer, or pumping the water out of the ocean and onto land faster than it can flow back onscreen and walling it off. (The latter method works because DF screw pumps are CRAZY, and can pump water out of a tile near instantaneously, teleporting the entire tile's liquid contents from the intake to the output tile on a cyclical timer, set to a speed that lets you beat the flow of a water source.)

[Tarqiup Inua]

That is interesting! Anyone has a setup? Simplified setup with pumps? And how about magma? You can solve everything with magma, right? (I can hear baby dwarves asking this question to their daddy)

And the lignite artifact thrown into the sea? I heard stories of that draining the ocean as well, is that true?

[Tarqiup Inua]

I sounds like draining the water into caverns is the easiest method...

Is pathfinding of dwarves with swimming anyhow different?

What exactly did you mean by

Additionally, water will only ever be generated up to a certain height

- can someone explain to me how exactly does pressure and water generation work in oceans? Does water appear only on the top of the ocean?

[slothen]

I would make liberal use of DF hack to create obsidian tiles (and delete them when done).  One way to do it legit would be to drop magma from above, creating a drip-castle on the ocean floor that you would hollow-out from beneath/inside.  But if you want windows you would still need to drain everything at some point.  You can get water into the fortress through diagonal bend, and keep the tile dry even with pumps, but no nice observation decks or anything would work out.

[vanatteveldt]

I guess the easiest way is to find an embark with a decent landmass next to the ocean, channel a chunk of land to the depth of the ocean floor, build everything there, and then channel away the 'dam' between the channeled area and the ocean proper.

See this thread for Sphalerite's ☼aquatic endeavours☼, well worth the read! http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=75780.0

[joeclark77]

I think you could maybe very carefully cast a dome out of obsidian (with the "mold" being made of constructed walls/floors) and then drop the whole thing via cave-in.  The obsidian dome might keep its shape (not sure about this) but the constructed parts will definitely deconstruct.  If it doesn't work with a dome, it might work with a half-sphere, and then you just dig out the inside from below.

Another alternative to pumping the ocean out  might be to drain the ocean, and this can also be done via cave-in.  You would dig a drain on the level below the ocean floor (so only a floor, no solid tiles, separates it from the water) and then drop a cast-obsidian plug through that floor into the level below, thus opening the drain.  I have not yet conducted the science to know how big the drain needs to be to empty the ocean sufficiently for construction.

[Keldane]

Under the ocean, dig a wide tunnel to the edge of the map in a stone layer, then smooth and carve fortifications into the edge.
Build a raising bridge on a lever in the tunnel so you can close it off.
Next, pick a spot for a shaft, and on each level up to the ocean floor, dig out the area of the shaft, leaving just a floor.
Wall off the shaft access points.
Build a constructed floor out over the ocean ending in a large section the exact size and shape of the shaft positioned directly over the shaft. Make the large section supported only by a support linked to a lever.
Retreat to shore and pull the lever.

The resulting cave in will punch through the floors in the shaft, ending at the bottom where it leads to the edge of the map (as long as you didn't dig the layer directly underneath that). Water will rush in from above and flow off the map ad an incredibly rapid rate - faster than it can flow onto the map, in fact. It will cause incredible amounts of lag, but eventually, most of your ocean will be drained and you'll just have a bit flowing in from the edges, making it possible to build on the ocean floor. When done, raise the bridge and endure the lag as the ocean refills.

[jez9999]

Just thinking aloud here, but what about building a floor out along the ocean surface to where you want the main structure to be.  The, build the structure walls/floor/roof on top of the floor - an above-the-ocean "drydock".  Make sure there is a column support at the bottom of the structure to make it the correct height above the ocean floor that you want.  Then, have a mechanism to cut away the floor support.  The structure will fall into the ocean and you can go inside it and start building out from there.  Once you have attached this structure to land by building an underwater floor, you can destroy the column support propping it up against the ocean floor.

But yeah, an under-the-sea fish obervatory with glass walls connected to your fortress.  That would be a seriously awesome megaproject if you could pull it off. 

[jez9999]

(accidental dupe post)

[slothen]

Just thinking aloud here, but what about building a floor out along the ocean surface to where you want the main structure to be.  The, build the structure walls/floor/roof on top of the floor - an above-the-ocean "drydock".  Make sure there is a column support at the bottom of the structure to make it the correct height above the ocean floor that you want.  Then, have a mechanism to cut away the floor support.  The structure will fall into the ocean and you can go inside it and start building out from there.  Once you have attached this structure to land by building an underwater floor, you can destroy the column support propping it up against the ocean floor.

But yeah, an under-the-sea fish obervatory with glass walls connected to your fortress.  That would be a seriously awesome megaproject if you could pull it off. 

constructions turn to blocks/stone when dropped, only natural/obsidian walls survive.  However, each wall-tile acts like a vertical column, so if you dropped a 10x10x10 cube of obsidian on something, the top of the resulting 10x10 square would would be a projection of the contours of the bottom.  So you'd have to shape the bottom of the thing you drop to fit the landing zone to avoid distortions.